8/15/2021 In defence of India’s noisy democracy - The Hindu

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In defence of India’s noisy democracy

Patrick Heller
JULY 10, 2021 00:02 IST
UPDATED:
JULY 10, 2021 15:36 IST

In the current moment, it is important to be clear why comparisons with China are
not only specious but also dangerous

C hina’s developmental pathway over the last century has been spectacular. No country
in history has ever grown faster and more dynamically. Not only have hundreds of millions
been lifted out of poverty, but social indicators have improved dramatically. India’s
developmental record has been much more mixed. Since the 1990s, the Indian economy
has grown impressively, but it remains far behind China in its global competitiveness.
Poverty has come down, but employment prospects for the majority remain limited to low-
wage informal sector jobs that are, by definition, precarious. Maybe, most startling of all,

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improvements in basic social development indicators have lagged, so much so that as Jean
Drèze and Amartya Sen have pointed out, India has actually fallen behind Bangladesh and
Pakistan.

The ‘too democratic’ line

Comparing these track records, some commentators, including voices in the Government,
have drawn a facile lesson. India’s problem is that it is just too democratic. Unlike China,
making and implementing key decisions about public investment and various reforms is
impossible in the din of multiple and contradictory democratic voices. What is needed are
firmer and more independent forms of decision-making that are insulated from this
cacophony.

This line of thinking has at various times been embraced by sections of the Left (Leninism)
and multi-lateral technocrats and bankers, but, increasingly, has become the animating
fantasy of right-wing leaders and movements, ranging from elected autocrats such as
Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi. The strangeness of these
bedfellows alone should be cause for alarm. But in the current moment, it is especially
important to be clear why comparisons with China are not only specious, but very
dangerous.

The claim that less democracy is good for development does not stand up to comparative,
theoretical and ethical scrutiny. Contrary to those who believe economic management
cannot be left to the whims of democratic forces, the comparative evidence clearly shows
that democratic regimes have on balance performed better than non-democratic regimes.

China, with a history of state-building going back two millennia, and an exceptionally
well-organised, disciplined and brutal form of authoritarianism, has done especially well
in transforming its economy. Africa and West Asia, where authoritarian governments of
every stripe have dominated, remain world economic laggards. The Latin American
military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s had a terrible economic and social record, and
it was with the return of democracy and the “pink wave” of Left populist parties that
prosperity and social progress were ushered in. Taiwan and South Korea are also
instructive. Their economic take-offs happened under military regimes and relied on
labour repression. Their transitions to democracy saw their economies move up to the next
level and become much more inclusive.

Democracy and development

Most pointedly though, one only has to look within India to understand how development
and democracy can thrive together. By just about any measure, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have
done more to improve the lives of all their citizens across castes and classes than any other
States in India and it is no coincidence that both have also had the longest and most
sustained popular democratic movements and intense party competition in the country. In
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contrast, in Gujarat, where single party Bharatiya Janata Party rule has been in place for
nearly a quarter century, growth has been solid but accompanied by increased social
exclusion and stagnation in educational achievement and poverty reduction. The
comparative record leaves little doubt that on balance, democracies are better at promoting
inclusive growth.
The theory behind the authoritarian fantasy also does not hold up. First, the assumption
that authoritarianism supports forms of decision-making that can rise above the hubbub
of democratic demand-making to get things done presumes that those in command will
serve the general interest rather than catering to the powerful and that when they enjoy
such autonomy, they actually know what to do with it. This is just hubris. On both these
points, democracies are in fact more likely to meet the necessary conditions for successful
decision making. Elected representatives, no matter how venal, have to win re-election,
which means answering to a broad swath of the electorate.

It allows negotiation
The conflicts and noise that democracy generates may complicate things, but in the end,
having to respond to a broad spectrum of interests and identities not only protects against
catastrophic decisions, but actually allows for forms of negotiation and compromise that
can bridge across interests and even balance otherwise conflicting imperatives for growth,
justice, sustainability and social inclusion. The remarkable progress the United Progressive
Alliance governments made in building a welfare state (National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act, the Right To Information, the right to food and other programmes) is a
testament to how a democracy can master even the most complex policy goals. As
democratic theorists have long argued, the common good cannot and should not be
determined by science, profits, technocrats or autocratic fiat. What it is and how we get
there can only emerge out of sustained societal deliberation.

A look at China
India’s tryst with democracy was born not only of its liberation movement but also of its
affinity with what makes democracy ethically unique: it promotes equality by endowing all
citizens with the same civic, political and social rights even as it protects and nurtures
individuality and difference. And this is where the China-India comparison is so
problematic, indeed unconscionable.
However one might like to measure or evaluate China’s development successes, there is no
way to discount the human cost of the party-made great famine that took some 35 million
lives, a cultural revolution that made enemies out of neighbours, a one child policy that
devastated families and erased a generation or the violent, systematic repression of the
Uyghur Muslim and Tibetan minorities. These were not unfortunate excesses or the
inevitable costs of development. These were and are the irredeemable instincts and
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predations of an authoritarian state, one which now denounces as “historical nihilism” any
interpretations of the past that challenge the party’s official history. Conversely, while
India’s democracy has been quarrelsome, cumbersome and often dominated by elites, it has
also opened social and political spaces for subordinate groups and has built a sense of
shared identity and belonging in the world’s largest and most diverse society. It has
preserved individual liberties, group identities and religious and thought freedoms, all the
things that confer recognition on human beings. To even pose the question of a trade-off
between these freedoms and the role they have played in building a pluralistic nation and
some cold, utilitarian calculus of “development” not only does violence to the very idea of
human agency and dignity but completely abstracts from the very different social and
historical realities of India and China.

There is a backslide
Beyond these comparative arguments for democracy, one need look no further than the
object lesson the BJP government has provided to dismiss the authoritarian fantasy. The
democratic backsliding has been clear. The Government has not only sought to centralise,
insulate and personalise decision-making but has also aggressively undermined the
independence of democratic institutions and silenced and imprisoned Opposition voices,
all in the name of nationalism and promoting development. Yet, the development track is
dismal at best. While corporate business interests and the billionaire class have flourished,
the overall economy has sputtered and since COVID-19 has experienced the worst
contraction of any sizeable economy in the world. Demonetisation and the disastrous
response to the second COVID-19 wave were not just instances of utter policy incoherence
fuelled by the sycophancy and myopia that comes with an inwardly focused government,
but exposed a degree of callousness and arrogance rarely seen in a democracy. On the social
front, the pursuit of Hindutva — a prototypical variant of authoritarian ethnic nationalism
— has shaken India’s democratic norms and institutional foundations and weaponised a
politics of polarisation and demonisation that threaten to unravel the social fabric of the
nation.
Rather than look to China, it is time to defend the noise of Indian democracy.

Patrick Heller is Professor of International Affairs and Sociology, Brown University, U.S.

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