EDITORIAL
India's 'stunning' vote alters the landscape
"Stunning" and "shocking" are the words most used to describe the upset victory of India's Congress party over the ruling parliamentary coalition led by the Hindu nationalist party, BJP, forcing Atal Bihari Vajpayee, prime minister since 1998, to resign.
Confident that voters would reward his economic liberalization program, which has contributed to 8 percent growth, and his steps toward improved relations with Pakistan, Vajpayee ordered early elections.
The move backfired as the several hundred million landless peasants who live on less than $1 a day punished the ruling coalition for the paucity of their share of recent prosperity. Although the numbers of desperately poor have been reduced under Vajpayee, farmers were unwilling to credit last year's unusually bountiful monsoon to any politician.
Soon after taking office, Vajpayee defied the world by detonating five nuclear bombs. Pakistan followed suit, and soon the two were at the brink of catastrophe. Since then, Vajpayee has made substantial progress in defusing that crisis, while greatly improving relations with the United States.
India now will be governed by a coalition dominated by the Congress party, the political vehicle of the Gandhi family, which is now led by Sonia, the Italian-born widow of the assassinated former prime minister Rajiv, who himself was the son of the assassinated former prime minister Indira.
Sonia Gandhi has not yet indicated whether she wants the nation's top job.
The Indian stock market plunged following the elections, as capitalists fretted about the participation of the nation's communist parties in the Congress coalition. But Vajpayee's economic reforms seem too entrenched to be rolled back.
While Gandhi pledges to continue detente with Pakistan and to reduce what at times has been serious sectarian violence, U.S. relations are likely to deteriorate somewhat.
The return of the Congress party may signal some political instability and may itself be short-lived. But it demonstrates the unshakable viability of the world's largest democracy.
