A baby born in Kerala in India’s south has a greater probability of surviving to age 5 than in the US. In Uttar Pradesh within the north, the percentages are worse than in Afghanistan.

As India goes to polls in a few weeks to elect its subsequent authorities, pundits’ focus might be on the Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hypnotic sway on the landlocked, impoverished north. The south’s rejection of the chief and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, might be brushed apart as a result of it might not change the general end result. That is a mistake.