A COUNTRY BADLY IN NEED OF A POLL TAX:

In Huge Upset, Gandhi's Party Wins Election in India (AMY WALDMAN, 5/13/04, NY Times)

The B.J.P. had constructed an American-style presidential campaign around Mr. Vajpayee's perceived popularity, but it ran aground on the realities of the Indian parliamentary system, in which voters turned on incumbent legislators who they felt had delivered little. Indian voters are known for their anti-incumbency, and that was in evidence today.

But even more, voters — particularly, but not exclusively, in rural areas — rebelled against the idea of "India Shining" that had been pedaled by the incumbent government in a glossy, costly public relations campaign.

The resentment of the B.J.P. and its efforts to pedal the "feel-good factor" was almost palpable today among a small knot of working-class men gathered to watch the results on a news ticker in New Delhi. Many expressed dismay, common among Indians nostalgic for the quasi-socialist economy of India's first 40 years, at the economic reforms with which the B.J.P. had proudly identified itself.

"Basically it is the anger of the working class," said Sawali Rai, 34, who works in a public sector bank. "Privatization, no government jobs, prices rising. On the pressure of the World Bank they are pressuring the common man."

And unlike in the United States, where the most prosperous also vote the most, in India it is the poor who turn out in greatest numbers. That meant that the very voters for whom India has been shining — urbanites from the middle and upper classes who benefited from globalization and reforms — are also least likely to vote.

The B.J.P. also seemed to suffer from its association with the Hindu nationalism that had powered its rise. Muslims, still repelled by the anti-Muslim carnage in the B.J.P.-controlled state of Gujarat in 2002, resisted the party's efforts to woo them, as did many Indians concerned about the weakening of the country's secular identity. Congress and its allies had united around a secular platform.

At the same time, hard-core Hindu nationalists have been disillusioned by the party's tempering of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness, in its time in power and in this campaign. Ram Madhav, a spokesman for the Association of National Volunteers, the parent Hindu nationalist organization, said today that the B.J.P. had campaigned on Mr. Vajpayee's personality and policy, he said, but ideology — "an emotive issue" — was missing.

The rejection of Hindu nationalism is healthy, but a turn away from economic liberalization would be disastrous.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2004 10:08 AM