India elections

[WMS]

That part of the BJP you refer to were just hoping for the US to drop support of Pakistan.

India is no ally of the US, never has been. It's never been an ally of the Soviets either. (Funnily, I've encountered that opinions quite a few times coming from the US, though never from anywhere else.)
I remember reading a text by -was it Nehru?- from about 1947 on the question of Socialism and Capitalism, as economic concepts rather than as power blocs, and he basically said India needed every rope and would try both at the same time. Which is pretty much what they did.

Well, America tried to be nice to both sides after their independence, but India had a snit and so Pakistan reaped the benefits for decades...but given recent years I can see why the BJP thought they had a shot (and a good one at that after 9/11!).

First part, true enough - we almost made up enough in the past few years, but not quite. As for the U.S. viewpoint: even a highly pro-India source like P.M. Rosenthal (who, several years back, wrote a column for the New York Times) said that Nehru's first Foreign Minister (or the appropriate position) was highly anti-U.S., which influenced India's policies. Remember, the Congress Party opposed helping the Allies in WWII (something they should bear as a mark of shame, but don't), and I doubt that was forgotten on either side. Nehru's "nonalignment" movement was really the "anti-Western" movement...I mean, Communist China and Communist Cuba as members? Get real! And borderline-Communist and pro-Soviet Indonesia (under Sukarno, not Suharto) was also a member.

In any event, the "nonaligned" movement was rather anti-U.S. and anti-Western, even after China stabbed Nehru in the back in 1959. This lasted until Indira arrived, and things got more hostile after the 1967 India-Pakistani War, when India decided to sign a de facto alliance with the Soviet Union (to counterbalance China's support of Pakistan, in part, but also due to ideological affinity) and became even more hostile toward the U.S. Then after the bloodbath of the 1971 Civil War-War of Independence-3rd India-Pakistan War, things remained very cool well into the 1990's. Now, although Nixon did some dumb things in 1971 (yeah, that aircraft carrier he sent into the Bay of Bengal really impressed the Indians ), the viewpoint goes beyond that. How often, Lewis, has India ever backed the U.S., especially during the Cold War? Who did they side with in their voting patterns? Somehow I doubt it was with the U.S.

And while Nehru didn't go communist (I think you need capital to nationalize to do that) he certainly created the huge, sprawling, parasitic bureaucracy that is such a drain on India - and this is coming from someone who is not a laissez-faire capitalist! He didn't do much to encourage capitalism...no one did, until the 1990's, but you covered that in other posts.

[minionofmidas]

That part of the BJP you refer to were just hoping for the US to drop support of Pakistan.

India is no ally of the US, never has been. It's never been an ally of the Soviets either. (Funnily, I've encountered that opinions quite a few times coming from the US, though never from anywhere else.)
I remember reading a text by -was it Nehru?- from about 1947 on the question of Socialism and Capitalism, as economic concepts rather than as power blocs, and he basically said India needed every rope and would try both at the same time. Which is pretty much what they did.

Well, America tried to be nice to both sides after their independence, but India had a snit and so Pakistan reaped the benefits for decades...but given recent years I can see why the BJP thought they had a shot (and a good one at that after 9/11!).

Let's just say events in the late 40's just played out that way - I don't think anybody planned it. Still, it means the US has been propping up a military dictatorship against the "world's largest dictatorship" for most of the last 55 years...and one that's also been taking help - at the same time - from Communist China. Nothing is as simple as it seems...

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That may well be true. I don't know, but it sounds entirely credible.

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They were in favour at first, but by 1942 they had stopped caring about Hitler and were agitating for immediate independence, causing the Brits a lot of trouble that they really could have done without. Some nutcases led by one important pre-war leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, actually allied with and fought for Japan. Bose (who died mysteriously in the final stages of the war) is still an Indian national hero. So are the veterans of his "Indian National Army", must of them POWs taken in Malaya who signed up mostly for the better food. That the British gave them a series of high-profile High Treason trials in 45 & 46 may have helped in building that aura, but I think everybody outside India can agree there's nothing to be proud about for India in this chapter.

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Then again, Indonesia was a democracy under Sukarno...and Indonesians had every reason to be sore at anyone allied to the Netherlands...but yeah, of course it was Anti-Western. It was about organizing the Third World into a power bloc of its own. That is anti-Western.

Leaving out a bit here...

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At least he didn't make the Russian mistake of of forcing the peasants into vast collectives.

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Indian bureaucracy grew under Nehru and his successors, of course, but there's nothing new about it. The British stamp on Indian bureaucracy is still very very obvious - you sometimes get the feelign that, in rural districts at least, officials still believe they're in a poor, hostile, occupied country on a different continent - but even the Brits just built on a pre-existing system. Not that that really excuses anyone, as traditions can be broken.

