The ruling Congress party-led alliance has won state polls in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh and is set to form the government in Haryana.

Elections were held in the three states this month in polls seen as a major test for the Congress coalition after a strong victory in general elections in May.

The state poll results come at a time when a resurgent Congress, fresh from a victory at the centre, has begun to find footing as the single largest party.

However, analysts debating the outcome reflect more on the decline of the right-wing Hindu ideologue and a fractured opposition than a clear victory for the Congress.

The BJP has been struggling for some time to find an identity that would directly translate into votes. The BJP-Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra failed to take advantage of the anti-incumbency factor.

Political pundits say it’s another example of the party’s failure to introspect post the Lok Sabha election.

Time alone will tell whether the ‘Marathi pride’ poll plank of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will help it strengthen as a mainstream party.

For now, the Congress-NCP coalition is set to come back on a promise of reforms and loan waivers for farmers.

Ashok Chavan is credited in his short time as chief minister with bringing back the party to power despite serious setbacks like the Mumbai attacks and a spate of farmer suicides plaguing the state.

In Haryana, the Congress fell short of the halfway mark, winning only 40 of 90 seats.

The results in the northern state have to some extent dampened celebrations for the Congress, which swept the polls in Arunachal Pradesh.

Poll experts say election results have put the Congress in a better place to implement reforms.

At the same time, this is also a clear call for the opposition to unite and find common ground in the months to come if they hope to stay in the running.

With so much noise around these days in the relationship between India and Pakistan it is hard to make out a clear trend.  Politicians and national media in both countries have reverted to trading accusations, whether it be about their nuclear arsenals, Pakistani action against Islamist militants blamed for last year's Mumbai attacks or alleged violations of a ceasefire on the Line of Control dividing Kashmir. Scan the headlines on a Google news search on India and Pakistan and you get the impression of a relationship fraught beyond repair.

Does that mean that attempts to find a way back into peace talks broken off after the Mumbai attacks are going nowhere? Not necessarily. In the past the background noise of angry rhetoric has usually obscured real progress behind the scenes, and this time around may be no exception.

MORE TALKS

The Hindu newspaper reported on Sept 1 that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may meet either the president or prime minister of Pakistan on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad in November. It said the Indian government was already working out what strategy to adopt to make any meeting meaningful, while also pushing Pakistan to take more action against Pakistan-based militant groups in order to prevent another Mumbai-style attack.

There is no confirmation of that Trinidad meeting, and nor is there likely to be for some time, but The Hindu in recent months has proved to be well informed about the prime minister's approach to Pakistan. Singh himself laid out his plans in a speech in parliament in July in which he promised a "step by step" approach to dialogue -- effectively meaning that India would talk to Pakistan while refusing for now to reopen a formal peace process broken off after the Mumbai attacks.

The two countries' foreign ministers are also expected to talk on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this month, although it is unclear whether this would be preceded by a meeting of foreign secretaries in line with an agreement reached in July that the top diplomats of India and Pakistan should meet "as often as necessary".  The Hindu said the foreign secretaries would meet in New York; more recent newspaper reports have called this into question.

DISMANTLING JAMMU AND KASHMIR?

In the meantime, both countries are edging forward in their approach to the two parts of Jammu and Kashmir which they control. (After their first war in 1947/48 the former princely state was divided into the regions of Ladakh, Kashmir and Jammu which are held by India, and the regions of Gilgit and Baltistan along with an area known as Azad Kashmir which are held by Pakistan.)

According to Praveen Swami, a Kashmir expert at The Hindu, the Indian government has been holding secret talks over the summer with the main political separatist alliance in Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, to try to agree an approach to bring peace to the region. "Perhaps most important," he said, "Pakistan is being asked to endorse the talks."

Over on its side of the border, the Pakistan government has decided to grant limited autonomy to Gilgit and Baltistan. It had previously run the region  directly from Islamabad, much to the irritation of local people who felt they had been deprived of their political rights to the kind of self-rule given to Pakistani provinces. 

