India's Gandhi Sweeps Hindu Nationalists from Power

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Gandhi dynasty swept back to power on Thursday on a stunning wave of anger among millions of rural poor, who felt left behind by the country's economic boom and voted out the Hindu nationalist government.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee conceded defeat and would resign later in the day, Defense Minister George Fernandes told reporters after the opposition Congress party and its allies swept the polls in the world's largest democracy.

"We have decided to sit in the opposition," he said.

Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi and her children, Rahul and Priyanka, the new faces of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, could take power by next week.

"A... secular coalition led by Congress should take the oath in the next few days," party spokeswoman Ambika Soni said. However, a Congress coalition is likely to have to depend on the support of leftist parties, who registered their best performance yet.

Analysts said that the new government was likely to continue the reforms crucial for Asia's third-largest economy, but that they might have to be redesigned to ensure benefits percolated down to the poor and were not restricted to the urban upper classes.

Cont'd >>

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5130830

<Semi-off tangent rant follows>

I had one neighbor who was from India and it was a year from hell. I carpooled her children, and albeit, they were highly intelligent, but that's where the accolades stop. Anyway, the mother was extremely self-absorbed, very ambitious and very bossy. The carpool was her idea and she sold it on the concept that she would do most of the driving. Within a month, she had taken a job and I was doing most of the driving AND watching her children when she didn't get back from work on time. It was the year my health gradually began to decline. There was never any talk of compensation for the extra work I was doing for someone that was virtually unknown the year before.

Then India had a major earthquake that year and had a monumental loss of life. All I heard for the next month from my Indian neighbor was how self-absorbed Americans are that they can't sense any one else's plight.

We moved out soon after.

...which says quite a bit more than I can say for us.

...for the first time, electronic voting machines were used all over the country...

And the results are definitely surprising. Vajpayee (the incumbent) was a shoo in - considering the good economy and relative peace between India and Pakistan. Sonia was considered a "foreigner" (being Italian by birth) by many.

I think the poor voted Congress back to power. Even though the economy is registering 8-10% growth for the last couple of years, the poor have not seen much improvement in their lives.

During the last boom we had.

"I don't know about the US and the systems they use, but in India we use
sealed voting machines connected to a registration counter that is tamper
proof. The reason: the data chip cannot be altered or replaced. Also,
ballot stuffing cannot be done after the voting is over.

The EVMs used here are "Made in India". Only problem is voters can't
change their minds once they cast their vote. For if the button is
pressed once, you can't do it again. Multiple pressing won't register
extra votes. Some people are asking for another slot which says none of
the above as many would like to register their protest against the
candidates of various parties.

All EVMs are checked by an independent body and a trial run is always
made to make sure the EVMS are functioning before voting begins.

I know the EVMs used in US is different from the ones in India.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first parliamentary poll where voting in
India is completely through EVMs. initially they tried EVMs in state
elections and town counsellor elections..."
------

If any one knows more about their electronic voting system, please post. It freaks me out the polls were so far off , just like Georgia in '02. But it sounds like their system is more secure than ours.

she would be friendless and pathetic here in india too. and i hope she gets what she deserves.

may i ask where and is there talk of elections a lot ?

i'm in bangalore working for an (cough) american outsourced firm. regarding elections, if you thought america's electorate is pathetic, you should come take a look at the urban yuppies and bimbos out here. they seem to care more about what movie's on tv tonight than the outcome of the elections that can make or break this nation... sigh!

my family is actually from there. most of them live in america, europe, or some other country though. and they never talk about politics or other problems in the country. for them it's all about the movies, music and other pop culture type things when discussing things related to the country. and most of them have sattelites to get the indian channels and what is shown on there must be totally foreign to most people in india. all the glamour and show biz crap. i watch that and i think based on news i read i can't believe that is india. even when they visit india it's mostly for fun and shopping. almost no care for the poverty. they talk about the poor who beg for money as if it's just another tourist attraction.

popular culture gone to shit; naive, thoughtlessly ambitious youth whose sole purpose in life would seem to be to have a good time and scale the social ladder and emulate some bastard perception of the American; bad, bad, bad, bad movies; unmitigated poverty; on the other hand, he favored the BJP because they promised to review some of the land reforms passed in '70s that impoverished his family

the'third-world america,' is what i call urban india....

is it a slum, or is it a strip mall? oh well, who knows? :shrug:

your description of indian yuppies sounds just like ours!

working in India?