[minionofmidas]

BREAKING NEWS
Sonia Gandhi apparently not to take over as PM
Manmohan Singh tipped off as most likely replacement

[minionofmidas]

The Karnataka assembly is hung
BJP 79
INC 64 (and leading in the last missing one)
JD (S) 58
JD (U) 5
CPM, KCVP, KNP, RPI one each
Independents 13

JD (S) and INC are trying to cobble up a coalition government, with the CM slot going to JD (S)'s K Siddaramaiah and not to the party's leader, former PM H D Deve Gowda.

[WMS]

[chop]

Let's just say events in the late 40's just played out that way - I don't think anybody planned it. Still, it means the US has been propping up a military dictatorship against the "world's largest dictatorship" for most of the last 55 years...and one that's also been taking help - at the same time - from Communist China. Nothing is as simple as it seems...

Pakistan varied between somewhat-democratic parliamentary governments and military regimes its entire existence...so it was only a dictatorship some of the time... And I believe you meant "the world's largest democracy", right? In any event South Asia has always floated in a world of its own...

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Thus, it probably happened...the ardent pro-India sympathies of Rosenthal lead me to favor it as happening.

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I quite agree...sad, really, that India considers fighting on the side of Imperial Japan and against the Allies to be a good thing...

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Actually, it really wasn't a democracy - as soon as he could Sukarno turned it into a "Presidential Regime" where he ran everything. I took a class on the region in graduate school, so I do know what I'm talking about here. And Sukarno's forces were ALSO pro-Japanese during WWII, so we weren't very inclined to support them. And the nonaligned movement was anti-Western specifically, as they went out of their way NOT to oppose the Communist bloc...hardly 'nonaligned'! Knee-jerk anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, pretty much what I've come to expect out of the Third World Left...

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There wouldn't be any Indian peasants left if he'd done that...

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Like congealed syrup...one layer atop another, endlessly adding to itself...

[M]

The Karnataka assembly is hung
BJP 79
INC 64 (and leading in the last missing one)
JD (S) 58
JD (U) 5
CPM, KCVP, KNP, RPI one each
Independents 13

JD (S) and INC are trying to cobble up a coalition government, with the CM slot going to JD (S)'s K Siddaramaiah and not to the party's leader, former PM H D Deve Gowda.

Forgive my ignorance, but would this a coalition without the Marxists? If so, that sounds pretty good.

[opebo]

BREAKING NEWS
Sonia Gandhi apparently not to take over as PM
Manmohan Singh tipped off as most likely replacement

Great news!  I like Singh.

[minionofmidas]

The Karnataka assembly is hung
BJP 79
INC 64 (and leading in the last missing one)
JD (S) 58
JD (U) 5
CPM, KCVP, KNP, RPI one each
Independents 13

JD (S) and INC are trying to cobble up a coalition government, with the CM slot going to JD (S)'s K Siddaramaiah and not to the party's leader, former PM H D Deve Gowda.

Forgive my ignorance, but would this a coalition without the Marxists? If so, that sounds pretty good.

Janata Dal are sometimes referred to as Socialists, I don't know exactly on what basis, the pedigree is a bit murky...I don't know if they can be call Marxists, but they are quite critical of economic reforms leaving the peasantry on the shelf. Their party sign is a woman gathering corn. So, I guess not so good from your perspective.

[Ben.]

Reading about Singh in the Economist he seems like the kind of guy who should be able to sort things out in India… feeling more optimistic now, I was worried about a Congress Party Government reliant on the Communists and forced to abandon Economic liberalisation. It would seem now that the moderate leadership of the BJP will either be forced to cave in to the radicals on the party’s right or simply be replaced… the BJP could be entering an extremist phase I fear and on the basis of these results the Congress Party lead government may not have a strong enough presence in parliament to face a militant, extremist BJP down.  

As I said Singh looks like he has the makings of a good PM, if he can just get the kind of legislation passed that he will need to, the oil companies need privatising as does the airline and the banks and most importantly he needs to do away with the ridicules waste of money that are the massive subsidies paid by the government so that funds can quickly be found to help eliminate the deficit and provide the basis for improving the infrastructure of the country as a whole.

The most important thing is that if the BJP slides into extremism as well it may and the left prevents Singh from acting radically then India could be faced with a choice between Neo-Communism on the one hand and Neo-fascism on the other and this is why Singh must succeed for the sake of India and the region.      

[minionofmidas]

No PM has ever survived a full term in India who was not a Brahmin. Manmohan is a Sikh...and he's considered a nice old man without enemies, trying to hold a big coalition together...I doubt he'll stay in office more than two years. Happy to be proved wrong!