Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will remain, with an overwhelming mandate to continue his reforms of the economy. It is likely that India’s insurance, retail and banking sectors will be opened to greater foreign investment. Communist lawmakers had blocked such reforms, but lost more than half their seats in the latest elections.

Arvind Panagariya, a specialist on India’s politics and economy at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the main issues of the election and what the U.S. and Pakistan can expect from Singh during his second term in office.

For further analysis, read Worldfocus contributor Luv Puri’s assessment of how the results will impact India’s foreign relations: Election results set course for India’s future.

Voters in line during India’s elections.

In India, the results of national elections are in, and they give the Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi a landslide victory. There were widespread celebrations after the results were announced.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will remain, with an overwhelming mandate to continue his reforms of the economy. It is likely that India’s insurance, retail and banking sectors will be opened to greater foreign investment. Communist lawmakers had blocked such reforms, but lost more than half their seats in the latest elections. 

Luv Puri is a journalist who has reported on the Jammu and Kashmir conflict from both sides of the Line of Control for The Hindu newspaper.

The Indian electorate voted for stability and governance for the next five years, as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance braved the anti-incumbency factor to win elections in the world’s largest democracy and the second most populous country.

The verdict, which took the pollsters by surprise, is being portrayed as a vote for good governance by the Congress-led federal government of the last five years, and also a rejection of caste, regional and religion-based parties. The Congress party made a political comeback in the belt, which it lost in the 1990s to regional parties and to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress party’s archrival.

Indians await an era of stability, as the coalition will not depend on the whims and fancies of smaller parties and take a larger national perspective on the policy formulation.

The result restored the electorate’s faith in the Nehru-Gandhi clan, the first political family of the country. Rahul Gandhi — the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru — proved his political mettle by revitalizing the party in India’s populous Uttar Pradesh, the heartbeat of Indian politics. His no-sense attitude and grassroots campaign in rural India clearly paid rich dividends.

The gains of the Congress-led alliance were at the expense of the Left, which suffered major reverses in parts of eastern and southern India, where for years it had electoral influence. The Left suffered a historic defeat in West Bengal, a state it dominated for the last three decades.

The foreign policy implications of the verdict are enormous. The two challenges the world faces are anti-Americanism and Islamophobia, and the Indian electorate voted against both. Under Manmohan Singh, the government inked a nuclear deal with the U.S. and significant progress was made on Indo-U.S. relations, which had languished over the past six decades.

The Left and the opposition criticized the Congress party for its pro-America tilt, which they claimed sacrificed the national interest. It seems that the electorate didn’t buy the anti-American rhetoric of the Cold War era. 

Cambridge-educated Manmohan Singh, who is set to be sworn in as prime minister yet again, is the architect of the new economic policy in India in 1991, when he was finance minister. His policies, based on sound economic rationale, could not muster the requisite support from the Indian Parliament in the last five years, due to dependence on the Left and other parties for support.

Singh’s victory is significant in a time of global economic meltdown. His policies get the credit for keeping the impact of recessionary trends on the Indian economy to a minimum, with a tight regulatory mechanism.

The reforms in various sectors like banking and infrastructure, which were help up by the opposition, are now going to pick up pace. At the same time, the Congress party is going blend its economic reforms with welfare politics. Singh describes reforms with a human face, so that India’s poor is not left behind in the race for economic development.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was one of the first foreign heads of state who congratulated the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his party’s resounding victory. With a stable government, there may be progress in reviving the shelved peace process with India’s turbulent neighbour, Pakistan. The relations between the two countries nose-dived after the last year’s Mumbai terror attacks, orchestrated by Pakistan-based terrorists.

Pakistan’s fight against the Taliban will decide the fate of South Asia and the larger issues related to world peace. Pakistan urgently needs some kind of agreement with India on reduction of troops along the India-Pakistan border, so that Pakistan can dispense troops from the eastern to the western front.

Whether the new Indian government will oblige the Pakistan government will be Singh’s decision. 

- Luv Puri

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Al Jazeera English under a Creative Commons license.

India is scheduled to hold elections on April 16.

India, the world’s largest democracy, is scheduled to begin its multi-stage parliamentary elections on April 16. Neither of the country’s two major parties, the Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are expected to gain a majority, meaning India is likely headed for another coalition government.

Mahima Kaul is a freelance reporter based in Delhi who has written for The Indian Express. She explains how India’s political landscape has changed over the past several decades, as political support has fragmented and smaller parties have become more influential.

Election fever has peaked here in India. You cannot escape it — even local pastry shops are baking goodies in the form of party symbols. This is typical of the fanfare and celebrations that engulf the country as political parties, their numbers increasing every day, chase the Indian voter.

But to understand the real significance of how India votes, one needs turn back the clock a little. India’s particular brand of democracy has gone through many changes over the past 60 years. It is a parliamentary system, much like the British, and every five years national elections are held and the party with the most seats forms the government.

Simple enough. And it was, when the Congress party was the single largest party in the country. But in the 1970s, the political landscape of the country started to change. Smaller political players began to move to the center stage, and by the 1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in particular had grown in stature. Regional players began to flex their electoral muscles. This led to the system of government India has today — grand coalitions forming the government, with either the Congress party or the BJP leading it.

Over the years, the Congress party has steadily been losing ground in individual states, with regionalism trumping national concerns. Small state parties can hold the national government ransom because of the need for coalitions.

Political scientists have tried to decipher the mind of the Indian voter over the years. Overwhelmingly, votes are cast on the basis of identity; along religious or caste lines. That is why many members of parliament — and even chief ministers — have been voted back to power despite their obvious corruption and non-performance. Indian elections must be viewed through this prism.

This brings us to 2009. It is an enormous task to explain the internal dynamics of Indian politics because the number of players keep increasing by the day.

Some basics: The Congress leads the UPA  (United Progressive Alliance) government, backed by smaller players that once included the Left (Indian communists). When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a nuclear deal with President Bush, the Left objected very strongly, and ultimately withdrew support from the government. This led to a “trust vote” in parliament where the UPA had to prove its majority.

What happened then was shocking and revealed the underbelly of Indian politics. The Congress-led government, allegedly, began to buy votes. BJP members brought, on live television, suitcases filled with wads of cash as “proof” that the Congress party had tried to buy support. The nation was disgusted with the blatant display of corruption.

Not much later, the terror attacks in Mumbai revealed that while Indian politicians had been horse-trading and making money, the real work of a government — for instance, securing the borders — had been woefully neglected. Anger against the entire political establishment only grew, because successive governments — be they Congress or BJP-led — have not taken these concerns seriously.

With polling beginning in only a few days, it is widely believed in the country that no party, including the Congress, will get a majority. Another coalition will be formed after the numbers are crunched. Opportunistic alliances will be made. Some of the larger regional players have also formed the Third Front; a credible threat to the UPA and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Bookies all over the country seem to think that the present government, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will continue. However, if that happens, the Congress will undoubtedly need the support of smaller parties to prove a majority in the house.

The refreshing electoral trend this time is that a number of urban professionals have decided to contest key metropolitan seats as independents, signaling that perhaps urban India is done voting for morally bankrupt political parties. Right now, democracy is a numbers game. Parties with no common ideology will come together to form a coalition if it means sharing power at the center. Then comes governance.

The hope young India has for itself is that it can change the country’s priorities by greater participation. Let us see how it votes.

- Mahima Kaul

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user hunger artist under a Creative Commons license.