The children of Jawaharlal Nehru

The closest polls (or should I say "the machine") are located in the public school district. The police have to limit traffic barriers and facilitate access to voters who come groomed and well clothes, must elect their representative to the conurbation of New Delhi, an electorate the size of Holland and Chile. This should not be happening: in area ity, elections were held for weeks and the results met a few days ago, the third shutout in a row-for the Congress Party.

But in my neighborhood, Rajinder Nagar, elections were suspended until today because the candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (radical Hindu is) committed suicide during the campaign. know and what the winning party's vote does not deter many voters, who keep waiting patiently to receive an entry permit from the police.

Delhi Elections are only a prelude to the general, scheduled for spring, but its operation is strictly the same as what is to come: upon arrival, the voter must be identified and sign a statement which contains your name and picture . Is given a pink form and an official sprinkles him a nail with indelible ink. Is the way to prevent people from voting more than once.

And solved the previous procedures, the voter up to a corner, where it picks its choice a "machine" with a modest conveniently camouflaged cardboard concave to ensure the secrecy of the vote. The EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) are one of the most striking phenomena of elections in India. The voter must press a button only. And a beep confirms that the choice is made.

A few meters from the EVM, an officer has a control terminal that ensures transparency and correctness of the process. Check the machine is prohibited, but the official school taught me the template under the EVM: fig ura candidate's name next to the symbol of his party, very useful for the illiterate. At right, a blue button and a brand of light will come on when pressed.

"Quick View", you agree to the final. After the board gives me time to see an EVM of the size of a laptop. The machine is also easy to guess who can not read. This is just the click of a preferred party: the hand, the Congress Party, the lotus, the BJP, the elephant, the Bahujan Samadi castibajos the Party. So up to a dozen symbols.

With EVM, the Indian Election Commission, imagine saving time count 670 million ballots, and money: about $ 40 million, according to official estimates, no longer spent on printing, transportation, storage or security.

The first idea of having electronic machines comes from the late 70's. Although its development took about two decades, today the Electoral Commission boasts a technology that works in areas without electricity (support cells), causes no errors and is fast, maneuverable and easy to transport. The vote remains secret and in addition, the machines are reusable.

Provides solutions in order to streamline the procedures in the "world's largest democracy." This idea-democratic gigantism tends to cause more pride than concern to Indian scribes, aware of the great figures: 670 million voters, over 600,000 people, more than one million machines that meet the Indians with their biggest party . Unfortunately, however, do not EVM to improve or representation of India's population, as subject to deprivation, and the democratic quality of everyday life. They are just machines.

For decades, Indians have been fixed to the procedures of a bureaucracy virtually omnipotent, and that is why the proverbial relinquish many of its mandarins have had devastating effects not only to solve troubles in a civil or access to ration cards. Also to certify the unbridgeable distance between the centers of decision and citizens.

To put it in the words of Professor Amartya Sen, which uses the old school of "Nyaya": the legitimacy of India's democracy should not be only in the ritual of going to the polls every so often. We must also affect the ability of legislators to reach practical social progress, beyond the rules and organizations.

Sixty years after independence, the balance is still poor.

"The weakened institutions, writes the historian Ramachandra Guha - mean that India's democracy can be described as a partial success. India is largely democratic when it comes to holding elections and to allow freedom of movement and expression. But mostly it is not if we consider the operation of political institutions. "

"Could you invent a software to make our democracy work?" I asked an elderly co-chairman of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani at the launch of his book "Imagining India". The joncho dryly said "No".

There, yes, local chiefs, unionism, a cult of leadership, an absence of effective control of power. In many cases, political office or run a finger or inherited within the family, starting with the self-Gand hi Nehru dynasty. But we must not do blood system. If you look past decades and if you look at the turbulent zone countries will have to agree that the great triumph of democracy in India has been its strength.

And the debate really should not be much emphasis on its shortcomings, which are in sight, such as whether the political system is getting its share of profit of the economic reforms of the 90 or, conversely, if the Indians are still airing the old, twisted and administrative practices and uncontrolled parallel circuit in which they manage their politicians.

Not far from Rajinder Nagar preserves the mansion that was the residence of Jawaharlal Nehru during his years delhíes, and during his successive terms as prime minister. Today the building houses a museum and a planetarium attached to attending schoolchildren on excursions organized, something that would appeal to Nehru, who professed a legendary worship by children.

While in the West-and especially in the Hispanic world is the "Mahatma" Gandhi who monopolizes the symbolic brightness of the peaceful struggle for Indian freedom in the case of democracy the country has rather the plot to Jawaharlal Nehru and handful of Democrats to the British who were with him at the dawn of independence.

In hindsight, it is easy to conclude that Nehru was right in its commitment to democracy: that a country as diverse, plural and incomprehensible as India could not succeed unless democracy making the room for the pooling of interests. His was a secular democracy, principlism, incorporating elements of Fabian socialism and the British parliamentary government in a theoretical non-alignment in international affairs.

In retrospect, I say, his way seemed sensible. But at that time, preaching was not so simple: the idea was challenged by Nehru Gandhi, who preferred a semi-mythical rural councils. On the left, the Communists defended their dictatorship of the proletariat (forgot that in India there was no proletariat), and right, shouting religious radicals who sought to make Hinduism the touchstone of the state.

The museum houses several relics Nehru precious for those who want to approach: the firm that made ​​foreign ministry, his deathbed austere, high ceilings Indira's room, hundreds of iconic photographs of the struggle for independence. There are carpeted rooms with fireplace, meeting centers constants, references to Gandhi on walls and shelves.

And above all, the firm which was "working late" according to the plate. A large table with an icon of Buddha - say atheist Nehru and several inkwells, three old phones. Armchairs, sofas. Portraits of his daughter Indira Gandhi, the "Mahatma" by Abraham Lincoln. On one shelf rests a globe. There are hundreds of books on shelves and other outside: the very European Sartre, Gunnar Myrdal. Only one is on the table, all of a manual of good "gentleman": the Oxford Dictionary of English, concise version.

The British Nehru finally get their way. Although his successors rewrote his script with varying degrees of success, the Indian spacecraft continues in its work. Of the four legacies nehrudianos, democracy, secularism, socialism and neutrality, the first is the strength that keeps most symbolically and actually, for obvious resulting deficiencies. As the population continues to grow, every time that India holds general elections, the process becomes the largest democratic exercise ever conducted on earth.

And now, to take part, just press a button. Or wait for the accident: while the people still vote in Rajinder Nagar, someone knocks on the door. "Have you voted and all the people of this house?" Says a middle-aged woman. "If you did not vote, join me, I'll go with you, if desired. And we can talk on the way, "he adds.

I must say that everyone has (have) voted. "There will be voted for the elephant, I hope," goodbye. And for this "invitation to vote" no EVM machine to save us. Curious democracy.

Share

Thematic area:

1. The Gandhi voted in the fourth round of Indian elections electoral
2. Met, between devotion and resentment, 25 years after the assassination of Indira Gandhi