Election time

We got a notice last week that our local hires would be able to take off half of a day in order to ensure that they had an opportunity to vote in the elections that would elect the new parliament members. This brief email made me start to think about what I had been seeing (and hearing) around town (and in other cities) recently. How do you campaign with a population that only has a literacy rate of 74% overall? Well if the advertisements that can be seen all over are any indication you do it with a combination of things. Signs that not only include pictures of the people running, but a symbol for the party that I assume are included on the ballot. I've seen an elephant, a diya, a lotus flower, a broom, and a bicycle for sure. Also plenty of cars have been driving around blaring loudspeakers, presumably encouraging individuals to vote for their candidate. Whatever the case there was a lot of excitement on election day. Delhi votes earlier than other areas of the country, and there was a feeling of hope that if the current leading party didn't win outright there then things might actually change across the country (many people have complained of how corrupt the current dominate party is - I really don't know much at all about Indian politics). What I do know is that people were proudly showing me the brown stripe on their finger which was proof that they had gone and voted (and make sure that a person is not able to vote more than once by going to a different voting site). It was nice to see people excited about elections and feeling strongly about casting a vote that they believed was a chance to make a difference.

For those of you more interested, Times of India is updating a blog regularly as results come in today.