Abstract

India's Radical Vote

The Indian people have delivered a stunning electoral blow to the right-wing National Democratic Alliance, led by the Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party, and paved the way for a multiparty rainbow coalition under the Congress Party. The early election, called by a supremely confident NDA, has produced a tectonic political shift, signifying a change in the balance of forces in favor of the plebeian majority--and against India's tiny, rapacious elite comprising a tenth of the population. It heralds a healthy change in domestic policies and a progressive global role for India. To understand the verdict's significance, it's best to look at three dissimilar states--Andhra Pradesh, noted for the computer-savvy Chandrababu Naidu and investments by Microsoft; Gujarat, where 2,000 Muslims were butchered in 2002 in a state-sponsored pogrom under chief minister Narendra Modi; and Uttar Pradesh, where Hindu fanatics razed a sixteenth-century mosque in 1992. India under the new government is likely to be less servile to the United States and to stress nonalignment and a multipolar world order.