To digress briefly into history, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was created in the 19th century by Hindu Dogra rulers expanding outwards from their base in Jammu and comprising people of different linguistic, ethnic and religious groups.  Were it not for the tremendous importance given to Jammu and Kashmir by both India and Pakistan - both of which claim the state in full - it might have broken up naturally years ago.

The people of Gilgit and Baltistan never felt much loyalty to the former maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir and have long complained that they have been held hostage to the Kashmir dispute (you hear the same complaints from Ladakhis on the Indian side.)

So do the parallel moves on both India and Pakistan suggest both countries are taking small steps towards an eventual dismantling of the former princely state which would allow a settlement of the long-running Kashmir dispute? Not quite - Pakistan has been careful to say it is not giving full provincial status to Gilgit and Baltistan. There are also historical grounds for treating the region differently from other parts of Jammu and Kashmir, which date back to partition and before.

Yet given that anything to do with Jammu and Kashmir is potentially explosive, reactions to the Pakistan government's move on Gilgit and Baltistan have so far been relatively muted. Dawn newspaper said that the decision stuck a balance between meeting the aspirations of its people for political rights and maintaining the region's status as disputed territory. The Daily Times said that the people of Gilgit and Baltistan had been held hostage to the Kashmir dispute for long enough and should eventually be incorporated as a full province of Pakistan. On the Indian side, I've seen criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party but nothing from the government.

A roadmap for peace sketched out by Singh and former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 effectively acknowledged the division of the state by accepting there would be no exchange of territory between the two countries - although both pledged to try to make borders irrelevant. That agreement was shelved when Musharraf's own political fortunes nosedived.  But are the governments of India and Pakistan nonetheless following some of the signposts in that roadmap despite all the angry rhetoric currently dominating their relationship? And if so, how far are they exchanging information about their plans?

WILD CARDS

Just in case the above looks too rosy a view on the prospects of progress in relations between India and Pakistan, it is probably worth remembering it can all go wrong, particularly if there is another major militant attack in India.

The other wild card comes from the transformation of the political landscape in India with the implosion of the opposition right-wing BJP initially triggered by the furore over a book on Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah by former senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh. So far the jury remains out on how the political drama will play out. Analysts variously predict a collapse of the right, or its opposite - a revival of the right as the BJP returns to its hardline anti-Pakistan Hindu nationalist roots in an attempt to reinvent itself after losing two consecutive general elections. Until the political landscape becomes clearer, India's Congress-led government is likely to tread cautiously.

(Reuters file photos: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Siachen; Singh with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia; Dal lake in Srinagar; Drass on the Line of Control; former Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh)

When it comes to climate change, the environment and other weighty issues, what could the leaders of the world's biggest democracy possibly learn from the rural Indians who cobble together rickety cars out of scrap metal and old bits of wood?

One of India's best known businessmen says the improvised vehicles that carry crops and passengers along dusty village roads show how local people are often the best innovators, coming up with cheap and effective answers to tough problems.

Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of the technology company Infosys, thinks politicians would do well to remember the decentralized philosophy behind the "jugaad". Mechanics with little money and poor access to cheap parts use whatever is at hand to build them: water pumps replace normal engines; wooden blocks stand in for brakes and old planks of wood provide the floor.

"This 'car' is a brilliant improvisation, nailed together from whatever parts rural mechanics can get their hands on," Nilekani writes in a new book about the future of the world's second most populous country, "Imagining India". "Effective, innovative policies will depend on harnessing this ability of people at the local level to take charge and innovate.

"Our environment and energy solutions will have to rope in our tribal and village communities to be truly effective. I believe such approaches are uniquely suited to India, with its untapped pool of local, entrepreneurial and innovative talent."

Nilekani, often called the "Bill Gates of Bangalore", says India has come a long way since the historic days of 1947 when Britain's colonial rule ended. However, it must move further away from centralisation if it is to harness its economic potential.

While Nehru's "paternal, socialist state" that promised public sector wealth creation made sense at the time, few Indians believe in his policies now, Nilekani argues.

It is time, he says, for the country to move even further away from the old idea of "Mother India" looking after its one billion "children".

His book sets out a vision of a more equal and prosperous India where the state views the population as "human capital, not as a liability".

