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Democracy
India's strength regardless of Chinese model: Bhagwati
Thursday December 02, 2010 07:51:03 PM ,
IANS
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New Delhi:
Democracy is India's greatest strength and the world should view
this system as a development-enabler than as an impediment,
especially when comparisons are made with a country like China,
noted economist Jagdish Bhagwati said here Thursday.
"In relation to China, it is an inevitable comparison we've had
for decades, ever since we began developing. The two countries
have always been compared. Our democracy is an enormous advantage.
In fact, more than that. It is conducive to development," he said.
"Our democracy has also been a source of immense gratification,
not just to elites, but also to the common man," Bhagwati said in
the Central Hall of Parliament, delivering the 3rd Hiren Mukerjee
Memorial Annual Parliamentary Lecture.
"Democracy gives the poor and the underprivileged instant
affirmation of what Americans call their 'personhood' -- a sense
of equality with the castes and classes above you in a strongly
hierarchical society," he said.
"I have, therefore, argued democracy matters more to the poor than
to the rich," added the soft-spoke professor and recipient of
Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, and
Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, conferred on eminent people of Indian
origin.
The 76-year-old professor who was educated at Cambridge and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he also disagreed with
critics that reforms in India had ignored the poor and had even
bypassed them.
"Growth has led to greater revenues so that we are finally able to
finance significantly more spending on health and education for
the poor and the underprivileged," he said, adding that was the
main idea of a planned economy in India since 1951.
Among those present were Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman
Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior BJP leader
L.K. Advani and former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
"Jagdish and Padma (his wife) are like members of my family,"
Manmohan Singh said, recollecting his friendship and association
with the neoclassical economist and expert on globalosation and
international economics and trade for over 55 years.
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