Like a lumbering elephant embarking on an epic trek, India’s general election got under way this week. That it keeps going is something of a miracle. The scale is mind-boggling. It will be spread over five stages, taking four weeks and involving 6.5m staff. In 543 constituencies, 4,617 candidates, representing some 300 parties, will compete for the ballots of an electorate of 714m eligible voters. In 828,804 polling stations, 1,368,430 simple, robust and apparently tamper-proof electronic voting machines will be deployed.