The Economic Implications of the Purported New Political Dawn in India

As India has had been on the election trail in the recent past, what we are repeatedly told is that Indian politics is at the door steps of a new dawn. We are told that a new savior is on the way to change the face of Indian democracy substituting the said to be failed existing model with another model said to be successful somewhere else. We have also heard so much about the pros and corns of this transformation in the offing. But here the issue is not whether someone is fit enough for bringing about such a change or not or whether a particular model is successful or not, rather the issue is what are the potential economic implications of this new political dawn in Indian democracy? First, it means that we have wasted our past sixty years after independence as we failed to develop a political consensus regarding our development strategies. In that sense, this new dawn is akin to scratching our head with burning stick. For, the political exercises like election and selection of executive are means which should not confused with ends- people’s wellbeing. We undertake this sort of exercises not simply for the sake of these exercises or for the sake of the personal glorification of those who are clinging to such political exercises for decades. Instead, we, the people of India, take part in such democratic exercises spending huge amount of resources with the ultimate aim of building a prosperous and powerful India in all respects. For achieving that ultimate goal democracy has to play a pivotal role.

 Second, the new dawn implies beginning of a new policy regime of all sorts especially economic policies implying political and economic discontinuity instead of political and economic continuity and thereby stability. How India’s democracy can afford to cry out for a new political beginning of this kind disregarding the virtues of the past?  Can we expect to build a prosperous India in a discontinuous India? Never! Because, prosperity is a dynamic process which requires not discreet or static policy regimes but continuous and uninterrupted policy regimes. How can we achieve something dynamic  in a static environment? Let us not forget the historical reality that it was continuity along with stability that made countries like United States one of the richest countries of the world. Acemoglu and Robinson (2013) in their book  Why Nations Fail has pointed out this referring to the forces behind US development as a rich country that political institutions ensured stability and continuity. For one thing, they made sure that there was no risk of a dictator taking power and changing the rules of the game ………… How can we induce private investment in a country characterized by the discontinuous political and economic regimes even after sixty years of its independence? Shouldn’t we feel ashamed over the fact that we miserably failed even to develop a consensus regarding our development strategies even after sixty years of democratic experience? Hence, a pinch of caution would be desirable to be applied to those arguments that all out transformation of the system that we have now is in the best interest of the country.