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Governance must be seen as process of interaction

Dr Shashi Tharoor’s commentary “Does democracy lead to good governance?” (July 17), comparing China with India, is on a subject that is often examined and highlighted in the trade-off between democracy and growth.

Dr Shashi Tharoor’s commentary “Does democracy lead to good governance?” (July 17), comparing China with India, is on a subject that is often examined and highlighted in the trade-off between democracy and growth.

While this need not be a trade-off in the first place, I was nevertheless pleased that he defended India’s democratic virtue as an advantage over China’s unilateral party hierarchy.

The point is that India’s pluralist democracy has worked well in managing the country’s diversity and large population and in responding to its many disadvantaged citizens.

Governance is a broad concept covering the way legal, social and economic institutions function in serving citizens at large, and not about which political regime is best suited to serve the economic objective of growth.

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama defined governance as the “ability to make and enforce rules, and to deliver services, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not”.

While Dr Tharoor draws attention to democratic versus autocratic styles of governance, having a democratic style is only part of the story.

What really matters is how the people, the government and the private sector interact to determine the state’s policy direction and the delivery of those policies. It is therefore incorrect to equate governance with democracy or autocracy.

Having said that, I agree with his point that a democratically elected government is better equipped to respond to its people’s demands and legitimise its rule.

However, this does not mean, that democracy in its current form, manifested by a contest for power, ostentatious display of authority and divisive mode of rule, is the best way to good governance. The pace of interdependence of diverse elements at local, national and global levels is so intense that old assumptions and approaches to governance can no longer meet all the demands of a diverse society.

Though elections in a democratically functioning society are intended to solve collective decision-making problems, they fall short of recognising every individual, voter or not, as having the capacity to influence his or her life and that of others.

How can democratic systems enable diverse populations to contribute appropriately to the process of governance of human affairs, characterised by unity?

This is important because it allows people to ask the right questions based on their evaluation of their social environment. The current democratic system, in India or elsewhere, lacks proper attention to interdependence and the diversity element of governance.

Governance must be viewed as a process of interaction, which can be a source of unifying, mutualistic expression of power, rather than the self-interested, competitive expression of power associated often with democracy, but present also in autocratic regimes.

Dr Tharoor acknowledges the power of democracy in India, but still lacking are the elements within democracy that can make governance an effective, unifying force for change. This requires re-examination of the merits and challenges in both democratic India’s and autocratic China’s style of government.

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