After reading the post on Independence Day, a good friend wrote a long text listing everything that was wrong with the country. It was easy to agree with all that is wrong. We disagreed on what needed to be done. And when we got to listing the ‘why’ of the state of affairs, our gulf only widened. The gulf kept widening and threatened to never stop. Until I brought up one specific point from Karthik Muralidharan’s superb book which I have been relishing.

Everything must be understood within its proper context. I didn’t quite see it this way until I read this book. This book rearranged stacks of thoughts in my mind.

” …in assessing Indian democracy, it is important to note that India is historically unique, by being a country that adopted democracy based on universal adult franchise from the outset—at a much lower level of per capita income and state capacity than most other modern democracies. India’s choice of ‘democracy before development’ has in turn created a unique set of political incentives and constraints.

….reason is India’s decision to adopt democracy based on universal adult franchise. Most countries became more democratic as they grew richer. India, however, started highly democratic and has stayed that way throughout its post-Independence history. This is a unique historic exception, a phenomenon that Arvind Subramanian has referred to as India’s ‘precocious democracy’

India’s choice of universal adult franchise democracy at the very outset is a great moral triumph. Despite being ‘democracies’, countries like the US and the UK excluded large fractions of their population from voting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with voting rights essentially restricted to land-owning white men.

Further, the wealth of these nations was built at least in part on the back of extreme exploitation of either slaves (in the US) or the colonies (in the case of the UK). This is why India’s democracy, which empowers even the most marginalized groups in society, is a signature achievement that we should all be proud of. Consistent with the global patterns discussed above, this democratic empowerment of the poor has created political incentives for welfare spending in India as well. However, this has taken place at a much earlier point in our development trajectory.

For example, the US launched food stamps for the poor in the 1930s at a GDP per capita of ~$20,000 (in 2011 dollars). In contrast, India launched the public distribution system (PDS) for food security for the poor in the 1960s at a GDP per capita of ~$1250, which is less than a tenth of the analogous US figure. Similarly, India introduced free midday meals in government schools at lower levels of income than most other countries. These are again laudable moral achievements, which were facilitated by India’s universal-franchise democracy.

At the same time, ‘democracy before development’ in India has created political pressure to expand the scope of the Indian state before building its strength to meet this expanded scope.20 This pressure, in turn, has made it more difficult to invest in building the capacity of the state to deliver against these goals by creating two fundamental challenges… “

The choices that we make have downstream consequences and realities. We forget to shine enough light on the choices themselves and the context in which those choices were made. When we lament the lack of development—or its absence altogether—we must also remember the credit side of the balance sheet.

To have forged a forward-thinking base for democracy in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is quite something. Whichever side of the aisle you sit on, you have to acknowledge that.