An article of stray, unconnected thoughts:

• President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Prize not for what he has achieved but for what it is hoped he will achieve. His election has ended Bush’s imperial presidency and this has engendered the hope that America will once again work within the framework of multilateralism based on respect for national sovereignty. It remains to be seen of course whether these hopes will be realised. The initial signals are not hopeful and paradoxically Obama’s greatest foreign policy challenge today pivots around the question whether to send more troops into Afghanistan or not.

The thought that has crossed my mind is that if hope, more than achievement, has become the barometer for selecting Nobel Peace Prize winners, then the Indian electorate (and the Indian electoral commission) should be nominated. There are after all few more powerful beacons of hope for the millions of disenfranchised around the world than the sight of poor, presumably illiterate Indians queued up outside polling booths waiting to cast their votes for candidates that have time and time again disappointed them.

The justification for the nomination should not be the affirmation of the democratic spirit that such a sight conveys, but the hope that the resolve of the Indian voter to exercise their inalienable right to choose generates for those still bound by the shackles of authoritarianism. The nomination should include the electoral commission because notwithstanding the malevolent influence of muscle and money power, it has in the main ensured a free and fair vote.

... contd.