Indians have worked hard in recent years to cultivate their country's image as a thrusting young Asian superpower on the up and up. But the aspiration to be more millionaire than slumdog appears badly served by an ossified political system that is offering the same old choices, and same old excuses, in five-stage national elections beginning next month.

In the (soft) left corner stands the venerable ruling Congress party. Its candidate for prime minister is the mild-mannered Manmohan Singh, 76, the present incumbent, who underwent heart bypass surgery in January. In the (hard) right corner stands the veteran campaigner, LK Advani, 81, the candidate of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) that lost in 2004.
Keen not to be mistaken for the senior citizens' party, Congress is giving a leading campaign role to Rahul Gandhi, 38, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family that has run the party since independence in 1947. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, is party chairwoman. But the dynastic emphasis underscores how little some things change.
For his part, Advani, whose political career began in 1942 when he joined the Hindu nationalist volunteers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in pre-partition Karachi, has been busy painting a self-portrait of undiminished vigour and modernity. This includes threatening talk on Pakistan and a freshly-developed passion for blogging.
As usual, neither main party is expected to win a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. One reason, cited by analysts, is that little distinguishes the two in policy terms. Congress continues to advocate social relief and empowerment programs that allegedly have been undermined by mismanagement and corruption.
The BJP is in theory pushing a pro-market economic reform agenda and takes a tough line on terrorism. But both have their hands tied to a significant degree by their dependence on coalition partners. “Congress and the BJP
[are] weaker than they've ever been,” said Seema Desai of the Eurasia Group in a recent Wall Street Journal interview. “They don't have a clear message. They don't have a clear platform.”
Conventional political wisdom suggests this shared debility will translate into electoral advances for regional parties and an enhanced role for state power-brokers such as Kumari Mayawati, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the former film star J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, and Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat and a noted BJP tub-thumper.
Also in prospect is a more influential role for a “Third Front” alliance of smaller parties, including the Communists, peddling myriad local and caste policy issues. If this group holds the balance of power when the ballots of India's 714 million voters are counted on 16 May, a familiar, lengthy period of haggling is in store that may set at nought the most solemn of campaign promises.
This fragmentation or “communalization” of national politics might be acceptable in normal times. After all, democracy is notoriously messy. But two main factors suggest these are not normal times for India.
One factor is that the “made-in-the west” recession that Indians hoped would pass them by is beginning to hit home – and the disillusionment is all the greater for the raised expectations that preceded it. India, it now appears, is not the unstoppable new Jagannatha (juggernaut) its boosters proclaimed it to be.
Economic growth is expected to expand by about 7% in 2009, the slowest pace in six years. The fiscal deficit is sharply up while agricultural and manufacturing output are falling. Exports were down 16% in January. Unemployment may reach 10 million by the end of the month. The 80% of Indians who live on $2 a day are facing an even tougher struggle to survive.
The second abnormal election factor is the deteriorating security situation in and around India's borders. Recent months have brought a murderous denouement to Sri Lanka's civil war, continuing separatist agitation and repression in Indian-ruled Kashmir, an army mutiny in Bangladesh, turmoil in Nepal, heightened tension in Chinese-controlled Tibet, and a sharp escalation in the U.S.-NATO confrontation with the Afghan Taliban.
But senior Indian diplomats suggest the biggest worry of all is growing instability in Pakistan, amid speculation about a military coup and the prospect of another Mumbai-style terrorist attack. If it happened close to or during the polls, such an attack could trigger the Indo-Pakistan military hostilities that were narrowly avoided in November. It could set the subcontinent ablaze. And presumably the extremists know it.
(Source: The Guardian