India's election won't be decided on old lines

April 15, 2014 13:17

Last week, India embarked on what has repeatedly been hailed as the biggest electoral exercise in history.

But the bigger grinding noise seemed to come from hundreds of electoral pundits as they cranked up the machinery of received ideas.

India's future, these portentous commentators declared, would be decided by the winner of the three-way clash between Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal.

Or the older battle between secularism and Hindu nationalism. Or the one between free-market capitalism and socialism.

Read Pankaj Mishra's piece

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