Changing people’s voting behavior requires changing what they know, changing what they are aware of, changing their understanding. What they need to understand is that India is poor not by an act of God but because of poor economic policies which have been followed for the most part, since independence. What we see in India today is “British Raj 2.0.”
The British left, and all we changed was the colour of the skin of our rulers. The same policies, the same institutions which were there to extract and exploit, and divide and rule, are still very much intact. For the most part, what we have in India, is not a democracy but a kakistocracy. A kakistocracy is rule by the least principled and the most corrupt.
That is the unfortunate reality of our country. For change, people in India need to demand good governance. Only then are we going to get a supply of good governance. So the fundamental question really about the “HOW” is changing people’s minds and changing people’s votes. And in this context, the next elections which will be held in India- probably in 2014 or may be a little earlier – are a pivotal moment in our history.
The last few years we have been buffeted by scams of incredible magnitude. But there are some people doing very good work in India. We will come back to that.