The new India would value entrepreneurs, improve its schools and universities, embrace globalisation and technology and build new infrastructure.  It would also accept English as a "language of aspiration" rather than a colonial relic.

The markets will play a crucial role in changing society, but politicians and the public sector must also do their bit, Nilekani says. Political parties have for too long exploited class, religion, caste or regional differences to make short-term gains at the expense of long-term planning, he adds.

"If you want to go beyond the politics of division to the politics of aspiration it will take some time because you will need a larger middle class," he told Reuters in an interview in London. "Markets and entrepreneurship are very important. They drive innovation, job creation. It is how people's standard of living goes up."

If India adopts the right measures it could see faster economic growth than China within a few years, helped by a huge pool of young working people, he adds.

"India is now going to have its demographic dividend in the next 30 years. China had its demographic dividend over the last 30 years," he told Reuters. "Being the only young country in an ageing world gives India some very special opportunities."

With polls suggesting that no party will secure an outright majority in this month's elections, Nilekani warns that future could be rocky.

"This election is momentous because there is no clear winner, no party that has a clear advantage," he says. "There is a risk of having instability."

However, like the humble "jugaad", the sheer scale of the election process and the effort that has gone into getting 700 million people to vote, is an immense source of pride for Nilekani.

"It is an extraordinarily uplifting moment," he says.

India’s bookies are still holding out on the Congress party scraping through a largely issueless election with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the firm favourite to retain his post. They have given L.K. Advani, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a 3-1 chance to win the top job.

But are the bookies, who operate below the radar, missing out on a possible late advance by BJP?

Shares rose 4 percent to their highest close on Tuesday on investor speculation that the BJP, seen as business-friendly, may have gained momentum in the final stages of a mammoth election.

Isn’t it a bit unusual that Dalal Street is betting on a BJP win while the bookmakers are sticking to the Congress?

Or is it just speculation in an election as muddled as this, with no real clear pattern?

The lack of any polls makes it even more difficult. Perhaps there will be some clarity once the exit polls begin rolling out after the final phase of voting ends on Wednesday.

"Bewildingerly diverse" is the way Asghar Ali Engineer describes his native country, India. This 70-year-old Muslim scholar has written dozens of books about Indian politics and society, Islamic reform and interreligious dialogue. As head of the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism in Mumbai, he works to promote peace and understanding among religious and ethnic communities through seminars, workshops, youth camps, research and publications. The centre even organises street plays in the slums of Mumbai to teach the poor about the dangers of communalism.

Our long conversation at the Centre in Mumbai's Santa Cruz neighbourhood of Mumbai during a recent visit to India provided a few key quotes for my earlier analysis and blog post on religion in the Indian election campaign. Since these issues are crucial to the general election taking place in India, I've transcribed longer excerpts from his answers and posted them on the second page of this post.

(Photo: Asghar Ali Engineer, 14 April 2009/Tom Heneghan)

What is the role of communalism in Indian elections?

"The BJP bases its whole politics around accusations that Congress uses Muslims as vote banks and does a lot of favours for them. 'The Muslims vote for Congress and we are against vote bank politics,' that's what they claim. But the BJP itself is basing its politics on Hindu vote banks, (especially) certain castes among Hindus, particularly the upper castes. But when they saw that upper class support cannot put them into power in Delhi, they widened their circle and tried to include some OBC (Other Backward Class) Hindus. Many OBC leaders have become militant Hindu leaders. They are more militant than the upper-class leaders. They see this as the only way to carve out their niche in upper-class politics. Dalits are lower than the OBC. Dalits generally vote for secular parties. Most used to vote for Congress, but now many caste parties have come into existence -- for example, (the Dalit politician) Mayawati. She's also widening her political base by including the upper class.

So are the politicians mostly to blame for using "wedge issues" between religious and ethnic communities to mobilise their voters?

(Photo: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, 9 August 2008/Pawan Kumar)

"Left to themselves, there would be no tension (between communities). But politicians have to face so many elections -- municipal, panchayat, state assembly, parliament - and during all these elections, identity has become important. Since the late 1980s, the Indian population has been polarised like never before. During all those years Congress was ruling, it was a sort of umbrella organisation trying to carry certain castes and communities with it. But not all castes and communities were getting justice, so other parties came into existence. You see it's 60 years of our democracy and each election brings more and more political awareness among the people ... All politicians make promises to Christians, to Dalits, etc. When the promises are not fulfilled, then some regional parties come into existence."

