Democracies are supposed to be led by intellectuals

One notable event this week is the selection of a Sikh economist as the new Prime Minister of India - also the first non-Hindu Prime Minister of India.

Sikh !=Hindu.

This kingmaking almost twenty years after the Prime Minister to be, Sonia Gandhi's mother in law Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for the storming of the Golden Temple. That Sonia gives up the Prime Ministership in the face of primarily BJP and Hindu fundamentalist opposition over her status as somebody not born Indian - and to somebody from a minority group that has bad blood with her family - says something about her party's willingness to heal old wounds, and speaks of a country comfortable with diversity.