All the people from India I've met are very intelligent, funny, compassionate people.

Not to mention that you haven't truly lived until you've sat in on a proper Hyderabadi feast (beginning at 1 a.m. - natch!).

they'll set you straight re: that whole "intelligent, funny, compassionate" thing. especially that last part. they'll eat your lunch, and then they'll eat YOU

*

i never turn down a chance to trash my ratty relatives! :hi:

those brown-skin people are...some white people believe that brown-skin people can self-govern and they must be self absorbed to be able to govern....When my grandfather came to this country, 1930's, he was arrested because he was a brown-skin from Puerto Rico, and the word was out..those brown-skin Puerto Ricans all carry switch-blades and kill white people...By-the-way my abuelo was a school teacher.

There are 8 million self-absorbed, can self-govern brown-skin human beings in prison in the good-old USA.

She does, indeed, sound self-absorbed. And you let her use you like a doormat. "There was never any talk of compensation".... Are you unable to speak?

I've known quite a few people from the Indian subcontinent. Some really excellent folks & others--well, not so excellent. Just like people. You know, human beings.

"a closed mouth don't get fed"...others will use you as long as you let them. it wouldn't have taken me long to set her straight!

*

culture is different. My upbringing was one of always providing assistance where help was needed. But then, others in my culture would have had the same upbringing, so they would never abuse the kindness they received. To this day I don't feel comfortable asking for monetary compensation, because it's against my upbringing.

As for one experience, let's make it two. The doctor, that year, who prescribed the horse-pill anti-biotic that nearly killed me, was from India. It wasn't just the wrong prescription, but also his condescending insistence that I should remain on the drug even when I told him I was feeling excruciating pain. So let's make it two experiences.

I don't deny that the Indians I've met are intelligent, but, there are subtle ways that they interact with people which violate my comfort zone.

this was their lowest election turnout ever, and STILL 55% of people turned out to vote

...is more than 60%. In some states, it can be more than 70%.

I think Indians are becoming more like the rest of the western world...disillusioned with their leaders. They dont think voting will bring any change in their lives...sigh...

so damn, that's still freaking huge. What's the typical US turnout? like 50%?

best news I've seen in sometime

From the BBC Online
Dated Thursday May 13 12:22 GMT (5:22 am PDT)

India government slumps to defeat

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is to resign as his governing BJP party faces defeat in India's general election.
More than half the results are out and the main opposition Congress party is well ahead of the BJP-led governing alliance which has admitted defeat.
Mr Vajpayee called the poll six months early - but all the signs are that the move has backfired.
Nearly 380 million people voted in elections held over three weeks.

It looks like Mrs. Gandhi will put together a center/left coalition to govern India.

Read more.

there are a lot of commonalities between BJP and Bush regime: Right wing extremism wrapped as nationalism, playing on hatred and fear, actually stoking conflicts.

On the other hand, Congress is quite good at that kind of thing too. BUt overall this is a good sign.

...they are very similar to the Republicans.

If there's another skirmish with Pakistan, Sonia better handle it right.

which sort of mirrors America's worries about JFK. but at least Kennedy was a natural born citizen.

considering even the hindu gandhis were killed imagine how some of the fanatics would view a catholic. but then again wasn't indias defense minister a catholic under the right wing bjp ? i guess they don't mind as long as he goes along with their crap.

the problem's not necessarily that he was catholic . . . also, he was perhaps viewed as more trustworthy, less of a subversive, being assoc. w/ the conservative BJP. but sonia gandhi isn't even natural born AND she's Congress, so, yeah, she's in a bit of a pickle. she must be purty brave, that's all i can say.

Are you referring to George Fernandes, the former Defense Minister?

He's Goan, as are most of the folks you will see on the Indian national political stage with "Iberian" sounding names. It's a legacy of Goa's status as former Portugeuse territory.

