This coming Thursday, April 17, 2014, elections for the Indian Union Government will be held in Pune, and so thousands will votes. This election year has created quite a buzz in India and abroad. Narenda Modi, one of the prime minister candidates, has been the center of much of the commotion. As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, the candidate of what is considered by some to be a right wing Hindu nationalist party, and what is the second biggest party next to the Indian National Congress Party (INC), Modi has gotten a lot of media attention. Many Indians, especially many youth see Modi and the BJP as the change they and India has been looking for.
The Indian National Congress has been in power for over ten years, and many Indians struggle with issues like child malnutrition, lack of safe drinking water, unemployment, and corruption, which is not INC's doing, but inherent to Indian politics. The BJP has been campaigning on a platform of change, one of the biggest parts of that change being Modi's Gujarat Model of Growth. As the chief minister of Gujarat Modi has facilitated infrastructural growth in Gujarat, but some critics are weary that an economic model that works for one state of India will work for the entire country, given the huge differences in the dynamics of each of the states.
With promises of jobs, industry, better roads, electricity, drinking water, "empowered" women and citizens, regardless of caste or creed, Modi has won the liking of many Indian youth, to which he has campaigned strongly. Yet, when I talk to college age, middle class Indians who say they will vote for Modi, they, like Modi's campaigners, overlook, if not outright disregard, the Gujarati riots of 2002, during which Modi did nothing to stop communal violence and mass murder and rape between the Muslimi and Hindu communities of the stage.
So, with the elections coming up, and with Modi's and the BJP's success looking good- though one can never really say- we all wonder, who will win, and what will it mean for India?
For those interested, take a peek at Modi's, I mean the BJP's offical website: http://www.bjp.org/
The Indian National Congress has been in power for over ten years, and many Indians struggle with issues like child malnutrition, lack of safe drinking water, unemployment, and corruption, which is not INC's doing, but inherent to Indian politics. The BJP has been campaigning on a platform of change, one of the biggest parts of that change being Modi's Gujarat Model of Growth. As the chief minister of Gujarat Modi has facilitated infrastructural growth in Gujarat, but some critics are weary that an economic model that works for one state of India will work for the entire country, given the huge differences in the dynamics of each of the states.
With promises of jobs, industry, better roads, electricity, drinking water, "empowered" women and citizens, regardless of caste or creed, Modi has won the liking of many Indian youth, to which he has campaigned strongly. Yet, when I talk to college age, middle class Indians who say they will vote for Modi, they, like Modi's campaigners, overlook, if not outright disregard, the Gujarati riots of 2002, during which Modi did nothing to stop communal violence and mass murder and rape between the Muslimi and Hindu communities of the stage.
So, with the elections coming up, and with Modi's and the BJP's success looking good- though one can never really say- we all wonder, who will win, and what will it mean for India?
For those interested, take a peek at Modi's, I mean the BJP's offical website: http://www.bjp.org/
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