Many countries in the world struggle to accelerate development or to make sure that the benefits of development can be enjoyed by most of the population. One of the main reasons for this problem is the lack of good policies. All these countries are not ruled by dictators or going through civil war or something other social or political crisis, many of them have well-established democratic election system that seems to be working, elections happen regularly, people seem to participate in the electoral process, and elected governments seem to enjoy people's support. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are some such countries where it seems no matter who is in power nothing much changes on the ground, parties win or lose but it seems the country always loses in every election. Every party thinks about its own political future first rest is secondary. They all use the country and nationalism as tools to solidify their own political base, to win an election, to propagate a personality cult, to suppress opposition, but never to bring any positive reforms, never to take some forward-looking steps that might harm them politically but are good for the country's future. I was excited when the current Indian government came to power and even wrote a post about their historical election victory.
For good policies, you need good politics. For good politics, you need well-functioning institutions of various branches of the government that perform their work independently. This doesn't happen in most of the countries that struggle economically despite being democratic countries for so long. I have seen this happening in India. Corruption on various levels cripples most of these countries. When I say corruption, I am not just talking about the bribe culture, I am talking about the culture of corruption. In a country where not allowing the largest political party to form a government is not unusual, horse-trading to buy legislatures of other political parties to gain a majority is not considered a wrong practice, open collusion between various branches of the government doesn't disturb people, political opponents are not only ridiculed but branded as anti-nationals, where one political party talks about eliminating their oppositions from the country, good politics cannot exist. All these are not signs of good politics, and no wonder India still struggles to get a government that can dare to implement good policies. As I said I was hopeful about this government that they will implement some good policies but after five years all I can see is that they spent all their time in establishing their brand and winning state elections, nothing else. I am not bothered by mistakes that happen while taking some radical steps (like demonetization), but I am surprised that a government with so many resources at its hand can't figure out the possible outcomes of its actions before taking such a drastic step. Announcing any reform is not a big deal, making sure that it gets implemented to produce its desired result is where all the skills of governance and management are required and I am still waiting to witness this in India. One such opportunity was lost in 1984 when only a few reforms (like telecommunications and the introduction of computers) were performed, but nothing spectacular was done as far as political and social reforms are concerned, and now this is another opportunity that didn't live to its expectations. Please remember, "for good policies, you need good politics."
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