There may be much to despair about India, from its broken state to endemic corruption, but after chasing its raucous election campaigns for more than two decades, author Ruchir Sharma came away with deep optimism, that democracy works in India.
India became a democracy when it was still very poor, and perhaps more than the rich, the poor cherish the vote as a great leveller, their memo to the powerful reminding them who calls the shots.
In Democracy on the Road, Ruchir Sharma talks about all that makes India the country that it is.
- Small-town India in the 1980s was not as much politically incorrect as pre-politically correct, where otherwise decent people didn’t hesitate to discriminate based on class, race or religion.
- Many Indians even today place great value on the light skin colour that society associates with upper class and caste.
- Indian leaders with the best intentions struggle to deliver, because the Indian state is simply not up to the task of delivering competent services to more than a billion people speaking in more than thirty official languages (and hundreds more unofficial tongues) across twenty-nine states, which are in effect much like separate countries.
- The whole of India is passionate about politics, but no state more intensely than UP. Since Independence, two out of three Indian prime ministers have run from constituencies in UP, drawn by its size and centrality in the national conversation.
- For most of its independent history, Indian political parties had been led by Brahmins, who as a 5 per cent minority needed to appeal to other castes and communities to win elections.
- Two-thirds of the people in Indian prisons are not convicted, merely waiting for a trial. There is no concept of bail as a fundamental right, so while technically you are supposed to get bail within fourteen days, if you don’t have the money there you sit.
- The fact that India does not provide public funding for elections not only forces candidates to turn their campaigns into a private business, it also puts pressure on them to keep raising funds once in office.
- When Indian political parties win a national election they tend to keep winning at all levels for the next six months, as their energized supporters charge into campaigning, and the demoralized losers roll over and regroup.
- Indian political campaigns and eras are often defined by three-word slogans with a catchy Hindi rhythm.