SPEAKING
FREELY India
waits for democracy with
benefits By Pushkar
Is
democracy good for improving health, education and
the overall well-being of a nation's peoples? If
yes, how long does it take for democracy's effects
to show up?
There are two competing
perspectives on the relationship between democracy
and human development. The first contends that
democracy has beneficial effects on human
development whereas the second claims that
democracy has no clear effects on the well-being
of people. Both perspectives have some merit. Let
me elaborate.
There is a growing body of
cross-national research which finds that
democracies outperform dictatorships in achieving
superior human development. However, proponents of
the so-called 'democracy advantage' thesis, like
John Gerring at Boston
University, find that
democracy's good effects only show up after a few
decades when countries accumulate 'democratic
stock'. Democracy over time helps in the building
of greater amounts of physical, human, social and
political capital, all of which have positive
consequences for economic growth and human
development.
The causal mechanisms linking
democracy to improvements in human development -
such as political competition, civil society
activism and ideational changes in terms of a
'culture of equality' - are said to become more
effective when a country sustains democratic rule
over the long term.
A second group of
scholars insist that democracy has no clear
effects on human development and related
indicators such as poverty. According to Ashutosh
Varshney, democracies do prevent worst-case
outcomes but are typically 'slow and steady, not
spectacular, in attacking poverty'.
Poverty, as is well known, has direct
ill-effects on health especially in countries with
weak or non-existent public health and welfare
systems. Some of the research also shows that
dictators provide at least some public goods, like
primary education and routine immunization, better
than democrats.
Where
does India fit in the 'democracy advantage'
debate? The answer seems obvious enough. Even the
Planning Commission in its India Human Development
Report 2011 acknowledges that 'India's performance
is the worst in terms of underweight children,
infant mortality and under-five mortality' not
only among the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia,
India and China) but also in South Asia. A recent
report indicates that India lags behind even
Pakistan - neither a stable democracy nor a model
for social development - in reducing hunger.
Overall, more than 60 years of nearly
uninterrupted democratic rule has failed to
deliver good health and even moderate levels of
human development for a majority of Indians.
Theorizing India's poor human development
record is not easy. Many of us would be inclined
to agree with the Brazilian sociologist and former
president Fernando Henrique Cardoso that democracy
is simply a starting point which allows us to
begin addressing social justice issues. Democracy
certainly does not guarantee an immediate solution
to the problems that afflict poorer countries
whether it is poverty, disease, and social
inequalities. But India, critics will argue with
good reason, has been democratic long enough for
democracy's good effects to kick in.
Amartya Sen provides another way of making
sense of India's under-performance in improving
the lives of common people. He reasons that "what
a democratic system achieves depends greatly on
which social conditions become political issues".
What this means is that human development deficits
in areas such as health must become key political
issues over which political parties compete for
power and citizens decide their vote. The question
is: why has health not become a key political
issue when a greater number of Indians, especially
children, die from poor health every year than
have died from ethnic conflicts over the past
several decades?
Surveys carried out by
Lokniti, Delhi, show that a majority of Indians
relate democracy to 'justice' and 'welfare' and
believe that 'basic necessities for all' is a far
more 'essential element' of democracy than 'equal
rights' or 'opportunity to change the government'.
Access to health and those public goods that
enable good health is a basic necessity.
Therefore, it is quite surprising that,
with some exceptions, Indians have not been able
to inspire or force ruling governments at the
national or state level to address health issues
with any degree of commitment. As such, India is,
as Bhanu Pratap Mehta puts it, "a representative
system" with "question marks about the degree to
which it is responsive".
India's health
and human development performance is hardly an
endorsement for the democracy advantage thesis. In
all fairness, however, a small number of states
other than Kerala have done fairly well in
improving the health of their peoples. Between
1980 and 2010, Goa, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and Punjab reduced
infant mortality rates by 70% or more. Missing
from the list, however, are some of the most
populous states in the country - Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar and Madhya Pradesh - where people continue
to wait for democracy's good effects to show up.
Pushkar, who goes by one name,
has a Phd in political science (McGill University)
and is based in Gurgaon, India. He is a monthly
columnist for EDU
(http://www.edu-leaders.com/resources/magazine)
where he writes on the state of India's higher
education. He has previously taught at Concordia
University, McGill University and the University
of Ottawa in Canada.
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