IN the polling booth I was suddenly struck: there, I was alone, one vote among millions, one speck in the flow of 170 million human beings, probably fragments of whispers that will never be heard. These are the general elections: my status—a number.

In that confined space, I spent a few minutes looking at the sheets of paper I had been given. A row of pictures. A lot of names, 99 percent of which I did not know. And if there were any I knew, t