The Hindu : Democracy and development

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 03, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Democracy and development

By C. Rammanohar Reddy

In India, democratic deficits are growing alongside its uninterrupted record (other than during the Emergency) in electoral democracy.

IF HUMAN development is about expanding people's choices to lead the lives they value, then democratic rights should surely be an integral part of this concept of development. Democracy then is an end, to be valued for itself. But because, in theory, democracy gives the citizen a voice to demand, for example, good education, health services and an enabling environment for higher incomes it is also an instrument for expanding human development.

It is therefore surprising that in its constant endeavour to refine the concept of human development, the annual Human Development Report (HDR) of the United Nations Development Programme has, other than one half-hearted attempt in the early 1990s, avoided a discussion of democracy. The 2002 edition of the HDR has set out to correct this anomaly. It is not a discussion that will satisfy everyone because, first of all, the HDR, as always, makes a sanitised presentation of the more contentious issues in the exercise of democratic rights. Second, it prefers to reduce every socio-economic phenomenon to a measurable number. This may be its strength — as demonstrated in the growing popularity of the human development index (HDI) — but when the practice of democracy in each country too is measured by a variety of numbers, this creates problems of its own kind.

Such failings apart, the HDR this year is interesting for both highlighting the importance of democratic processes in human development outcomes as well as for pointing out what is self-evident but is often forgotten in Western analysis, that there is no straightforward relationship between democratic practices and economic outcomes.

To take the second subject first, we are the best example there can be of a democracy failing to provide a measure of decent well-being to a majority of the citizenry. While we can take justifiable pride in the deep roots that electoral democracy has taken at home; dictatorships and semi-dictatorships have raced ahead in ensuring a higher level of human development, when measured in terms of income, education and health. This leads at times to an ill-informed expression of disgust towards democracy and a corresponding (ill-informed) preference for some form of dictatorship. The HDR's review of the research on the links between democracy and economic development leads it to conclude, not surprisingly, that there is no clear relationship between the two. The best that can be said is that "democracy appears to prevent the worst outcomes, even if it does not guarantee the best ones". This may not be the best advertisement for democracies (irrespective of the fact that democratic rights are to be valued for themselves), but this does lead to the question about why is it that democracies sometimes fail in ensuring better economic outcomes. This is where issues other than elections and voter turnout become important in strengthening the links between democracy and human development.

The HDR postulates a two-way relationship between political freedom and human development. Democratic rights enable people to demand improvements in their human development status, as in education and health. At the same time, education, for instance, "increases their ability to demand economic and social policies that respond to their priorities". But for this virtuous circle to be set in motion it is not enough to have regular and universal elections.

The weaknesses in the instrumental connection between political freedoms and human development have to do with the "democratic deficits", as the HDR calls them. These deficits are of many kinds. One, there is the lack of accountability in democratic institutions. Legislators are held accountable only at election time. Two, the checks and balances between the Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary are often sufficiently weakened to prevent the exercise of accountability. Three, corruption, money power and criminalisation together can subvert democratic institutions. Four, discrimination which is institutionalised by society — in gender, community and socio-economic status — means that participation in democratic processes can often be only of symbolic value. Five, centralisation of executive powers in a democracy reduces even further the strength of people's voices, especially when they are about the delivery of social services.

These are the more obvious problems with the practice of democracy today. The situation varies from country to country. Where electoral democracy has been the practice for a longer period are not necessarily the countries where the imperfections are less common. In India, democratic deficits are growing alongside its uninterrupted record (other than during the Emergency) in electoral democracy.

India's record in some areas is eulogised in the HDR 2002. The independence and activism of its judiciary comes in for special mention. So too the system of panchayati raj as an example of successful decentralisation. But a majority of Indian citizens would not be impressed with these certificates from the UNDP. When it comes to exercising the right to vote, Indians may show a far greater determination than voters in `more mature' democracies. That is the one time when the people's representatives are held accountable for their quality of governance. But their general experience with the institutions of democracy is an increasingly unhappy one. Subversion of institutions through corruption and criminalisation is common. Elite capture of the Legislature and the Executive takes many forms and routes — through money, caste and religion.

Even decentralisation and the Judiciary — the HDR's two examples of successes — are not processes and institutions the Indian citizen is entirely happy about. More than 15 years after the first serious attempt at decentralisation was carried out in Karnataka and nearly a decade after the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, in no State has decentralisation made a measurable difference to governance. The promises and claimed successes are many. But the reality has been different largely on account of subversion, elite capture and insufficient political support.

The record of the Judiciary too has been less than exemplary. How can it be otherwise, when one Chief Justice of India was compelled to publicly state that 20 per cent of the judicial officers in the subordinate courts are corrupt?

We may demand, as the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, did when presented with a copy of the HDR 2002, that as a democracy of half-a-century India should be placed higher in the global ranking of achievements in human development. But be it in the practice of democracy or progress in the components (income, health and education) that currently make up the HDI, we cannot honestly claim to belong elsewhere than in the bottom echelons of the medium human development group of countries.

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