RISING SUN
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India Needs More Democracy, Not Less
More than ever, Indians believe that their government is not keeping pace with their expectations. In the last two years, India has seen two groundswells of popular protest in which crowds largely composed of middle-class urbanites have taken to the streets to demand a more accountable and responsive government. Beginning in the summer of 2011, tens of thousands of citizens joined in anticorruption demonstrations led by Anna Hazare, the social activist who agitated for reform after a series of high-profile scandals implicated ruling politicians and their cronies in taking billions of dollars of graft. More recently, thousands assembled to mourn a 23-year-old woman who died after being brutally gang-raped and to demand greater government protection of citizens safety.
The moral outrage is entirely justified, and the factors linked to Indias governance woes are well known -- a rise in corruption, cronyism, and criminalism among the ranks of elected officials, and a crushing government bureaucracy. However, the root causes mostly go unexplored. For starters, the apparent increase in corruption and criminalism in India is, in part, the product of two positive developments: increased transparency and rapid economic growth. In addition, the proliferation of elected politicians with criminal records, although deplorable, is a direct response to rational voter choices -- voters select the politicians who they believe can work Indias ineffectual state to their advantage.
In turn, the remedies to these problems are somewhat counterintuitive. Although India is often accused of having too much democracy (a billion and a quarter clamoring voices makes policymaking difficult), it could actually use more: a more engaged citizenry, more institution building, and a better-staffed bureaucracy.
THE BEST DISINFECTANT
In part, Indians feel corruption now more than ever because of improved transparency: dirt is more visible where there is sunlight. Recently, agencies designed to increase government accountability, namely the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), have started to assert their independence. The CAG has eagerly brought to light scandals ranging from sweetheart deals for 2G telecommunications spectrum licenses to the murky distribution of coal mining licenses (leading to the scandal known as Coalgate). These institutions, and the vibrant and growing news media, have made it very difficult for the government to conduct its business as usual.
But it is also true that the scope for corruption is on the rise. As the political scientist Samuel Huntington recognized more than four decades ago, corruption is an inevitable byproduct of economic modernization. In India, increased economic productivity triggered by liberalization provided elites with new opportunities to self-deal. Sustained rapid growth, for instance, created a huge demand for energy. Increased demand, coupled with rising commodity prices, made rent seeking in the natural resource sector all the more lucrative. And unlike other industries, which have been reformed over the years, the public sector in India retains control over the commanding heights, or the critical sectors that dominate economic activity, such as power, mining, and petrochemicals. Government agents have thus been able to easily collude with extractive industries and reap windfall gains. And federalism, in turn, has multiplied the number of actors with their hands in the till.
In the words of one senior government adviser, Indians have not become more corrupt, it is just that the opportunities for corruption have increased due to higher growth. All this means that, for now, corruption will continue to rise as India continues to grow. This is especially true in the poor Indian states that are just now rapidly expanding, such as Bihar. Today, Bihar, which registers among the highest growth rates of any Indian state, is helmed by Nitish Kumar, a reformist chief minister. Kumar has earnestly attempted to turn the state around following 15 years of misrule under Lalu Prasad Yadav, his predecessor. The most notorious corruption scandal during Yadavs Jungle Raj, as it was known, was the fodder scam, in which the chief minister and his cronies allegedly fabricated vast herds of fictitious livestock in order to embezzle funds from the states animal husbandry department. Paradoxically, while Bihar today may have a less corrupt executive in Kumar, the state is likely to encounter more rent seeking as the economy enters the industrial era and invests in big-ticket infrastructure, energy, and road-building projects.
India Needs More Democracy, Not Less | Foreign Affairs
More than ever, Indians believe that their government is not keeping pace with their expectations. In the last two years, India has seen two groundswells of popular protest in which crowds largely composed of middle-class urbanites have taken to the streets to demand a more accountable and responsive government. Beginning in the summer of 2011, tens of thousands of citizens joined in anticorruption demonstrations led by Anna Hazare, the social activist who agitated for reform after a series of high-profile scandals implicated ruling politicians and their cronies in taking billions of dollars of graft. More recently, thousands assembled to mourn a 23-year-old woman who died after being brutally gang-raped and to demand greater government protection of citizens safety.
The moral outrage is entirely justified, and the factors linked to Indias governance woes are well known -- a rise in corruption, cronyism, and criminalism among the ranks of elected officials, and a crushing government bureaucracy. However, the root causes mostly go unexplored. For starters, the apparent increase in corruption and criminalism in India is, in part, the product of two positive developments: increased transparency and rapid economic growth. In addition, the proliferation of elected politicians with criminal records, although deplorable, is a direct response to rational voter choices -- voters select the politicians who they believe can work Indias ineffectual state to their advantage.
In turn, the remedies to these problems are somewhat counterintuitive. Although India is often accused of having too much democracy (a billion and a quarter clamoring voices makes policymaking difficult), it could actually use more: a more engaged citizenry, more institution building, and a better-staffed bureaucracy.
THE BEST DISINFECTANT
In part, Indians feel corruption now more than ever because of improved transparency: dirt is more visible where there is sunlight. Recently, agencies designed to increase government accountability, namely the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), have started to assert their independence. The CAG has eagerly brought to light scandals ranging from sweetheart deals for 2G telecommunications spectrum licenses to the murky distribution of coal mining licenses (leading to the scandal known as Coalgate). These institutions, and the vibrant and growing news media, have made it very difficult for the government to conduct its business as usual.
But it is also true that the scope for corruption is on the rise. As the political scientist Samuel Huntington recognized more than four decades ago, corruption is an inevitable byproduct of economic modernization. In India, increased economic productivity triggered by liberalization provided elites with new opportunities to self-deal. Sustained rapid growth, for instance, created a huge demand for energy. Increased demand, coupled with rising commodity prices, made rent seeking in the natural resource sector all the more lucrative. And unlike other industries, which have been reformed over the years, the public sector in India retains control over the commanding heights, or the critical sectors that dominate economic activity, such as power, mining, and petrochemicals. Government agents have thus been able to easily collude with extractive industries and reap windfall gains. And federalism, in turn, has multiplied the number of actors with their hands in the till.
In the words of one senior government adviser, Indians have not become more corrupt, it is just that the opportunities for corruption have increased due to higher growth. All this means that, for now, corruption will continue to rise as India continues to grow. This is especially true in the poor Indian states that are just now rapidly expanding, such as Bihar. Today, Bihar, which registers among the highest growth rates of any Indian state, is helmed by Nitish Kumar, a reformist chief minister. Kumar has earnestly attempted to turn the state around following 15 years of misrule under Lalu Prasad Yadav, his predecessor. The most notorious corruption scandal during Yadavs Jungle Raj, as it was known, was the fodder scam, in which the chief minister and his cronies allegedly fabricated vast herds of fictitious livestock in order to embezzle funds from the states animal husbandry department. Paradoxically, while Bihar today may have a less corrupt executive in Kumar, the state is likely to encounter more rent seeking as the economy enters the industrial era and invests in big-ticket infrastructure, energy, and road-building projects.
India Needs More Democracy, Not Less | Foreign Affairs
