Indian Election: The Lessons Nigerians Should Learn

[Muhsin]

As Nigerians, we don't have to go to a far place like India to learn anything in politics, for two reasons. First, we get a model to learn from right below our noses. I am talking about Niger Republic, yes, our poor, neighbour Niger. In their last general election of 2011, not a single soul was lost as a result of violence, and everything went on efficiently until the end. Second, India is, independence-wise, older, and, democracy-wise, much older than Nigeria. While our democratic government had been interrupted by several military coups after our independence on 1st October, 1960, theirs is never halted since 1947, when the country got independence from the same British colonial brutes that ruled us. But being here, I can't help but to appreciate and commend their comportment and confederacy during and after the just concluded general elections.

India is famously the world's biggest democracy with nearly a billion eligible voters, though the turnout was 60-70% as in the Western democracies. Due to its staggering number of voters, the election was conducted in seven phases, in six weeks. The voting public of each state go to the poll during these weeks. It's finally over now, and the result was announced on Friday, 16th of May, 2014. The leading opposition, pan-Hindu party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won with a landslide margin. The party's highly controversial leader and a staunch Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi became the country's prime minister (designated, to be sworn-in on May, 26). His election has broken the decades rule by the secular, dynasty-run Indian National Congress party.

Below are a few of the numerous lessons worth learning for my country (as well as other countries) and its people.

The Candidates
They are three, just three. The first and the foremost is Narendra Modi under BJP. The 63-year-old Modi was the Chief Minister (more or less like a Governor of a state in Nigeria) of Gujarat state for twelve years. The state witnessed an unprecedented anti-Muslim riot in 2002, a few weeks after Modi's election that ended with not less than 2000 casualties, mostly the Muslims minority. He's since been criticised for not doing anything to protect their lives and marginalising them afterwards. Beside this, http://www.muhsin.in/2014/05/18-indian-election-lessons-nigerians.html