In a country like China where there is less insecurity about leadership, it is possible for the government to take a more long term strategic approach towards growth and development.

I think democracy is overrated. I mean, lets keep it in perspective: it is only one form of government among others.

It is certainly not the only one to have produced successful states; frankly, most democracies today are failures, if one looks at key indicators.

To my mind, saying that democracy is the only way is like saying christ is the only god. mindless preaching of democracy is nothing but monotheism.

And we’ve fallen for it hook, line and sinker. We need an alternate model; or, as you said, new rules, not new rulers.

I do admit that when so many millions are is dire necessity of some basic requirements of life, it is callous to talk about “democratic ideals”.

However, there must be a philosophical base of any nation. Means are as important as results. Such tradeoff between good economic performance &democracy is what made communist nations commit excesses in the first place.

Anyway, when do you feel change will come upon us? When shall India progress China way?

No, I don’t think that it is the communist form of governance that is responsible for China’s growth. It has something to do with leadership and focus — which the current set of Indian “leaders” don’t have. If retarded growth had anything to do with democracy, then the US and other liberal western democracies demonstrate that democracy is not a sure fire guarantee of poverty and low growth; and if communism had anything to do with fast growth, then China would have been growing at this breakneck speed since 1960s, and the USSR would not have collapsed so spectacularly.

I think people are mistaken when they believe that there is a tradeoff between democracy and good economic performance. The fact is regardless of communism or democracy or capitalism or socialism, what matters is leadership. Rich comfortably off Indians love to think that low growth is alright because they (mistakenly) think that individual freedoms are bought at the cost of development. I don’t see that to be true. And even if it were true, it would be interesting to ask the 200 million malnourished children whether they like the tradeoff of their living a sub-human life so that the rich can have the luxury of debating the finer points of democracy.

Don’t you think Communist form of governance is responsible for such fantastic growth? Whereas in India we have to go the slow process of Parliamentary approval. Don’t you think we are amply rewarded by our free culture in lieu of such rapid advancement?

What is your opinion regarding this?

It was also mentioned that the costs we have to incur alarmingly high like in billions for hardly 1km. This was unbelievable to me. Not sure how the cost estimates were done.

That said initiating a high speed rail project can galvanize our economy. I am wondering if Govt lackadaisical approach is solely because of a possibility of losing monopoly over the existing Indian Railways. For HSR it needs a private partnership and Govt’s interference will be curtailed…