Is Democracy India’s Bane?

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:12 PM PST

By Ravi Radhanpura:

India, a country of 1.2 billion people, boasts to be the largest democratic set up in the world.
Along with this, it also is a country allowing dozens of religions, hundreds of languages,
thousands of castes and sects and millions of Gods. Thus, it is also today, the most chaotic and
controversial democratic set up in the world! One can surely argue for the fact that Democracy
has hampered rather than boosted India’s progress.

There are several reasons that prove ardent proponents against this belief wrong. In the
backdrop of such a massive administration, India houses politicians and so called
crony, corruptand uneducated leaders of society. More than half the members of parliament in
Lok Sabha face one or the other criminal charges. There is a huge list of scams and scandals by
ministers and petty bureaucrats under almost every government regime and what happens in
the end is nothing except discussions. This is one of the primary weaknesses of Indian polity. In
the face of problems, the democratic set up allows culprits to exploit situations on the basis of
religion, caste, language or in recent times coalition weightage.

In other developing countries, the Government policies do reach the lowest strata of the
society with much transparency unlike India and thus countries like South Korea, South Africa
are much highly ranked in termed of socio economic development and transparency. In India,
we have interpretation of laws and policies so as to make rich richer and poor poorer. Multi
layered governance and innumerable amendments or laws for people to protect themselves,
lead to utter chaos even in the event of exposure of any illegal practise. India’s constitutional
framework which guarantees impartial democratic rights to all, is perhaps the most complex
and misinterpreted in the world.

Moreover, a very important point of difference between India and other countries is that in
India, people have the power to vote out a government as quick as a swish of an eye. This
periodic renewals of governments and polity through ballot box deters single minded focus on
development and results in varied agenda and undue wastage of time in fixing and re fixing
policies.

On the economic front, India has travelled from being a closed and protected socialistic
economy to a liberalized economy overnight in 1991-92. This marked an era of democratization
of businesses and economy. But, I guess the effects of such a gesture have stopped reaping
benefits. Today, industrial output is pegged at an abysmal 1.6%, whereas price rise as much as
16.7%. Such a free scenario has led to a roller coaster ride for the market, commodities razing
down the agricultural set up, a steady decline in agricultural output over the last 2 decades,
massive migration and urbanisation leading to more and more unemployment and polarization
of development initiatives. India still stores more than 50% of its unemployed population as
unemployable. There is a huge disparity between income levels, standards of living and human
resources development among different regions of the country. Whereas India’s very neighbour
China and a small island nearby Singapore, both being non liberalized or democratized
countries boast much better development, rate of growth and better income levels . This is
when china moved from social/cultural revolution to economic initiatives in late 80s, almost
the same time as India. Today, projects in India take years and years from planning to
execution stage with budgets for them increasing several fold. The inclusion of indigenous
fighter combat planes TEJAS is one such bare example of the hypocrisy of our democratic set
up. Today, India instead of building on its brand image in meets like davos, has to defend its
image as a non corrupt and idealistic country.

It is said that a country is marked by how it treats both its patriots and traitors. Today, in
India, we struggle to convict a flagged telecom minister who has lost us 1.76 Lakh crore
rupees, or a tainted chief minister in corruption, we have a terrorist whom we cannot punish, a
state that we cannot treat normally or businesses whom we can direct honestly. India,
shamefully is facing challenges and identity crises within its so called democratic set up.

Today, we overlook all our problems with a very simple and cowardly statement, “This is
India”, but my friends one should remember that with great powers come greater
responsibilities. We need a Hero, an Idea, a revolution to make things happen. We need an
answer to this so called crony democratic society whose false veil is now lifted for the world to
see us.