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Good overview, thanks for writing it. How much does the average Indian citizen know and care about politics? In a country with so much poverty and so many different languages, I can't imagine it's easy to reach all the voters with real information and well-crafted political ads.
Indians love politics.
How informed are they? Don't even ask. Maybe they have opinions on military spending, engaging in more locking of horns with Pakistan or China, tax laws and other big ticket items, but most of them would struggle to go into the weeds. And our parties are very homogenous in some ways, so it's not like it's worth the effort.
Then again, I'm one to talk. I do my best to stay blissfully ignorant, until it intrudes into my life, such as Demonetization enacted nearly overnight meaning I couldn't even buy food.
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Though the average citizen would only know what's current in Indian politics, it cares a lot about politics. It's a byproduct of the independence movement but has contributed in making Indian democracy quite robust. The Panchayat system of village governance increases people's willingness to vote in other elections. Though voter turnout is an issue, people love debating politics and would do so without any regard to where they are.
That's why grassroots worker are so important for political parties. They go door to door meeting with everyone asking for their votes and in a sense pitching themselves to the voter. In fact, one of the things that makes BJP election machinery such a juggernaut is the sheer amount of grassroots worker it has. Providing real reliable information to all voters is a challenge as much as it is in any democracy.
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