By Haroon Siddiqui
Something profound just happened in the world's largest democracy, India. To grasp its significance, think about what religious and ethnic divisions have done to that neighbourhood, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the ripples of which we have been feeling in Canada.
Now cheer this: Hindu revivalism, a scary combination of religious fanaticism and narrow nationalism that has dominated India for two decades, has been dealt a death blow at the ballot box.
The headline is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress Party yesterday won a decisive victory – guaranteeing a stable government for five years; steady economic growth; and closer strategic and economic relations with the U.S. and, tangentially, Canada.
But the real news is that India's 714 million electorate turned its back on the Hindu-centric Bharatiya Janata Party.
That's the outfit that in opposition and in government instigated or presided over several anti-Muslim and anti-Christian killings.
Voters have rejected such politics, and given the Congress-led coalition about 260 seats out of 543 and the BJP-led parties only 160, while also rejecting caste-based parties.
Even more heartening is the fact that the movement to reclaim India's secular heart and soul was led by progressive Hindus, both in the political arena and in India's strong civil society.
They worked with the victims of BJP's bloody sectarianism.
They did more than the mainstream media – through a steady stream of books, blogs, citizens' reports and documentaries – to expose the BJP and its web of militant grassroots organizations.
They rejected the BJP's militant brand of Hinduism and reasserted the tolerant multiple interpretations of the polytheistic faith.
They also helped puncture two persistent BJP myths: that Christianity is an alien faith to India when, in fact, it has been around since the arrival of Thomas (the "doubting Thomas" of the New Testament); and that Muslim rulers razed temples (which they did but also built and patronized them and other Hindu institutions).
The BJP defeat should spell the end of its hardline leader, L.K. Advani, 81.
It also casts a cloud on his assumed successor, Narendar Modi, chief minister of the western state of Gujarat. Dubbed "the merchant of death" for presiding over a 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom, Modi has been barred entry to the U.S. and may, some day, want to come to Canada to raise his profile.
Indian voters have also rejected most of the regional parties led by petty demagogues trying to exploit old divisions of caste and creed.
Even in the state of Tamil Nadu (home to tens of thousands of Tamils from neighbouring Sri Lanka), Congress and its allies did well. This despite the fact that the public there is sympathetic to the Sri Lankan Tamil cause but New Delhi is not, given India's problems with its own secessionists in Kashmir and the northeast.
This election has reversed the regionalist trend of the past 20 years. In giving Congress its largest margin of victory since 1989, voters have opted for its national vision.
Among those suffering a setback are the four Communist parties and their coalition comrades. They had opposed Prime Minister Singh's close ties with the U.S., including an agreement on transfer of civilian nuclear technology.
Canada hopes to cash in on that bonanza (swallowing Ottawa's longstanding opposition to dealing with nations, like India, which won't sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty).
Canada has been pursuing ties with India on other fronts. Our education sector – University of Toronto and York, in particular – has been active in forging partnerships with Indian institutions.
Singh, a former World Bank economist and the architect of free market reforms, has mega-plans for India's under-developed infrastructure.
That'd open up opportunities for Canada, especially in the energy and transportation sectors.
India's economy, not immune to worldwide trends, is still forecast to grow by 5 per cent this year. With the mid-course correction carried out by the voters, India marches on as an emerging economic and political superpower.
I had put forth a hypothesis post 26/11, that the beneficiaries of Mumbai attacks were elements caught between the pincer of the US and the Pakistani armies in the north-west region of Pakistan.