Why is communalism so persistent in a secular democracy like India?

"Our educational system injects communalism into the minds of young children. They grow up with those ideas, with hatred of Muslims. Nehru very much desired change in the education system but he never succeeded because it is a state subject, not a national subject, so they could do little to change it. The RSS, which is a major Hindu communal force, kept on training people in communal ideas and putting them in various cadres like teachers, police, army, bureaucrats, journalists ... We are a secular democratic country, fine, but in practice, communal ideas and violence have gone very deep into our system. India being such a diverse country, identity becomes more and more important. This is not like a European country. Now in the post-colonial period, multiculturalism became important (in Europe). But those nations were formed long ago. India has deep trouble forming a nation itself. Nation-building is much more challenging, all these identities come into play ... "

Here in India, migration is causing problems. Shiv Sena has its 'sons of the soil' theory and says all jobs should go to Maharastrians. 'Why are they settling here? Why are the coming to Mumbai?' they ask. So people were attacked. Interstate migration in India is like international migration in Europe. And India is so backward. There are so little resources to be shared among so many people."

Varun Gandhi, an estranged member of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty who is campaigning for the BJP, played the religion card with a speech that reportedly threatened to chop of the hands of any Muslims harming Hindus. This seems to have embarrassed the BJP. Why is he a problem for them?

(Photo: Varun Gandhi arrives at court for hearing on charges of hate speech, 28 March 2009/Adnan Abidi)

"The BJP leadership has to exercise caution. If they're seen as extremists, they will not be voted into power. But this young boy had no experience and thought he'd become a hero for the Hindu community with these strong words. Even the BJP had to distance itself, but then said he would be their candidate."

India's Muslim population, one of the largest in the world, is generally moderate in its politics. How do you explain this? "

Any majority tends to be more aggressive and assertive. As we see, Hindus are more assertive here and Muslims are more assertive in Pakistan. Right-wing Christians in America are more assertive. Muslims are in a minority here, a 15 percent minority. A minority cannot afford to be aggressive. Secondly, there is the impact of Indian culture. It is basically a composite culture. In any multi-religious society, you will find that the different religious traditions create a new tradition that is more moderate and less aggressive. The third important factor is Sufi Islam. In India, the overwhelming majority of Muslims believe in Sufi Islam, which is basically a peaceful Islam. Several things make Pakistani Islam more aggressive. First, it is in the majority. Secondly, Punjabi Muslims want to maintain their hegemony over other Muslims in Pakistan -- Sindhis, Baluch, Pathans -- so they tend to be more aggressive also in their Islam, in order to maintain their hegemony. Thirdly, the army is mostly Punjabi and it is using Islam with a vengeance to maintain its hegemony in Pakistan and to supplant democratic forces. And now the Taliban are another factor ..."

What about the Deobandis, the traditionalist school of Islam that inspired the Taliban? It originated in India and runs the influential Darul Uloom Deoband seminary north of Delhi.

(Picture: Jama Masjid in Delhi, 9 Dec 2008/Vijay Mathur)

"Indian Deobandis and Pakistani Deobandis are quite different. Islam is in the majority over there. The ulema have been politicised, they want and they use Islam. There is a very interesting phenomenon here. The Deobandis here are attacking terrorism and militancy. Deobandis have held largest demonstrations in India against terrorism ... They are puritan otherwise and against Sufism, but in the Indian environment, their behaviour is very different."

So do most Indian Muslims think secularism is best? "

Yes, here the Deobandis and the Jamaat-i-Islami, which is totally against secularism in Pakistan, support secularism in India. In fact, these days (the Indian) Jamaat-i-Islami is in the forefront of the secular democratic movement. In the early days of independence, Jamaat-i-Islami opposed secularism in India and refused to take part in elections. But after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the riots in Mumbai, they totally changed their policy and formed a secular democratic front that's spreading secular values today. The Jamaat in Pakistan is like the RSS and BJP here. But here its character is entirely liberal. "

The situation makes you respond. That's what I argue. Religion was instituted in certain circumstances and believers respond accordingly. If extremism pays, they will resort to extremism. If moderation pays, they will respond to moderation. Religion by itself is neither extremist nor moderate. It is human followers who become extremist or moderate according to their situation. It's a tool -- an instrumental cause, not a fundamental cause. Those who maintain that terrorism originates in Islam have to think, why is there this difference?"

