>
>
> Until someone (Sujeet?) from India wakes up to offer more detailed
> analyses, I will venture some thoughts: I am somewhat surprised by how big a
> win the Congress achieved. The accepted post-mortem is that the BJP erred on
> pushing hard on their security/hindutva agenda, some of the response to the
> Bombay terrorism, the anti-Muslim statements by Varun Gandhi (no real
> relation to Mahatma Gandhi), the prominence of Narendra Modi (the
> architect/leader of government of/during the pogrom in Gujarat) etc. At the
> same time, Congress has (or seems to have) come to own the rural unrest
> issue, both because the rural neglect and IT coddling flowered under the BJP
> and the Congress has initiated various measures (such as cancellation of
> farmer debt) since they regained power.
>
> As I wrote, there are some parallels between the BJP and the GOP both of
> which built their base using fear and religion, with a dollop of free market
> individualism, and they are hitting the same ceilings: the yuppie urban
> younger crowd probably finds the BJP icky, and the rural discontent cannot
> be overcome via religious false issues in a country lacking any safety net.
> There are parallels as well between the Dems (culminating in the Obama
> phenomenon), where the rise of the BJP and the death of the JP and its
> offshoots, provided a neat space for the Congress to take on the image of a
> kinder, gentler, secular neo-liberal party.
>
> All IMHO,
>
> --ravi
How decent a parallel is Singh's religion to Obama's race? I know next to nothing of the cultural dynamics involved.