As bad as it sounds I'm sure you could make some money somewhere in the world's gambling parlors laying some money on how long it will be before she is assasinated or there is an attempt on her life. The history of her family would suggest that there's no other way out of being PM with that last name.

you gotta be fucking kidding me! I mean, the US, or EU, or WTO, or NATO or something... but the fucking Vatican? LOL!

though you couldn't tell from the shit movies :-(

It's odd that they allow a foreign-born person to be PM.

...was an election issue. The ruling BJP tried to paint her as a "foreigner" and a "Christian".

Apparently the masses in India saw the real Sonia...

which is fine with me but really odd in a place like India. Her mother in law was the famous Indira Gandhi.

Her Congress party is supposed to be progressive and the BJP is supposed to be conservative with a touch of religious bigotry and lots of nationalism.

This election was a huge surprise but I can understand how the the rural and poor feel left out from the new economy. India's economy is kicking ass but its mostly the wealthy who are getting wealthier and of course lily-white foreigners are making a killing from outsourcing. Hmmm....I hope they fix the currency exchange rate soon.

...Just about everyone in India is 100% Caucasian (using the most common categorization of humans beings into 3 somewhat arbitrary 'races').

:shrug:

like whites would ever say that a brown person is caucasian :eyes:

Not that there's anything wrong with being white, I just think its odd that Indians can elect a PM of a different race and religion and Americans are all about white male christians.

...can we imagine a woman from another religion (non Christian), and race (non-white) being elected in USA?

Anyone who is not a white christian male won't even make it to the nomination of a major party. The first to break that will be a woman, then maybe a minority. I think we'll have Christians for a long, long time and most will be Protestant. People got worked up over Kerry and Kennedy being Catholic!

i think it's because she is italian so still kind of "ethnic" looking and of course the dark hair. if people didn't know of her italian background and saw her in india they would just think she was one another indian person. india is pretty diverse when it comes to skin color . i have relatives with many different skin colors. also some indians who are light skinned can end up having a kid who is darker than both parents . and dark skinned parents can have kids who are very much lighter skinned than them. some even have more than one kid and the kids have different skin colors even though the kids have the same parents.

BJP are reactionaries of the worst sort! Congress has weaknesses, but if they are allied with the left in a coalition, perhaps better policies will be implemented.

Most important is for China and India and Pakistan to come to a real accord, recognizing that there are greater threats in the world they must confront together.

per electronic voting machines: they aren't inherently bad, you know. the problem is the way they're being pushed here: no accountability, and Diebold, a decidedly *partisan* party, cornering the market on them.

then -- power to the people -- right on!

It seems that the neocons are being thrown out of every government on the face of the earth, come election time.

O8)I hope the U.S. is as fortunate! May it happen in the Oval Office, the Congress, and the Courts! O8)

:kick::kick:

they're out-and-out conservative, aligned w/ big business, subtly pro-caste, and attempting to appeal to a hindu majority that doesn't know nostalgia from demagoguery. it's nice to see an efficient, effective democracy not render the people totally emotionally-vulnerable dopes (coughUSAcough)

May all the gods and goddesses bless India richly!

I can't wait to add England and the USA, to the list of countries with upset elections this year.

I think this is just the beginning of a world wide anti-incumbency movement.

Throw the bums out. Every last one of them.

http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=NATION&file_name=nt1%2Etxt&counter_img=1

Sonia scripted Cong victory

Sanjay K Jha/ New Delhi

It almost looked like a cry in the wilderness. A woman haunted by her foreign origin, condemned as a greenhorn in politics and dismissed as a "no challenge" to the invincible Atal Bihari Vajpayee, evoked pity more than hope in political circles.

But she didn't give up. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who could now well be the Prime Minister of the country, carried on her struggle, connecting directly with the masses instead of trying to derive some legitimacy for herself through media management and drawing-room scheming. Ms Gandhi is, without any doubt, the sole author of the Congress victory which has come as a surprise to even the key party strategists...

Those Shivsena fuckwits in the NDA no longer have a voice in government.

I'm surprised Nazis like Shivsena are so popular in Mumbai, where 10 - 15% of the population is gay.

in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1216623,00.html