Masses script India's election verdict

By givig an anti-NDA verdict, rural India has shown the wisdom that the much trumpeted educated and business elites could not muster.

The much-ridiculed illiterates and uneducated masses that still predominate in India's vast rural countryside have shown the wisdom, intelligence, and integrity that the much trumpeted educated and business elites of India could not muster. They have voted the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, out of power. At least for the moment, if only a faltering moment, India is the world's exemplary democracy.

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Less than three months ago, when the BJP announced that general elections would be held in late April and May, its electoral triumph was taken for granted. In assembly elections held across several states in December 2003, the BJP trounced the Congress.

Last month, the Indian cricket team returned from a month-long tour to Pakistan after registering spectacular triumphs in both one-day and test cricket, and though the BJP wisely took no explicit credit for this achievement, it surely hoped to have benefited by this success.

Many observers are inclined to describe cricketing relations as a reliable barometer of political relations between India and Pakistan. Former prime minister Vajpayee had often declared that he sought peace between the two nations as the enduring legacy of his tenure in office.