What ails India - Overpopulation or corruption?

Answer 1

India's main problem is it's so-called "democracy".

India adopted "democracy" before it was ready for it. Both corruption and overpopulation are symptoms of India's main problem, and not the main causes.

What India needed was an early period of benign and unifying dictatorship that focussed on eliminating societal divisions, eradicating illiteracy and creating employment, thus readying its people for meaningful democracy.

The word "democracy" stands for "people's rule". This implies that the people in question are capable of ruling, or, in other words, capable of voting for the right people to rule. Proper voting requires a certain minimum level of social awareness and sense of responsibility.

If the vast majority of a population is illiterate and uneducated, social awareness is poor, and elections have little meaning. Also, if the vast majority of a population is poor, social responsibility is low. When a person does not know where his next meal is coming from or when, he can hardly be expected to understand or worry about his vote.

Votes are therefore cheap in India. Anyone can buy them. The right price could be as little as a food packet or a pair of thongs (footwear) on election day. Truckloads of such items can be seen moving around towns and villages in India on election day.

Democracy in India is therefore a game that is all about numbers; about getting a majority vote in elections. It is not about HOW these votes are obtained.

How does democracy destroy a country if introduced prematurely?

I. Poor Infrastructure

Indian politicians have discovered that investment in important infrastructure does not necessarily get them elected in the next election. Handing out small gifts to poor people on election day gets them elected. The number of rich people directly using that infrastructure and therefore voting for them is much smaller than the number of poor people who vote for election-day gift-givers. Indian politicians therefore do not waste their energy on building infrastructure when it is much simpler to distribute tiny gifts on election day. Infrastructure in India has therefore remained very poor even after over 60 years of independence from British rule. Ironically, the best infrastructure in India, the Indian Railways, was created by the British.

By contrast, a country that has poor people, but where leaders do not depend on votes, is free to go ahead with important infrastructure projects. Example: China

Lesson 1: If a country adopts democracy before it is ready for it, its infrastructure will suffer badly.

II. Divisions in society

At the time of independence from the British, India was already a society divided on various factors, like religion, caste and language. Politicians took advantage of these divisions. They found that encouraging and furthering such divisions created permanent "vote banks" for them. The "arithmetic" for them was therefore very simple:

a. Promise all kinds of benefits to their chosen vote banks.

b. Get elected based on such promises.

c. Use public funds to provide the promised special benefits to their chosen vote banks at the cost of the rest of the country.

d. Generate resentment among the other groups that did not get these benefits, and further divide society to their own advantage.

Lesson 2: If a country adopts democracy before it is ready for it, its society will get heavily divided along every possible division (including language, caste and religion).

III. Overpopulation

Elections are all about numbers. The greater the number of poor and uninformed voters available, the better. Reckless population growth is therefore welcomed by corrupt Indian politicians, and even encouraged, especially within their chosen "vote banks". Hard to believe, but governments in some Indian states actually pay money to certain communities (their preferred vote banks) to produce more children! India is therefore faced with the catastrophe of an out-of-control population growth -- and no one seems to care. By contrast, China introduced a one child per family policy, as its leaders do not require vast numbers of destitute people in order to remain in power.

Compare 2008 figures:

China population 1,330,045,000; population density 138.6

India population 1,147,996,000; population density 349.2 (almost three times that of China)

Lesson 3: If a country adopts democracy before it is ready for it, its population will grow very rapidly and out of control.

IV. Corruption

The vast numbers of people competing for all kinds of services, leading to demand hugely outstripping supply, coupled with people's ignorance and therefore lack of power, enables corruption to flourish in India. Providers of any service can demand bribes for just doing their job, and the public are willing to pay "extra" to get that elusive service. In a society that is poor, unaware and divided, politicians can afford to launch all kinds of huge public projects, steal staggeringly large amounts of money, and leave the projects incomplete.

Lesson 4: If a country follows democracy before it is ready for it, its society will be highly corrupt.

V. A continuation of these problems

It can easily be seen that India will always continue to have large numbers of poor, uneducated and ignorant people, as the survival of its politicians depends on these people. Education for all will continue to be given low priority in India.

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What ails the Indian society?

After India had gained independence, we never knew what we must do with our new found freedom. We had lived in captivity for almost 600 years. We never knew what it is to be free. Our leaders who had fought tooth and nail for our freedom told us that democracy would be the best option. We had stepped into the shoes of the British, but we were not comfortable in those shoes. Our leaders told us that we must have another system. They proposed democracy wedded to socialism. They advocated state ownership of industry, while there was no industry. They had proposed an economic system based on state ownership of capital, while there was no capital. Soon we realized they had fooled us.

We began electing only those parties, who were willing to pay us for our votes. We did not want to know who they are and whether they would be able to rule us. The party we chose made hay while the sun shines. They lead us along the blind alley and when the realization downed on us we discovered that it was already too late.

Why we Indians are such a gullible lot? I have done some analysis and have made some startling discoveries. Firstly, we do not know where we keep our minds. Secondly, we assume that we are very knowledgeable. Why do we think we are knowledgeable? This is because we have all our knowledge in the scriptures. We only know it, but we have never experienced it. To give a small example whenever we heard about flying machines we said we already had it because our scriptures say so. Whenever we hear about rockets we said our ancestors had already used them during the Great War depicted in our epics. Even Einstein's theory of relativity is there in our scriptures. If it is so, then why we never applied that knowledge? Others became wise, but why we did not become as wise as them.

We live in a state of complacency. We ever live with a type of sense of defeatism. We have some weird sort of ideas. For an example we are ever satisfied in a kind of state we are living in. We never think that there could be better ways of doing things. We have been taught to live within our limited means. We want to do nothing to advance in life.

We take pride that we have one of the biggest constitution in the world. All the laws it contains are enshrined in its chapters. We never made an attempt to write those laws neither in our minds nor on our hearts. Whenever we find that a crime has been perpetrated we either ask for an amendment, or ask for the enactment of new law. It is only making our constitution larger and bigger. We do not realize that the size of the constitution is the indicator of our morals. Bigger the constitution the littler are our morals would be. Smaller the constitution the greater would be our morals. It is the same with scripture. Large and lengthy scriptures do not make us spiritual. The large number of scriptures denotes how less spiritual we are.

All we must do is to stop aping the west. You must stop being dependent on others. The least we can do is to become honest. You must stop being selfish. Do not aspire for wealth that is more than necessary. Distribute whatever you produce between yourself and consume only what you produce. Stop hankering over foreign goods, but develop a quality in the goods you produce. Elect the right people to rule you. Educate yourself. Develop respect for women and learn to take care of old people and children. Once you have learned the nice ties of self-rule, then only you would make yourself entitled to be a part of democratic country or someone else would come again to rule you. Last, but not the least; you must give more than what you receive and do more than you are expected to do.