India’s 15th general election and the world’s biggest democratic contest is now under way. Millions of Indians went to the polls last Thursday, including all those in Kerala and in parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, in the first of five and a bit rounds of voting staggered regionally over a month. The “bit” is today when it is the turn of voters in Manipur. Tomorrow, in the fuller second stage, voters in the rest of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and part of other states cast their ballot. By the time the election is over in three weeks time, at least 60 percent of the 714 million eligible voters (some 430 million people) will have cast their vote. It is an impressive statistic. No country in the world goes through a similar exercise on such a scale.

The figures could be even higher this time. Turnout for state elections in India is usually around 70 percent, compared to 60 percent for national contests; for local elections it often goes up to 80 percent. But federal elections are becoming more local in their complexion as voters opt increasingly for regional-based parties rather than the traditional national ones, Congress and the BJP.

In state after state, local parties started to displace the two as the dominant political force when it comes to state elections and government some time ago. It has created a split-level political system in the country: in the various states, different regional parties gaining support and Congress and the BJP losing, while at the center, Congress and the BJP remaining the main players. It is the exact opposite to what has happened in many Western democracies where national parties have largely taken the field in regional and municipal politics at the expense of local ones.

When India’s votes are counted next month, Congress and the BJP will continue to be the two largest parties. But it is a fair bet that the number of seats they win will be reduced. They face a formidable challenge from parties such as the Uttar Pradesh-based BSP led by the state’s charismatic Chief Minister Mayawati or the RJD in Bihar led by the controversial but no less charismatic national Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The upshot is that once again there will be a coalition, dominated (at least numerically) by one of the two main national players. But numbers may not mean power. Whether it is Congress-led or BJP-led, it will be a coalition that is dependent more than ever on pandering to the demands of the different regional parties that have joined it. It may even be that one of those parties manages to grab the post of prime minister; it is no secret that Mayawati has ambitions in that direction and she may well be in a position to demand it in less than four week’s time if her BSP does as well as some pundits expect.

An Indian government dominated by regional concerns is not an altogether encouraging prospect. It would be a diminished player on the world stage just when the world has accepted it is a major power. The place for regional issues is at the regional level, not the national one. But Indian voters may not see it that way.

CIA widely used waterboarding

The Washington Post in its editorial yesterday detailed the use of water torture by CIA interrogators against terror suspects. Excerpts:

It was depressing enough when US officials finally admitted last year that the country had waterboarded terrorism detainees. Bush administration officials from the president on down tried to quell the ensuing outcry by reassuring the country and the rest of the world that the technique, which simulates drowning and has been considered torture since it was introduced during the Spanish Inquisition, had been used only on high-ranking, “high-value” members of terrorist groups and only to obtain information necessary to avert an imminent and catastrophic attack. The administration and its band of lawyers argued that the application of such harsh interrogation techniques did not “shock the conscience” and thus abided by domestic and international strictures against torture because their use was limited, targeted and meant to save innocent lives.

Now comes the revelation that CIA interrogators were far from restrained in their use of this ancient and cruel technique.

According to a recently released Justice Department memo, CIA operatives subjected two Al-Qaeda leaders — alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaida — to 266 episodes of waterboarding. Mohammed is said to have been waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 — for an average of six episodes a day of what has been described as among the most terrifying and brutal forms of coercive interrogation. Zubaida was subjected to water torture 83 times during August 2002. There is no mention of how many times a third detainee, Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, was waterboarded. Had any foreign government or terrorist group treated US citizens in this way, the country would have been appalled — and rightly so.

The details are contained in a section of a May 30, 2005, memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel released last week by President Barack Obama. First reported online by such blogs as Emptywheel, the section takes its information from a confidential report issued by the CIA’s inspector general.