As India and China barge into the future and become topics of discussion in bien-pensant circles, it pits two ideologies against each other. No, I'm not talking about Capitalism and Communism. China, Post-Deng Xiaoping has abandoned the road of communism and switched to the freeway of capitalism and can now probably claim to be as capitalistic as the US. The Chinese comrades wave the red flag even as they eat a McDonald's burger.The battle of the ideologies I'm referring to is the conflict between Private rights and Public welfare.
India being essentially a democracy almost always errs on the side of preserving private rights i.e safeguarding the interest of the individual. Take Narmada bachao andolan for example. The coming of the dam will benefit lakhs of farmers in the dry bed of saurashtra at the cost of a few thousand villagers who lose their villages as a result of the dam. In this case the government has tacitly sided the andolan protesters and has stalled the construction of the dam. This is a classic instance of the government going out of its way to safeguard private rights at the cost of public welfare.
A plethora of such instances can be found in India. It could be the building of the Bangalore International airport where it took 20 years for the government to acquire land or the reluctance of the finance ministry in doing away with costly/uneconomic food and fertilizer subsidies, India always tries to put the individual's rights above anything else.
Contrast this with China. The Three gorges dam being constructed across the mighty Yangtze river will ease the annual flooding of the catchment area as well as provide essential power to the ever-hungry Chinese economy ,but it would come at a cost - a huge displacement of over 3 million villagers. But China IS willing to bear this cost knowing fully well the huge benefits the dam will bring. This attitude is demonstrated in almost all government policy which in turn lead to better roads, better water, better road/air connectivity and a huge amount of social welfare in general as decisions are taken without hesitation and considering only public welfare in mind.In effect China abandons individual rights in favor of social welfare.
I'm not trying to justify one over the other since China's human rights record is as dismal as our infrastructure. But instead we could take the undoubted positives present in the Chinese system and compromise to an acceptable level individual rights when it necessitates public welfare. In a perfect world public welfare will happen in unison with preservation of individual rights, but alas our's is a very imperfect world.
India being essentially a democracy almost always errs on the side of preserving private rights i.e safeguarding the interest of the individual. Take Narmada bachao andolan for example. The coming of the dam will benefit lakhs of farmers in the dry bed of saurashtra at the cost of a few thousand villagers who lose their villages as a result of the dam. In this case the government has tacitly sided the andolan protesters and has stalled the construction of the dam. This is a classic instance of the government going out of its way to safeguard private rights at the cost of public welfare.
A plethora of such instances can be found in India. It could be the building of the Bangalore International airport where it took 20 years for the government to acquire land or the reluctance of the finance ministry in doing away with costly/uneconomic food and fertilizer subsidies, India always tries to put the individual's rights above anything else.
Contrast this with China. The Three gorges dam being constructed across the mighty Yangtze river will ease the annual flooding of the catchment area as well as provide essential power to the ever-hungry Chinese economy ,but it would come at a cost - a huge displacement of over 3 million villagers. But China IS willing to bear this cost knowing fully well the huge benefits the dam will bring. This attitude is demonstrated in almost all government policy which in turn lead to better roads, better water, better road/air connectivity and a huge amount of social welfare in general as decisions are taken without hesitation and considering only public welfare in mind.In effect China abandons individual rights in favor of social welfare.
I'm not trying to justify one over the other since China's human rights record is as dismal as our infrastructure. But instead we could take the undoubted positives present in the Chinese system and compromise to an acceptable level individual rights when it necessitates public welfare. In a perfect world public welfare will happen in unison with preservation of individual rights, but alas our's is a very imperfect world.
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