There are several levels of arguments one can present in understanding India and its current state. Either it is Congress or BJP the crux of the matter is it is a slow process and it took 200-300 years of GDP accumalation for western civilization for where it is right now.
Argument #1: Population. All countries faced the problem with introduction of antibiotics and population growth due to medical progress. The problem was bigger with India and China where nobody kept track of infant mortality. With no famines and green revolution the population increased further. India and China cannot be blamed for that.
Argument #2: Both India and China dominated the GDP growth in the year 1800, the total share was 48% combined. The industrial revolution changed that and Europe and US are dominating this after 200-300 years of GDP accumalation.
Argument #3: Corruption, India is ranked in the middle and again it takes 200-300 years of GDP accumalation to get to where the western system is.
Argument #4: India forgot how to do trade. After 1991 we changed that thru reforms. All socialist models along with countries like Denmark and Sweden have done well. Which means that democratic models is not the only solution. Other communist systems have worked as well.
The final argument then leads to the Renaisance, which India missed. The man was Francis Bacon. He transformed western thought into a more rational and logical foundation. This led to a scientific revolution
I have different view. Had this been the case it would have been good for india but it's not like that. Example there is one constituency in Haryana i.e. Gurgaon, Yaday majority area and most of the parties candidate from that community. In this on going election due to re organisation of constituencies only BSP has a muslim candidate becz now 3 muslim dominated assembly area are covered in gurgaon constituency and rest all candidated are of Yadav community. if we see then we will found most of the candidates are selected on cast base. The criteria is which cast dominates a particular constituency. Mayawati story is a bit different becz she has sc-st committed votes with BSP and to get other majority cast votes BSP nominated a candidate of that cast and called it asocial engineering.
Re: JNU and a bong
by Rahul Sr on Oct 12, 2009 07:32 PM
I agree. But we should read and listen to what everywone says before making a ninformed opinion. It is not wise to reject wholesale like the secularists and marxists do with anything that sounds pro hindu.
I broadly agree with Prof. Gupta's views. Technically, if all Hindus vote for their religion, no Muslim or Christian should be able to win, but we know that is not the case. However, with increasing caste-polarization and proliferating political parties (example: Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh), a community can theoretically get its candidate elected, if there is a serious split of vote for other communities. However, this can be negated with a simple (although expensive) device: run-off polls. Make it mandatory for the winner to get 50% of the votes polled; if not, a repoll should be conducted only for the top 2 candidates; this way, people will be forced to vote beyond their community, and the Assembly / Lok Sabha will see larger contingencies from major political parties; eventually this will end the coalition era!!! Think about it; it would be expensive to conduct elections twice, but if this is done a couple of times, the need for run-off polls itself will come down and we will have more homegenous legislatures.
Mr.Gupta,you are nothing more than a pessimistic Idiot.
You have exposed yourself that you are only after commiercialising your writings and your books. For that you have deliberately chosen this rotten way.
D. Goel , Pkl., afternoon, 3.25pm, Wednesday, 6th May, 2009. Like other social-scientists Professor Dipankar Gupta has reduced sociology of politics of Voting behaviour surveys over various periods and and different constituencies.Usually , thework so done is detailed and marked by detailed numerical indicators and their clusters,these to say briefly makes such scholarly studies extremely unappetising if not actually inapproachable. All this may do well, in making Academic writers claim one more feather in their academic crown. Congrats. But general public sees these as nothing more than making obvious look Obscure..Academic Obscurantism!D. Goel
