A parliamentary committee, with a varied political membership, recently recommended that there should be no sex education in schools.

Sex even if done at the proper time, with a proper person, in a proper place, is a topic that makes many Indians uncomfortable.

The committee itself refused a power point presentation on the question “after going through the hard copy because of its explicit contents.  The Committee felt that it was not comfortable with it and could be embarrassing especially to the lady Members and other lady staff present.”

The committee has recommended that chapters like ‘Physical and Mental Development in Adolescents’ and ‘HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases’ be removed from the general curriculum.

Instead, they want these topics to be included in biology syllabus for school leaving classes.

This leaves the students of the non-Biology streams at sea.

In school, two years before school leaving exams, I remember waiting expectantly as our Biology teacher reached the last page of a chapter on the Skin, which ended with a description of the anatomy of the female breast.

The teacher, a female, was an old hand and probably sensed the collective eagerness. She promptly skipped the page and went on to the questions at the end of the chapter.

A couple of years later as a Biology student in my school leaving year, the most dog eared pages in our Biology text book described the physiology of the female orgasm and the female reproductive system.

These pages too were skipped on the plea of self study.

At home, any discussion of ‘these’ was possible only in hushed tones with my brother. Involving your parents was out of question.

Nice kids are not supposed to take any interest in ‘these’ things. It’s a given.

Jyoti Bajpai, a development professional working in the field of reproductive and sexual health, recalls her own experience on sex education.

She and her female class mates at school were called away for a session on sex education on a pretext.

“What information we were imparted was limited to menstruation and menstrual hygiene and little else. It’s amazing that boys in my class were kept completely out of this. We were expressly warned against discussing any thing with them.”

When my mother was growing up her parents did their best to postpone the acknowledgement of the fact. She had to turn to her friends.

Things were much the same for my parents and my generation, but are they finally going to change for the coming generation?

A friend I talked to on this issue expressed his doubts on the appropriateness of sex education in schools. “It’s just going to be a source of fun for these kids and nothing else.”

But many Indians don’t see it as reason to deny adolescents the right knowledge, especially with 2.47 million cases of HIV infected persons in the country and with sexual transmission being the predominant mode of HIV transmission.

The NACO website says, “Most young people become sexually active during adolescence. In the absence of right guidance and information at this stage they are more likely to have multi-partner unprotected sex with high risk behaviour groups… “

With increasing exposure to television and internet sex education does not imply teaching kids about sex, which knowledge they will pick up anyways, but for many proponents of sex education it definitely means teaching them about what safe, healthy and acceptable sexual behaviour is.

A whole political culture has been built upon sexual mores- ranging from the Congress-led government calling homosexuality a disease to Hindu fundamentalist groups equating women visiting pubs as ‘loose’.

With two phases of elections to go it remains to be seen if this is going to earn political dividends.

Are our representatives in the parliament providing us leadership or abdicating it by following and mobilising their followers on their less informed instincts?

Amidst the stream of billboards, posters and party flags flooding Kolkata’s chaotic streets in the run-up to elections, a glazed hoarding featuring popular intellectuals of West Bengal is catching everyone’s eyes these days.

“Pariborton Chai” (We want change), reads the hoarding popping up at regular intervals, in opposition of the communists who have ruled the state uninterruptedly since 1977.

The hoardings are part of a campaign with a difference - It is not mounted by the opposition Trinamool Congress-Congress combine, but by a group of powerful intellectuals who have joined hands against the communists.

Battle lines were drawn by the intellectuals, who had patronized the Marxists for decades, after the government began seizing farmlands for industrialization and allegedly used repressive means to tame those opposing the policy.

The divide became official after the police firing of Nandigram on May 14, 2007 that killed 14 and triggered more violence, largely blamed on the communists.

In what is now infamously known as the Nandigram Recapture operation, communist cadres allegedly used brutal force in November that year to regain their lost bastion, a cluster of villages in south Bengal which flared up over land acquisition fears for a chemical hub.

At least 50 people, mostly farmers, have been killed in protests over land disputes with West Bengal’s government since 2007.

In October 2008, Tata Motors moved their car factory in Singur — which was slated to produce Nano, the world’s cheapest car — out of the state after villagers blocked highways to protest the seizure of their land.

The Bengal intellectuals, internationally acclaimed in the world of art, cinema, theatre and literature, became disillusioned by the policies of the Left and came out on the streets to protest like the political opposition.

From avant-garde filmmaker Aparna Sen to Magsaysay winning writer Mahasweta Devi, the campaign for political change in West Bengal found unprecedented expression in this outdoor campaign.