Tell me about your centre's work in Interfaith dialogue and conflict resolution.

Politicians basically exploit misunderstandings, so we base our dialogue on issues. Take, for example, the issue of violence and religion - what is violence in the Hindu, Muslim and Christian traditions? What is the position of women in religions? Those issues create problems and misunderstanding. Unfortunately, those who condemn religion and hold it responsible for what happens in society neither know their own religion nor the others. But when we explain things to them, they start to understand ... "

(Photo: Hindu militant in Kolkata, 26 Sept 2002/Jayanta Shaw)

I conduct a lot of workshops for the police. They have such prejudices against Muslims, all based on ignorance. But they have seen things from one side only. When we hold workshops, prejudices are dispelled. We have more and more requests for these workshops in Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh. I've been holding these workshops continuously, sometimes invited to conduct workshops for the recruits, 3,000 - 4,000 in number.

"We have identified four groups which are crucial to promoting peace. Teachers, because education is very crucial. Second is police, of course, because they maintain law and order. If they rise above prejudices, they can control better. The prejudices are simply atrocious in communal politics, simply atrocious. There are such raw prejudices against Muslims. Third category is youth. Fourth is journalists. What they write in newspapers ... Just now our workshop is going on about peace and conflict resolution in Ayodha, which is the centre of this whole controversy. We hold workshops in all these sensitive areas."

Hindu nationalism, Muslim "vote banks", anti-Christian violence, caste rivalry -- Indian politics has more than enough interfaith tension to offer populist orators all kinds of "religion cards" to play. Coming only months after Islamist militants killed 166 people in a three-day rampage in Mumbai, the campaign for the general election now being held in stages between April 16 and May 13 could have been over- shadowed by communal demagoguery.

(Photo:Voters show IDs at a polling station in Ayodhya, 23 April 2009/Pawan Kumar)

But in this election, the "religion card" doesn't seem to be the trump card it once was. It's still being used in some ways, of course, but the main opposition group, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has played down its trademark Hindu nationalism in its drive to oust the secular Congress Party from power in New Delhi. A BJP candidate who lashed out at the Muslim minority saw the tactic backfire. During a recent three-week stay in India, I found religious issues being discussed freely and frequently in the boisterous election campaign. But they were usually not the main issues under debate and not isolated from the pocketbook issues that really concern voters. Click here for the rest of my report quoted above.

(Photo: BJP leader L.K. Advani, 8 April 2009/Amit Dave)

This is one of those stories where context is king. Thanks to the internet and India's lively English-language media, anyone around the globe can find Indian reports highlighting the religion angle. One of the news magazines, The Week, ran an interesting cover story about the "high priests of hate." On balance, I think it looks a bit overdone -- it was written at the height of the Varun Gandhi controversy -- but it had this classic anecdote:

"A former BJP minister once said that he had won five times in a row using a simple trick: his men would make an issue of a Muslim boy marrying a Hindu girl or the death of a cow in a Muslim area on the eve of elections. He lost the last Assembly election when he campaigned with a development agenda."

But religion isn't just on the politics pages. Outlook, another news weekly, reported that an American investor long associated with the Hare Krishna movement has offered to build a huge Hindu temple in a planned Himalayan ski resort as part of a project previously nixed by religious leaders who feared it would desecrate the mountain home of their gods.

(Photo: Elderly voter helped to cast her ballot in Puri, 23 April 2009/Jayanta Shaw)

The Economic Times reported on its property pages that "more and more Indians want to have homes in religious centres." Real estate developers and analysts differed on whether the financial crisis would hurt this trend, some seeing a lack of faith in the market while others firmly believed these investments were good. And the tabloid Mumbai Mirror had this story about a court defending religious names on clothes.

