Indian scenario

♤ However, there is a school of thought that highlights the negative correlation between democratic institutions and economic development. Some have maintained that democratic regimes are in general less capable of managing effective economic development than authoritarian regimes.

♤ The central premise of this reasoning stems from the observation that development requires change, and that change affects some voters adversely. So governments dependent on electoral support in the next election will typically tend to avoid choices that impose hardship on significant numbers of voters.

♤ In India this is a norm. Election years’ witnesses’ series of populist measures targeted at different voter groups and fiscal discipline is thrown out the window. This trend, in fact, has corrosive impact on the Indian democracy.

♤ Numerous analysts are skeptical of India’s ability to leverage its democracy for national development, arguing that special interests and inadequate per capita wealth make India still unsuitable terrain for true democracy.

♤ Political commentator like Fareed Zakaria argues “What we need in politics today is not more democracy but less." Allowing politics to be guided by the principles of the market will save democracy from itself, particularly in a billion-person state. Especially in country where, as Arun Shourie sometimes complains, "everyone has a veto."

♤ There is also the reverse argument as well. That India needs more democracy of the local, civic kind in order to break free of its notorious bureaucratic culture of red-tape and corruption.

♤ In a country as variegated as India, expanding individual freedoms and local empowerment are the keys to more equitable development. Particularly at low incomes, Amartya Sen famously argues in Development as Freedom, the intensity of economic needs requires the constructive involvement of target populations to both define and exercise their rights. Short of this, democracy is neither responsiveness nor a successful vehicle for delivery.