Some people claim that India's lack of rapid economic growth is due to our democracy.
This brings me to a critical question. Can a poor society like India's afford democracy? Is democracy a luxury of the OECD countries? For someone who lives in one of the poorest regions of India and who puts his thumbprint to vote for which ever political candidate that gives him a kg of rice, does democracy matter? Democracy does not satisfy hunger pangs or lack of clothing.
India's founding fathers had the entire developmental model wrong. They should have focused on India's basic problems and solved them before opening up the pandora of democracy. Now we are stuck with an obstructionist system where each political lobby (the leftists, the rightists and the corruptists) has to be paid off before the country can move forward an inch.
Make no mistake, India's growth is being suffocated before our eyes.
This brings me to a critical question. Can a poor society like India's afford democracy? Is democracy a luxury of the OECD countries? For someone who lives in one of the poorest regions of India and who puts his thumbprint to vote for which ever political candidate that gives him a kg of rice, does democracy matter? Democracy does not satisfy hunger pangs or lack of clothing.
India's founding fathers had the entire developmental model wrong. They should have focused on India's basic problems and solved them before opening up the pandora of democracy. Now we are stuck with an obstructionist system where each political lobby (the leftists, the rightists and the corruptists) has to be paid off before the country can move forward an inch.
Make no mistake, India's growth is being suffocated before our eyes.
1 comment:
I'm not sure about this. What you say about the pace of growth is true - we are moving at snail pace and the political parties are to blame. But without a democracy who's to say we wouldnt have ended up like Pakistan, South Korea or Burma? Or been cut up into 25 different countries by now? Dem ocracy slows growth, true, but the growth that does happen is organic and sustainable. The bad scenario in with non-democratic set up is a lot more nasty than one in a democratic one. Especially in a big country like India where the Singapore model cannot be replicated. Or can it? Self, Saroj and Akshay had an extensive discussion on this subject once(over many rounds of beer and black pepper crab) - you should have been there.
Post a Comment