India during election times is like no other place in the world. The whole look of a city changes.
Banners are hung across every street. Posters are hung on every inch of space. Loudspeakers blare
campaign slogans constantly, even though new laws were passed that say that the loudspeakers must be
lowered to a certain decibel and must be turned off at 10 pm. Every party holds huge rallies for their
supporters and often distributes food or blankets to everyone who attends.
Things have improved a lot in the last 10 years. The key to the change has been awareness. Everybody
is very interested in the news, and they discuss political issues (and movie stars) constantly. When
people are illiterate, often one person who can read will read the newspaper out loud to a group and then
they discuss the issues. Every newspaper, even in rural areas, contains a lot of news about the rest of the
world, not just local news. The most important factor that helps awareness, of course, is the television. In
our state, Tamil Nadu, for example, the government ordered that every village must have at least one
television. People in these rural villages can watch programs in their own regional languages. Political
parties know how important television is, and most have created their own cable TV stations.
Even though local politicians and their supporters can sound very extreme, India has many systems
in place to make sure that the most powerful leaders are more moderate. This helps to bring people together
because no group feels shut out even though their party may not be in power. For example, the
members of the Upper House of Parliament are not politicians at all! Instead, they are writers, doctors,
engineers, poets – respected people in society – who are nominated by the parties, not elected by the
people. The President of India is the Speaker of the Upper House. Although he does not have much
power, compared to the Prime Minister, he is the Commander in Chief of the military
The most difficult aspect of democracy in India is the caste system. The caste system is a ranking of
traditional, hereditary levels in society that have determined a person's occupation and role in Hindu society
for thousands of years. At the lowest level are the Untouchables, who are generally the poorest people and
hold the dirtiest jobs, making them "untouchable" to others. Even though it's illegal now in India to discriminate
according to caste, family background is still very important in India, especially in the rural areas.
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