"The antidote to the Soviet model has to be on multiple levels, not simply the "business-friendly" plank of states like Gujarat and TN. Most of the people I speak to, seem to want a US style dynamic economy, but run from the center by a "strong PM", like a Soviet style power structure. Anyone who's lived in the US will realise how localized the power structures are and how much more people care about local issues. Most educated Indians don't know who their ward councillor or MLA actually is. We care a lot more and talk a lot more, about national issues and who should be PM, than the things we can fix in our own backyard, like street lighting and corporation schools. We have nothing but contempt for local politicians (very similar to the contempt we used to have for "banias"). Hopefully, if Modi is elected PM, he will do more to decentralize power to states and local governments instead of simply making it easy for a few large businesses to do well. Without that, we simply replace an..." - Kingsley Joseph