Political History in US and What about India?

I've been following up the democratic primary race for over 6 months now and last week, history has been made in US. Barack (Hussein) Obama has become the first African American Presidential Nominee from the Democratic party. Its quite a history. This is the first time ever in the US that a person from the minority has risen to the pinnacle of political circles. At the same time Hillary Rodham Clinton's exceptional run deserves much credit. If she had won the nomination, then it would have been a history too. Both of these candidates have defied the odds and came forth to be history. Hillary's loss isn't a personal loss for her. She has created history too. In the future, it will not be a surprise for any American to see a woman or African American to win the race all over.

Right now according to CNN, Barack Obama has a 2% point lead over John McCain to lead him into the Oval office. If there is a chance that he accepts Hillary as his VP running mate, then clearly they outweigh the Republican opposition by a sizable margin. So it can be predicted with much confidence that history is in the making when Barack Obama will be sworn as the President of America.

I've been following many news channels, magazines, news papers etc. Everybody is ecstatic about this Obama wave and looks like everybody wants to take part in it. Couple of weeks back while I was at the airport, I walked into a book store to pick up a magazine to keep me busy on the flight. I'm usually interested in Science, Business and Current Affairs. I looked at around 10 magazines and 8/10 have Obama's picture on the cover page and the rest 2 had both Obama and Hillary's picture. This shows the enthusiasm among the journalists and everybody wants to cover and be a part of this history in the making.

Well good enough. But it kept me thinking. Why is there so much of intensity in this race. One thing clearly is Democratic nominee is an African American and America has never seen a non-white as their commander in chief. This is because of the largely conservative white population in US. 75% of the population in US is white and a majority of them are white. Thus although America has been a democracy for over 200 years, it just didn't happen.

I'm from India, which again has a higher percentage of conservative population than US. There are hundreds of religions and thousands of castes. India got Independence in 1947, yet India saw a women prime minister in Indira Gandhi during the 1980's/90's and there have been presidents from the bottom of the caste structure (so called structure as people defined themselves). It was never a history. Most recently there was a Muslim president (Muslims represent close to 13% of the population in India) and current a Sikh Prime Minister (about 2% of the overall population). There are over 80% Hindu majority population in India and it has never bothered anyone to see people from other religions and lower castes (within their own religion) occupy top power positions within the country. In fact, the person seriously responsible for our constitution was Dr. B.R.Ambedkar and he hold a very good position within the government soon after independence.

This is a strange amusing situation. I have seen older men in the family like my grand father make fun of Indira when she was the prime minister. Thus it proves that it is not socially acceptable. But still women and minority have always had a chance to rise to the highest positions. I can think of different possibilities like Indira is the daughter of Nehru, the first prime minister of India and the head of Indian National Congress etc. But that doesn't prove that if majority of people who vote (typically chauvinistic men) dislike the idea, then it will be very hard for her to be the prime minister. She had landslide victory all over India. The opposition was beaten very very badly in the election when she participated. Similarly the whole of India praised Abdul Kalam for his presidency.

In spite of this very rigid cultural society that India has been, politics was viewed very differently. More thought should be given to find the reason for this strange social acceptance of India's commander in Chief.