But the hoarding also became a subject of contention within the intellectual camp, with filmmaker Suman Mukhopadhayay and actor-choreographer Mamata Shankar saying their pictures were printed without permission and they never intended to feature in an outdoor campaign that benefited a particular political party.

But these jarring notes are perhaps little solace for the communists who are fighting a double whammy - a unified opposition and a vocal intelligentsia that defected from their camp completely.

"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)

Much has been written about the imminent arrival in New Delhi of the Third Front, the joker in the Indian political pack that has talked itself up as a serious alternative to the two national parties in the 2009 parliamentary elections.

The difference they tout is of being more inclusive, bringing into the public fold social groups neglected or oppressed by the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Whether this claim, that some take rather very seriously, is sustainable is the moot question. The answer may be no, if the history of this rag-tag group that has emerged with near-decadal precision since 1967 is any guide.

The rise of these parties was part of a process of the broadening of Indian democracy, bringing into the public sphere middle and lower castes, religious minorities and tribals in their own right.

But this broadening has not completely gone hand in hand with it a deepening of democracy, empowering these traditionally subordinate groups.

Rather, critics argue it has become the cultural equivalent of the failed trickle-down theory in economics, bringing immediate benefits to the elite amongst them, entrenching some at the cost of others and widening social disparities.

The Congress party, ruling India uninterruptedly for the first three decades of independence, had as its power-base the landed elite, and its relationship with the subordinate groups was that of a patron and a client.

As some of these groups prospered economically from increased agricultural incomes, they began demanding a larger share in the public sphere. These groups were largely of the middle castes — what is today termed Other Backward Classes in official parlance — and comprised petty landowners and peasant proprietors.

Their aspirations were tapped by the various socialist parties which traced their roots to the left-leaning factions of the pre-independent Congress, factions that had actively led peasant movements in the 1920s and the 1930s.

It was also this upsurge that led these parties to implement job reservations for the Other Backward Classes — the official parlance for these castes — in the states they ruled, much before 1990 when New Delhi made it a national law.

But where they failed was to build upon this silent revolution to ensure a fundamental change in the role of the state as patron doling out (limited) resources. They did not ensure a process of economic redistribution that would benefit all.

Rather, many analysts argue they followed a policy that redirected resources to groups that had reaped the benefits of reservations, and had entrenched themselves as a new elite.

Separated thus from the ideological motivations that gave them birth and nurtured them, critics say most of these parties exist solely for the perpetuation of the cult of the leader and their policies are simply to ensure the dominance of groups that back them.

If one adjective had to be used for the motley crew of the Front, it may be “pragmatic.” The argument goes that it makes no difference to any one of them if India became a client state of the United States or of Tanzania or whether monetary policy is biased towards maintaining growth or containing inflation.

Each of them has slept with almost everyone else, supported policies across the spectrum, bonded with reformists, communists, communalists, secularists, pseudo-secularists, appeasers, all the various other terminological curiosities that pepper the Indian political glossary.

It is this pragmatism that may ease any fears of these parties. There might be degrees of accepting a globalised and liberalised world, but none of them have lost much sleep over ideology or practice, or would be averse to being gently nudged towards that direction.

(Reuters file photos of labourers standing at a road construction site in Bihar (Top) and a policeman keeping guard as voters queue up to cast their votes outside a polling station in Patna in the 2004 general elections)

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 state government is trying to establish the rule of law…however so mighty someone may be, without any discrimination, whatever their clout is, they will still be put on trial.” 

This is what Neelmani, a senior police officer in Bihar, told me in a recent interview.

He said the “Jungle Raj”, which gave the state a reputation for corruption, kidnappings and crime, is coming to an end.

The state’s bad name made me expect the worst. But violent crime such as civilian killings has dropped sharply in the past four years.

When you ask people in the capital, Patna, what they are happiest about now, they often say they can venture out after dark without fear.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wants to present his leadership in stark contrast to that of his predecessors, Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi, who ruled the state for 15 years until 2005.

Prasad handed over the reins to his wife when he was accused in the “Fodder Scam”, a large-scale corruption case.

Her residence is just opposite Chief Minister Kumar’s, and despite the bluster around Kumar, Prasad and his wife may well think they can cross the road again in the future.

Taking a short trip to a village just outside Patna, it is clear Bihar faces an uphill battle.

I wanted to check out how Congress’ flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) had worked.

The villagers complained they were getting ripped off by contractors and threatened with jail.

