世界上有史以来最大的民主选举:印度大选

Free and fair: a security official casually holds his gun as voters queue during the first phase of polling at Jatingamukh, in Silchar.

I've voted: a veiled woman shows her ink-marked finger and clutches her ID papers after casting her vote in Varanasi.

Being counted: the indelible ink mark on this woman's finger in Rajapur village, Mirzapur, shows she has voted and will stop her from voting again in this round of the election.

How it is done: an election officer marks the finger of a voter with ink during the first phase of polling in Varanasi.

All dressed up: with umpteen bracelets and clothes featuring many small mirrors, these Lambadi tribal women - and baby - leave a polling booth in the Rangareddy district, outside Hyderabad.

Modestly placing a cross: a woman walks from the polling room, right, while others queue to cast their votes in Varanasi.

Proving who we are: women display their voters' identity cards outside a polling booth in Akhori village.

Till next time: women leave a polling station in Varanasi after casting their votes while two security officials watch activity farther down the street.

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印度：世界上最大规模的投票
India: the world's biggest vote

与斯里兰卡和巴基斯坦正在发生的事情相比，又或者是，与在一个实际上更大、但不以信奉民主著称的地区所发生的事情相比，印度的选举既值得尊敬也值得庆贺。值得尊敬是因为这次选举体现了民主的全民参与，这可以追溯到远在英国人到来之前就已有的村议会或者村务委员会；值得庆贺是因为此次选举修成了正果。一致预测依赖地区领导人的联盟既脆弱又难以驾驭的权威人士哑口无言了；右翼印度教民族主义党派印度人民党也被打败了，它失去了很多地盘。新选出的议会不但强大而且是全民参与选出的。

对一个有着124年历史的政党而言，这次选举对其复兴甚为重要，此前这个政党被认为是无可救药了。对于总理曼莫汉·辛格而言甚至更加重要，他在第一届任期内投入了大量的政治和金融资本在一项事业中，孤注一掷的做法有违习惯思维。《国家农村就业保障法》给农村家庭中至少一个成员按最低工资标准提供100天的非技术性工作。作为一种不加掩饰的施舍，这一计划受到很多批评。但是，作为社会福利缺失情况下的的替代品，《国家农村就业保障法》 是争取选票的手段。辛格说，广大的农村地区没有从过去三年的9%增长率中获益，这使得印度分化，如果他是对的，那么无论分多少，解决方案必定是要分一杯羹给诸如比哈尔等最穷省份。辛格在其首次任期内发起的大型社会福利计划，对其重掌政权起了关键作用，这与风靡世界的盎格鲁-撒克逊模式背道而驰，但是印度经济不能只为讲英语的城市精英运转，也不能只由他们来运作。

要是农村发展问题成为这次竞选的主题，印度新政府昨天没有决定把安全和促进印度教和伊斯兰教之间的和解作为其首要任务，也就不足为奇了。毕竟，打恐怖牌的是印度人民党，在竞选广告中，其81岁的领导人阿德瓦尼在健身房练举重。孟买爆炸案发生后有人呼吁打击巴基斯坦，辛格对此采取反对立场，这点没有成为选举的争论点。印度人民党尖锐的反穆斯林言辞以及吉吉拉特邦首席部长莫迪的不良记录，使选民失去兴趣。在吉吉拉特邦发生的那场骚乱中，1000名穆斯林被杀，莫迪却袖手旁观。尽管促进印度教和伊斯兰教之间的和解，不是核心议题，但也很重要。

但是，一个强大的印度政府在地区安全方面所能发挥的作用不应被低估。印度的精英们不喜欢别人把印度和运转不灵的巴基斯坦联系起来，更愿意印度被看作与中国并驾齐驱的新兴势力。新德里政府难以想象理查德·霍尔布鲁克（美国的阿富汗-巴基斯坦问题特使）将其列入阿富汗-巴基斯坦地区审议案中，幸而最终没有。但是，在克什米尔问题上，无论如何也不能排除印度能发挥作用缓解与巴基斯坦之间的紧张关系，这样反过来也能推翻巴基斯坦军事和安全精英们的逻辑，他们坚持把印度看作威胁生存的敌人。

