A world record of 969 million citizens are called to the polls for what some see as a referendum on one man. India is about to embark on the world's biggest election, staggered over seven weeks, with Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP expected to extend its solid lead in parliament. Modi has been pointing to a decade of unprecedented growth and power for a nation courted by the West and beyond.
The opposition warns of growing inequality and democratic backsliding. Court cases that are deemed political dog its leader Rahul Gandhi, as well the popular chief minister of Delhi, who's currently in jail for alleged ties to a corruption case.
So as India moves from the country to the city, as the literacy rate rises, what kind of a democracy is it? And what do the majority of its 1.4 billion people want?
Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Guillaume Gougeon and Imen Mellaz.
