Lets hear it for the vote!

Whenever you have a group boycotting a vote - esp. if the process is at least marginally fair - you have to wonder whether they are really convinced the whole process is a fraud - or whether their own popularity is not so hot.

When its the boys with guns who are calling for the boycott you really have to wonder. Is their 'popularity' / 'representation' anything more than power flowing from the muzzle of the gun?

Kashmir has been on the boil for years and years. Everyone said no one would come out to vote. Today started a complex 7 stage process in which security forces are deployed as 7 different parts of the state vote on 7 different days.

Well today was the first day. And the numbers seem to be speaking for themselves:

The BBC website - no friend of the Indian govt. - said that 'unusually large' numbers of voters showed up - despite the threats and boycotts from the militants.

Our fractured political landscape is pretty bleak. But at least one thing happens. People are able to vote. They cast their choices. They choose among the limited options whom they believe will be the best.

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On an absolutely different note:

We had large crowds of another sort in Indore. Not a political rally by the latest film-star turned politician. Not a protest mob against some real or imagined issue. But the bed-rock of hero-worship - our boys in blue - playing cricket against the English - and thrashing them.

Our cricketers are going through some purple days - 2-o over the mighty Australians in test matches (last time that happened was in the late 80s) and now 2-0 up in One-Day Internationals over England (with 5 more to play in this series). And the clincher is this - lots of young hungry players who know they have to perform to make it into the cricket team. It seems that at least for a season the selectors are actually selecting based on merit rather than on territory.