KOLKATA, INDIA, May 28, 2011 (by Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times): India has been a bit of an embarrassment for those of us who believe in democracy, especially when compared with China. The Communist Party in China did a much better job fighting poverty than democratically elected Indian governments. India tolerated dissent, but it also tolerated inefficiency, disease and corruption.
But after my trips to India and China this year, I think all that may be changing. Despite the global economic slowdown, India’s economy is now hurtling along at more than 8 percent per year.
The technology zones around Bangalore in southern India have been booming for years, but what is changing is that the rise is gaining traction across the country — even here in Kolkata. Change is in the air in India. Infant mortality is dropping, voters are pushing for better governance, and I think India has three advantages over China in their economic rivalry in the coming decades.
First, India’s independent news media and grass-roots civic organizations — sectors that barely exist in China — are becoming watchdogs against corruption and inefficiency. My hunch is that kleptocracy reached its apogee and is now waning in India, while in China it continues to get worse.
Second, China’s economy may be slowed by the aging of its population, while India’s younger population will lead to a “demographic dividend” in coming decades. Likewise, China already reaped the economic advantages of employing its women, while India is just beginning to usher the female half of its population into the formal labor force.
Third, India has managed religious and ethnic tensions pretty well. In China, by contrast, tensions with ethnic Tibetans and Uighurs are worsening.
China’s autocrats are extraordinarily competent, in a way that India’s officials are not. But traveling in India these days is a heartening experience: my hunch is that the world’s largest democracy increasingly will be a source not of embarrassment but of pride.
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