India’s loudest political fight obscures a more urgent one The country’s collapsing cities could benefit from plans to redraw the electoral map May 21st 2026 THE DISAGREEMENTS between India’s north and south are sometimes ill-tempered and often tedious. The north is poor, procreates prodigiously and reliably votes for Narendra Modi. The south is prosperous and less fecund and does not. The two have different historical experiences (Muslim empires made fewer inroads down the peninsula) and different linguistic lineages (their languages come from distinct families) and prefer different carbohydrates. The rice-eating south caricatures roti-munching northerners as barbarians imposing an alien culture upon them.
This schism was at the heart of recent shenanigans in Parliament. Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) introduced a package of reforms that aimed to boost the number of seats in India’s lower house from 543 to 850, to redistribute them between states to reflect demographic changes, and to reserve a third of them for women. Opposition leaders—particularly from the south—called it a power grab dressed up as an effort to empower women. The bills failed. Southern states are not wrong to worry about losing out. Under those recent proposals, their heft in Parliament would diminish while BJP strongholds in the north would grow more influential. Nor is it wrong to suspect the motives of the BJP, which put forward the measures without consultation. But the north has the facts and democratic fairness on its side. MPs in northern Uttar Pradesh on average represent a fifth more voters than those in southern Tamil Nadu. Eventually this imbalance will have to be fixed, probably after a fresh census is held next year. The sensible way to do it would be with cool heads and compromise. The BJP way is to steamroller opponents. The drama has a long way to run. Yet the battles that the north and south wage over the electoral system obscure a problem that is just as important, but much less noticed: across India, voters in cities get far too little say. On average, metropolitan MPs represent a tenth more voters than those in the countryside, and in many places the disparity is much worse. Bangalore’s four seats hold as many voters as six average rural ones. Only one of the 20 constituencies with the biggest electorates is fully rural. Some of India’s most unpleasant towns— hello, Ghaziabad—are the most underrepresented. India’s industrialised southern states complain that they are often treated shoddily despite the chunky contributions they make to national coffers. Cities can make the same claim, but better. Some 40% of Indians live in urban areas but they produce nearly 60% of GDP. In return they get broken footpaths, potholed roads, poor public transport, unbreathable air, sewage- clogged waterways and piles of festering rubbish. Imagine what they might be capable of if their towns were liveable. A fair redistricting would boost the number of seats by a sixth in India’s six biggest cities alone, according to The Economist’s calculations. And
expanding the house would bring additional benefits. Suburban and semi- urban bits of the country are fast-growing, but often belong to large rural constituencies. A bigger house with smaller districts would see these broken into more sensible divisions. Together, redistricting and expansion would raise urban India’s share of MPs to something like its share of the population. Governments might finally start taking seriously the omnishambles of city life. One of India’s absurdities is that its states run cities like colonies. A measure to grant urban areas more autonomy, enacted over three decades ago, was a miserable failure. They do elect councillors but actual power lies with short- tenure, state-appointed bureaucrats. Mayors are figureheads. City councils are decorative. Rural regions have the dominant voice in state houses. Redistricting would take in state government, too, giving urban voters more influence in those houses. There is precedent for this: when states shuffled seats within their borders two decades ago, Bangalore’s provincial representation jumped to 28 from 16. The city is still dysfunctional, but it is one of the only places in India where the state is experimenting with a new metropolitan authority that might improve it. Electoral reform will not magically fix all of urban India’s problems. But it will remedy at least one of India’s overlapping crises of representation. The noisy southern states command attention with their anti-roti grievances. Yet it is the cosmopolitan cities, where all carbohydrates are welcome, that have the bigger complaint. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/05/17/indias-loudest-political-fight-obscures- a-more-urgent-one
India’s diplomats are hosting the world But what is getting done? May 21st 2026 India’s determination to stay on good terms with all major powers often proves awkward. A traffic jam of meetings in Delhi this month is making its acrobatics look especially complex. On May 14th India welcomed foreign ministers from the BRICS—a bloc of 11 countries including China and Russia who like to complain about Western hegemony. On May 26th it will host foreign ministers from America, Australia and Japan—who with India make up the “Quad” of countries seeking to check China’s rise. “May is a live minefield for India,” says Constantino Xavier at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a think-tank in Delhi. The BRICS meeting was overshadowed by the war in the Gulf. These days the grouping includes both Iran and the United Arab Emirates, whose armed
forces have been exchanging blows. So it is no great surprise that the talks concluded without a joint statement. For India this was probably a relief; it would not have approved language that condemned America for the violence. It much prefers BRICS to focus on things no one can dislike. One of its priorities as its chair in 2026 is to promote a “mission for healthy lifestyles”. If core members of BRICS find India disappointingly cautious, the country has sometimes also been seen as a nervy partner for the Quad. Now that bloc is on life-support, in large part because Donald Trump, who is chasing Chinese business deals, appears to have lost interest in it. The other member countries, for their part, have lost trust in Mr Trump. Foreign diplomats in Delhi think the Quad could yet achieve some modest advances in security. These would include building interoperable naval and communications systems, and working to break China’s stranglehold on critical minerals and emerging technologies. But no one expects breakthroughs at the meeting in Delhi this month. The best result of the foreign ministers’ talks might be to approve plans for another meeting. India hopes a gaffe-free gathering will persuade Mr Trump to come to its capital for a summit of Quad leaders later this year. Such a visit was supposed to have taken place in 2025, but was called off when Mr Trump began hiking tariffs on Indian exports. Some in the foreign ministry and prime minister’s office have begun asking if India has signed up to too many initiatives and coalitions, inflating expectations of its capacity and courage. These days “there is less domestic benefit in playing global host,” thinks Dan Markey, an expert on China and South Asia at the Stimson Centre, a think-tank in Washington. Leaders of big powers are giving up the pretence of consulting large groups of the sort India likes to chair. While India was hosting the BRICS ministers, Mr Trump and Xi Jinping were meeting one-on-one in Beijing. Others think India should become much more forthright about the big issues of the day. “We should be able to say to both America and Iran: ‘You cannot hold the world hostage like this’,” says Shivshankar Menon, a former Indian national security adviser and foreign secretary. For years the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, sold India as a vishwaguru, or teacher to the
world. Yet India very often seems reluctant to divulge what, precisely, it wants the world to learn. ■ Stay on top of our India coverage by signing up to Essential India, our free weekly newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/05/21/indias-diplomats-are-hosting-the-world
Overseas Chinese risk losing their oldest institutions Clan associations must change to survive May 21st 2026 Tourists in Georgetown, a city on the Malaysian island of Penang, love to pose by a well-known piece of street art depicting two children on a bicycle. Most of them miss the ornate building on the other side of the wall: home to Cheah Kongsi, one of Penang’s richest Chinese clan associations, founded in 1810 (pictured). For two centuries such groups served migrants fleeing violence and poverty in China. Now they face a new challenge: the apathy of the young. South-East Asia is home to about 80% of the world’s overseas Chinese. Clan associations, along with Chinese-language schools and Chinese newspapers, are one of the three pillars of overseas Chinese society, according to Hong