会谈在现已名誉扫地的佩尔韦兹·穆沙拉夫将军的主持下启动。要是来自巴基斯坦又在当地受过训练的敢死队袭击印度，会谈将难以为继。在克什米尔问题上，说服印度向一个虚弱的巴基斯坦政府做出让步，并非易事。但是，没有印度，要想找到一个地区性的阿富汗-巴基斯坦问题解决方案是不可能的。如果印度被忽视，美国冒着炮火撤军就不难想象了。

印度不仅仅是一个国家，它还是一种理念，一种被甘地、尼赫鲁和安贝德卡（撰写了印度宪法很多内容的贱民）传达的理念。随着印度地区重要性的提高，把那一理念清楚而吸引人地传达给别人，将是一个挑战。

Compared to what is happening in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, or indeed in a wider region not noted for democratic engagement, the elections in India are both to be saluted and celebrated. Saluted because the election shows a popular commitment to democracy, which goes back long before the arrival of the British, to the village parliament or panchayat. Celebrated because it produced the right result. The pundits, who to a man, predicted a weak and fractious coalition dependent on regional leaders, were stuffed. So was the rightwing Hindu nationalist BJP, which lost a large amount of territory. Congress was returned not just with a strong mandate but a national one.

This is important for the renewal of a 124-year-old party deemed to be in irreversible decline. It is even more important for the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, who invested substantial amounts of political as well as financial capital in a project during his first term, which defied conventional wisdom. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) provides 100 days of unskilled labour at the minimum wage to at least one member of a rural household. As an unashamed handout, the scheme has many critics. But as a substitute for absent social welfare, NREGA was a vote-winner. If Mr Singh is right to say that India is fissiparous, with vast rural swaths untouched by 9% growth rates in the last three years, then the solution has to be giving the poorest states such as Bihar a slice, however thin, of the national cake. The massive social welfare schemes Mr Singh launched in his first term were instrumental in his return to power. It runs counter to the Anglo-Saxon model with which too much of the world fell in love, but India's economy can not be run exclusively for and by its English-speaking urban elites.

If rural development emerged as the leitmotiv of the campaign, it is all the more surprising that India's new government should have yesterday named security and promoting Hindu-Muslim tolerance as its two priorities. It was, after all, the BJP which played the terror card with campaign ads showing its 81-year-old leader, LK Advani, pumping iron at the gym. And Mr Singh's resistance to calls for an attack on Pakistan after the Mumbai bombings did not emerge as an election issue. The BJP turned off voters with its strident anti-Muslim rhetoric, and with the record of Narendra Modi, Gujarat's chief minister, who stood by during the riots in his state, in which 1,000 Muslims were killed. It is important to promote Hindu-Muslim tolerance, although this is not the central issue.

But the part that a strong Indian government can play in regional security should not be underestimated. India's elites dislike being linked to a dysfunctional Pakistan, preferring to be ranked with China as a booming regional power. Delhi was horrified to think it would be included in Richard Holbrooke's Af-Pak regional remit, which in the end it was not. But none of that precludes the role that India could play in starting to defuse tensions with Pakistan over Kashmir. This could, in turn, work against the logic of Pakistan's military and security elites who persist in viewing India as the existential threat.

Talks started under the now discredited Gen Pervez Musharraf. It would be extraordinarily difficult to continue under the fire of suicide squads trained on, and despatched from, Pakistani soil. It may not be easy to persuade India to make concessions on Kashmir to a weak government in Islamabad. But it is impossible to think of a regional Af-Pak solution without India. And it is all too easy to imagine a US withdrawal under fire if India is ignored.

India is more than a country. It is also an idea, expressed by Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar (the untouchable who wrote so much of India's constitution). As India grows in regional importance, the challenge will be to express that idea clearly and attractively to others.