While in Mumbai, I went to see Asghar Ali Engineer to talk about the role of religion in politics in India. He explained the central role of communalism -- the use of religious, ethnic or other loyalties to mobilise social groups -- in Indian politics. A noted Muslim reformer, interfaith dialogue advocate and head of the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism, Engineer said:

Communalism is not actually a conflict between two religions but between the interests of two or more communities. It is using religious identity for political mobilisation. That is where religion becomes a tool. Religion is not a fundamental cause, religion per se does not cause any problem. Nobody is fighting whether Islam is right or Christianity is right or Hinduism is right. The main point is what the government does for Muslims, for Christians, for Hindus... The BJP bases its whole politics around accusations that Congress uses Muslims as vote banks and inclines towards them, does a lot of favours for them. 'The Muslims vote for Congress and we are against vote bank politics,' that's what they claim. But the BJP itself is basing its politics on the Hindu vote bank.

India is not a nation in the classical sense as in Europe. France, for example, is built on the French language and culture. But India is a bewilderingly diverse country and we have made it one nation. Declaring it a nation was easy, but in the process of nation-building, all these forces have come into play. Whatever development takes place is not based on justice. It is highly skewed. Some religious communities get much more than others, some castes or regions get much more than others. That is why this question of identity has become so important. Those who are left out use their identity to mobilise their people. Similarly, those who are privileged see a threat when other communities mobilise, so they also have to use their identity to ward off this threat from lower castes and backwards religious communities. This is the interplay of religion and politics.

More from that interview in a later post. For more on the Indian election, see the Reuters India website and its special section on the 2009 election. Click here for a slideshow of election pictures.

Here's a video from the second round of voting on April 23:

Muslims are seen as a crucial vote bank in several possible swing states in India’s general election and many politicians are making the right noises to court the community.

In the state of Bihar, which I recently visited, its chief minister Nitish Kumar told me his campaign focused on caste-blind development but also communal harmony:

“Now everybody is happy. There is complete communal harmony,” he said as we sat at night on the veranda at his residence.

If what he says is true, then communal harmony could be a vote winner for Kumar, whose party still has far fewer seats in the national parliament than that of his main rival in the state, the federal Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Prasad was chief minister for years, backed mainly by the Yadav caste and the Muslim vote. Could that Muslim vote now be slipping away from him?

Hussain Ansari, a Muslim rickshaw driver whom I met, ironically, outside Prasad’s campaign office, told me he will vote for Kumar: “The situation is changing. Lots of development is taking place.”

It remains to be seen to what extent Biharis believe Kumar has changed Bihar under his tenure as they go the polls.

But Kumar may also face a problem: he is an ally of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of whom many Muslims are still wary.

So it is no wonder the issue of Varun Gandhi, a scion of India’s powerful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and a BJP election candidate, has reared its head in the state.

Gandhi has just been released from jail, accused of making an inflammatory “hate speech” against Muslims in March. Gandhi said video clips of his campaign rally were doctored in a political
conspiracy to tarnish his image.

The BJP has so far stuck by its candidate. Kumar, on the other hand, for a long time demanded legal action against Gandhi.

Enter Lalu Prasad, who told a rally he wanted to flatten Gandhi with a roller and said he would have done so if he were the country’s home minister.

In a twist, local police in Bihar filed reports against Prasad for his speech against Gandhi.

The BJP in its manifesto also revived an old promise to build a temple to the Hindu god Ram in the northern town of Ayodhya, on a site revered by Hindus but disputed by Muslims.

Mobs tore down a 16th century mosque on the site in 1992, which led to Hindu-Muslim riots that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Analysts say the BJP’s pledge will garner Hindu votes. But it won’t necessarily help Kumar’s attempts to woo Muslims, and he vocally opposed his ally’s pledge:

“The BJP as a political party is free to hold its views on the Ram Temple and several other issues, but when we form a coalition government, no communal or contentious issue is on our agenda,” he is quoted as saying.

Muslims in parts of India say they feel alienated from the rest of the country, often left behind by India’s economic boom and tarnished by the same brush as Islamist militants.