At a small government office in the area, I could see why. A contractor we talked to was very friendly at first. He gave us plates of delicious grapes and tea.

But when we asked him about NREGA, he clammed up.

His senior came in mid-way through the conversation, took him to one side and, so says a friend of mine who overheard them, muttered something about a short jail stint if he spilled the beans.

We asked where we could meet NREGA labourers. Twice a local came in, heard what we were talking about and offered to help, and twice they were quickly ushered out past a small sign by the door warning against corruption.

We ventured out on our own to find the workers. When we did, they listed ways in which their money disappeared in NREGA. 

One trick was simply not to pay them. Another was to get them to work for weeks and then not record it. Yet another was to take their thumbprints and then go collect the money.

The job scheme has faced problems in several states and done well in others. I was left in little doubt in which category Bihar falls.

Nitish Kumar is campaigning on a platform of caste-blind development and communal harmony — a message that may or may not resonate in a state where caste loyalties are still strong.

But no one can write off Lalu Prasad, who many credit for giving a voice to the poor, to lower castes, and to Muslims when he was chief minister.

His party argues that Kumar’s much trumpeted development platform has excluded many of the state’s poorest.

Prasad is now the federal railway minister. He won praise for rescuing the service from near bankruptcy and turning it into a cash cow, and has given lectures to American Ivy League students on the success story.

But some Biharis may wonder why he did not work the same miracles for them.

Are the ruling communists in the stronghold state of West Bengal losing the confidence of its traditional Muslim voters, ahead of their most crucial electoral test this month?

For decades, Muslims have always felt safe in West Bengal, although they have been caught in an uncomfortable position elsewhere in the country after each bomb or militant attack.

West Bengal’s left boasted that Muslims, a little over 26 percent in the state of 80 million people, were free from discrimination and were living in harmony.

But the ground situation has changed in the last five years with the government pushing for industry after years of land reforms.

Violence over acquisition of land has seen Muslim groups pouring into the streets to protest against the left, and saying they would not vote for them again.

Muslims are also saying they have been ignored for top job positions and were the worst affected when it came to losing farmland for industry, an allegation denied by the communists.

“The Muslims have always stayed with the communists for years, but now they are angry,” says Ahmed Hassan Imran, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Bengal.

“They feel betrayed, the left has not done anything significant to help poor Muslims. The left candidates will not get many Muslim votes,” Siddiqullah Choudhury, chief of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, added.

Indian political parties and leaders are courting young voters for the upcoming general elections and the age of political leaders like L.K. Advani and Rahul Gandhi is being made into an electoral issue.

After all nearly two-thirds of India is below 35 years of age, the cut-off for ‘youth’ according to the National Youth Policy.

But does the electorate care?

A number of surveys and studies seem to suggest otherwise.

One nation-wide survey reported in the ‘Mint’ newspaper shows voters may not quite prefer “fresh and young” candidates, with two-thirds of the 17,640 people sampled preferring experienced candidates.

A series of post-poll surveys carried out since 1996 by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows voter turnout is highest in the age group 46-55. The turnout in the age group 18-25 has been consistently lower.

However, a study by the Imagindia institute says parties that put up candidates in the age group 30-45 have an advantage. This is based on what the institute calls ‘Age-Voter pulse model’. It assumes that the ability of a candidate to connect with the pulse of voters depends upon the age difference with the electorate.

Being a layman I am in no position to argue with the maths of the model but another study by PRS Legislative Research caught my attention.

This says that ‘young’ MPs (those aged less than 40) participated the least in the 14th Lok Sabha proceedings. They accounted for 11 percent of seats but only around seven percent of debates.

MPs over the age of 70 accounted for 10 percent of seats and nine percent of total debates.

In other words, their contribution was greater even though they occupy marginally lesser seats than the younger MPs.

MPs aged between 55 and 70 years accounted for almost 22 percent of seats and around 43 percent of all debates.

The youthful voters don’t vote as much and even when they do, they don’t necessarily vote for the young. Besides, the older political leaders perform better and are more trusted by the electorate. Old stalwarts like Somnath Chatterjee and George Fernandes have an enviable record of winning elections and eyeballs in parliament.

And most of the young brigade — Rahul Gandhi, Jiten Prasada, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Manvendra Singh, Kuldeep Bishnoi and Naveen Jindal are reaping a legacy sowed by parents.

So does a younger age profile matter when it comes to the ever so youthful electorate electing representatives?

Or is the Indian voter shrewder than that?