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It is also the time when new political alliances are forged. Often, an election is also an opportunity for political parties to show their true colors.

In India a general election is scheduled for next month. The media is following the candidates and listing the support and the opposition they have received from various political and non-political sectors.

Top of the list is Varun Gandhi for his spite-inciting speeches which, according to the Election Commission and in all common sense, are objectionable. One could discount Varun for his lack of tolerance and understanding, since the party that he represents – the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has come to his defense – also lacks these.

Also in the fray are big-time political aspirants like Mayawatijee Mayavathi, the supremo of the Bahujan Samaj Party, with its base in Uttar Pradesh state. The BSP has approached the national election as an opportunity to field its candidates nationwide, in an attempt to justify the party's claim as a national party and to boost Mayavathi's chances at claiming the prime minister's office, which she has been eyeing for several years.

Unfortunately for the BSP – which came to power in Uttar Pradesh riding on the votes of the Dalit, the lowest caste in the Hindu system – its candidates in the southernmost state of Kerala are mostly members of the higher castes. One among them, Neelalohidadasan Nadar, is notorious for having a sexual assault charge brought against him while serving as a minister.

The Communists are also displaying chameleonic characteristics. The candidate they have nominated from Kochi, one of only two female candidates supported by mainstream political parties in the state, has approached the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, seeking its blessing.

Sindhu Joy first went to the bishops without informing the media. Later, at the advice of the party leadership, she went again after arranging full media coverage. For a moment, the so-called secularist ideology of the state's communists was thrown out the window, to be replaced by religious regalism.

Kerala was formerly known as Pennarashunadu. The literal translation of the word would be “the land ruled by women.” Kerala has the highest literacy rate among women in the country, yet the mainstream political parties could only find two women candidates.

According to noted poet and critic Professor K. G. Sankarapillai, the most forward community in South Asia – Kerala – is still shackled by traditional orthodoxy, where the role of women is considered to be cooking, washing clothes and giving birth.

In fact, the country seems to have been suffering from intellectual dementia for the past few decades. The people are exercising their right to vote only to send criminals to Parliament, increasing their number every term. Thus the Indian Parliament has come to host such criminals as Laloo Prasad Yadav, the current railway minister, who during his seven years as chief minister of Bihar contributed to the steady degeneration of that state.

The Western world seems to suffer from a similar dementia, with Harvard and other Ivy League universities having invited Laloo to lecture their students. The professors in these universities were only interested in knowing how Laloo made Indian Railways a profit-making business, thereby recovering this national institution from the abyss into which its former heads had pushed it.

The term “profit” has blissfully masked the millions of Biharis who starved and lost their livelihood during Laloo's tenure as chief minister. Neither did the Ivy League intellectuals worry about the corruption charges this criminal was facing, nor were they concerned about the millions he plundered from the national exchequer by allowing his relatives to acquire railway property.

In a political world dominated by persons like Laloo, Varun is just a small fry. The hate for Muslims he has expressed in his speeches is in line with what the BJP and its allies have been arguing and executing in India for several decades. No political party in India can claim that it has not resorted to seeking votes by playing the religion card. Neither can any political party claim that it has not fielded criminals as candidates.

At the end of the day, democracy in India is only an opportunity for the politicians to make sure that they remain in power. For the people, elections mean little more than a black spot on the index finger.

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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)