The world had seen the greatest miracle in 1947 when India accepted Democracy and had sustained it proudly, over other political systems after being freed from 200 years of British rule. General election 1950 was even the biggest surprise to the world when millions of people came out and exercised their right to vote, however, 4 out of every 5 voters were not able to even write their name. The journey of Indian democracy had started with the victory of Jawaharlal Nehru, it was a big challenge for the leadership to unite people, make them understand the newly adopted political system, aware them the Indian nationalism and framing a new economic system. Over the time democracy of India has been reaching a new height each day, now it is the biggest and mature democracy which has been accepted by more than 1.30 billion of citizens. But at the same time, economic reform was being marginalized over the years, India has been giving more importance to the political reform than the economy, there were hundreds of such reform took place led by the people of India, but not a single economic reform took place in the country led by the citizen. After 70 years of Indian democracy, it has still too many flaws, the acceptance of democracy over other political system was the right decision because no other options were better than that, but the mistake was India failed to reform its economic system. Democracy and economy supplement each other, so a democracy with an unfair economic system can’t stay fair.
The government of India has been dictating its economic decision on the people, the country lacks economic literacy, the citizens are not aware of the ongoing economic downturn and their impact, the people are being exploited for their innocence and unawareness. People of India have been miscalculating democracy as an electoral system, and most of them believe their responsibility is just to vote during general election, assembly election and civic poll, however, democracy means balance and strong judiciary, executive and legislative. The parties kept them in the darkness to rule for an indefinite period of time. Even after 70 years of journey, the political parties look confused they don’t have a fair and transparent ideology which suits the secular and liberal India. The political parties of the biggest democracy have no transparency and fairness when it comes to the intra-party election, the democracy looks suffocated and harassed when the leadership of a party is getting elected undemocratically, and their financial structures are mysterious and unknown to the people. The bureaucracy plays important role in the executive, but they dictate and torture the democracy at every level, they are behaving like a supreme leader in their field. The economy of India was stagnant for long period of time during early years, the leadership has failed to synchronize the economy with the global economy, and they were unaware of the pros and cons of integration. The government was putting a great effort for the industrial revolution, at the same time India lagged behind in the agriculture output, the administration had no plan for the people dying with prolong famine and diseases, and the agricultural output had gone down miserably due to year by year drought. The increasing oil price during the 1970’s furthered the crisis, it was resulting in the inflation, and the industries which were in the rudimentary phase were started moving out due to the unbearable cost of production.
The economy of India was almost stagnant for 20 years during 1950’s and 1960’s, the demise of PM Jawaharlal Nehru created the leadership vacuum, Indira Gandhi regime was started in 1966 when the country was facing droughts, widespread famine, inflation and doorstep war, she was busy in taking on her political opponent within the party, the development and economic reform had again lost its direction. She declared Emergency in 1975, the most controversial decision in the democracy of Independent India, she started concentrating her power in the office, and subsequently the widespread crackdown took place of opponent, media personnel, and civil society, and revoked fundamental rights. The agenda of development and economic reform had again disappeared, the political parties claimed they fought for democracy and actually they fought to earn their political mileage, in between the country lost billions of dollar. The period between 1970 and 1980 was very crucial for the country to bring in economic reforms and integration with the global economy, which could had helped India to sustain over 10 percent of GDP growth rate for years. People can’t eat democracy, the political parties had wasted crucial period of time of Indian economy. The country experienced devastating unrest, rioting, and loss of property after Indira Gandhi assassination, and the reforms was further delayed. The much-needed reform came under the leadership of then PM P. V. Narasimha Rao, he has shown his intention to take a tough economic decision, although he was heading a minority government. The political instability was further complicated the development and economic reform, none of the party got a clear majority in the parliament, so the legislation stayed pending for years in the house. After almost 1 decade, the people voted for coalition but gave a stable government in 1999 general election led by PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the actual impact of the reform was being experienced from there, the GDP growth rate had reached even 10 percent under the administration of PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, but the development was further halted in the second term of UPA government due to outrageous corruptions and political propaganda. In general election 2014, the people of India had voted first time in last two and half decades with huge mandate led by PM Narendra Modi, he has shown his great intention to bring in economic reform, implementation of GST, demonetization, inflow of FDI in different forms and so on, at the same time the democracy led by opposition is questioning his intention too.
The economic reform is the father of all kind of reform, a democracy with a fragile economy can’t stand for long, the social justice is not possible in the society filled with hunger, famine, and diseases, the democratic infrastructure can’t strengthen in debt economy, and judiciary can’t have the adequate resource to defend the rights of people.