In Bihar, though, communalism has not played a large role in the past, said Shaibal Gupta of the Asian Development Research Institute, who is based in the state.

He argues Hindus in Bihar have been split along caste lines to the extent that they do not present a united front in which communalism thrives.

“In the absence of a Hindu consolidation, communalism is not a very powerful force in Bihar.”

But Varun Gandhi and the BJP have become a talking point in 2009. Prasad will try his hardest to keep Muslims on side, and what better way than to play up Kumar’s ties with the BJP and the prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani?

“It’s a contradiction that the chief minister has criticised Varun Gandhi but on the other hand supports the BJP and L.K. Advani,” Ram Bachan Roy, a member of Prasad’s party, told me. “L.K. Advani is an incarnation of communalism.”

(Reuters photos of federal railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and a Muslim voter)

The world's largest democracy chooses a new government in an election beginning on Thursday, and given the fires burning next door in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the men and women who will rule New Delhi over the next five years will doubtless exert influence over the course of events.

Indeed, with the pain and anger over  the Mumbai attacks of November still raw, the mood could hardly be tougher against Pakistan. Even shorn of the campaign rhetoric, the positions of both the ruling Congress and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party on Pakistan begin from common ground. No dialogue with Islamabad until it "dismantles the infrastructure of terrorism", both parties say in their manifestos.

Full texts of the documents of the two main parties are here and here.

New Delhi's continued refusal to resume dialogue or indeed to expand other links such as trade has caught Pakistan between a rock and a hard place, according to this piece in 2point6billion.com, a website tracking developments mainly in China and India. While Islamabad has repeatedly called for resumption of dialogue since the attacks, Delhi has refused to comply until it is assured that Pakistan will prosecute all those involved in the planning and operations.

Delhi maintains that it holds information garnered from satellite, cellular and other communications devices captured at the scene that lead to specific individuals that Pakistan has as yet failed to apprehend. Islamabad denies the charge and says it is doing everything in its power to cooperate.

The result is that the noose has tightened around Pakistan, exacerbating its already dire financial situation. Trade between Pakistan and India, which had been growing and was forecast to hit US$10 billion by 2010, has dwindled to close to zero over the past few months, with Pakistan feeling the brunt of this economic demise, says the website. Islamabad has already had to apply for a US$7.6 billion loan from the IMF in February and garnered an additional US$2.8 billion in military aid from the Obama administration just two weeks ago. 

But is there a possibility that once India's elections are out of the way, there might be a slight softening of positions? A new government will be under less pressure to be seen to be acting tough. Looking at the manifestos again, you do detect slight differences in the tone.

Here's the BJP on Pakistan, true to its roots a touch more aggressive :

""There can be no ‘comprehensive dialogue’ for peace unless Pakistan a) dismantles the terrorist infrastructure on territory under its control; b) actively engages in prosecuting terror elements and organisations; c) puts a permanent, verifiable end to its practice of using cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy; d) stops using the territory of third countries to launch terror attacks on India; and, e) hands over to India individuals wanted for committing crimes on Indian soil."

The Congress on the other hand says dealing with ""terrorism aided and abetted from across our borders does not require a muscular foreign policy as advocated by the BJP.""

Here is their plan:

""But the Mumbai attacks have cast a long shadow on the on-going dialogue and engagement process. It is now entirely up to Pakistan to break the impasse by taking credible action against those responsible for the carnage in Mumbai. If it does so and dismantles the terrorist networks that operate from its soil, a Congress-led government will not be found wanting in its response. "

Has the Congress, still the frontrunner in the election, left the door to dialogue slightly open?

The black sheep of India’s most powerful political dynasty or a young politician making his own way in that family’s most potent political rival?

Call him what you will, Varun Gandhi is grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons in an episode that could embarrass his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at the start of a general election campaign.

The great-grandson of India’s founding father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was allegedly caught out making inflammatory comments against Muslims at a recent rally.

Local TV news channels are daily replaying clips in which he is alleged to have said the hands of those who threatened Hindus should be cut off, and going on to make crude comparisons between a rival Muslim candidate and Osama bin Laden.

India’s election commission will now monitor every speech Gandhi makes in the run up to the polls. To add insult to injury, Gandhi has since been accused of dishing out money to voters in his Pilibhit constituency in Uttar Pradesh state.

But the man himself stood defiant and said video clips of his speech had been doctored for political gain.

“That is a conspiracy, that is not my voice, those are not my words,” he said, but refused to name the likely conspirators.

The political lives of Gandhi and his cousin Rahul make for lip-smacking contrasts. Rahul’s mother, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born head of the Congress party whom many see as wielding the real power in government, has long groomed her son to be a future prime minister.

Congress leaders openly say Rahul’s rise to the top is a matter of when not if. Varun, who faces a criminal investigation into his alleged comments, presents his party with a fiery alternative to Rahul, but enjoys precious few benefits from his famous name.

Unlike most of the Nehru-Gandhi line, Varun joined the BJP. His mother fell out with slain former prime minister Indira Gandhi and drifted towards Congress’ main rival at the end of the nineties.

In the dynasty vs dynasty game, Congress promotes Rahul as the natural heir to his father Rajiv Gandhi, the country’s youngest ever prime minister who governed when a young India began its rise on the global stage.

In contrast, the BJP wants to position Varun as the only Gandhi who can uphold the ideals that Indira stood for, especially toughness on internal security and military prestige.

The BJP has in the past been accused of stoking tensions between Hindus and Muslims to pander to its large Hindu vote base. Comparisons between Varun Gandhi and Narendra Modi are inevitable.

Some have not forgiven the Chief Minister of Gujarat, regarded as one of the BJP’s most capable politicians, for what they saw as his quiet complicity in communal riots in his state in 2002 that left more than 2000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

“Another Modi is rising. There is no necessary to apology, he told real situation,” reads one reader’s comment on an article on Gandhi in the Economic Times newspaper.

“Varun is among the few bold younger politicians taking the bull by the horns. The majority (Hindus) must have at least an equal say in their own country. But we are ruled by minorities with an Italian to boot,” said another.

Another thing Gandhi said this week in the midst of the row caught my eye. “I am a Gandhi, a Hindu and an Indian in equal measure,” he was quoted as saying.

Where had I heard such words before? The charismatic young Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, a friend of Rahul’s, delivered a barnstorming speech in parliament last year in defence of secularism.

“I am a Muslim and I am an Indian, and I see no distinction between the two.”

Whereas Abdullah’s speech was widely praised and became an instant YouTube hit, the question is what the future now holds for Gandhi’s fledgling political career.

The White House staffers charged with transcribing the every public utterance of U.S. President George W. Bush and his friends do not have an easy job. If they falter even for a moment in the constant war against tape hiss, mumbling and ill-timed coughs, they risk putting the wrong words in some of the most powerful mouths on the planet.

And so, as I read today’s official transcript of remarks made by Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G8 Summit in Japan, I wondered if the transcriber forgot to take a cotton swab to their ear that morning:

PRIME MINISTER SINGH: Mr. President, it is a great opportunity for me to once again meet you and to review with you the state of Hindu-American relations. (Emphasis added.)

Surely some mistake? (UPDATE 5.25pm: The White House has now corrected the transcript on its website, but the original version can still be seen here and here.)

Singh is known to be a soft-spoken man, but he is very clear on at least one point: his Congress Party, which heads India’s coalition government, is intended to be a secular party, embracing equally the 230 million Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, animists, agnostics and atheists that live alongside India’s 900 million Hindus. (Besides which, Singh himself is a Sikh.) A vote for Congress, so its leaders say, is a vote against what are darkly called “the forces of communalism” — a thinly veiled reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s main opposition, which believes Indians of every creed should revere and live by the wisdom of the Vedas and other ancient Hindu texts.

For once, the BJP might be delighted to read over Singh’s remarks, but he actually said “Indo-American” relations, according to Sanjaya Baru, Singh’s spokesman. (”An amusing mistake,” Baru said with a chuckle, adding that they were seeking to get the transcript corrected.)

So have the “forces of communalism” reached even as far as the White House? Or is this just another example of the confusion some non-Indians have grasping the differences between “Hindu”, “Hindi” and “Indian”?