What democracy can accomplish

A trip to India can tell us much about our struggles in Iraq

By: Warren Smith

COMMENTARY--- With the death toll rising in Iraq, many Americans on both sides of the political divide are questioning why we are there, whether what we are doing there is working, and if it is time to leave.

There are also many who are starting to say that anything resembling a “western-style” democracy is not possible in the Middle East.

I did not have these questions in mind when I set out on my second trip to India this week, but now that I am here in Delhi, I can’t help but reflect on these questions as I compare what I am seeing here to what I saw when I made a trip three years ago. And though I am still here and many of my observations are therefore in-progress and many of my conclusions are yet inconclusive, I believe that India offers both an example for and hope for what democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism can accomplish.

When I was here three years ago, I visited Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras). On this trip, I knew I wouldn’t visit these cities, so I wouldn’t be able to make a strict “apples to apples” comparison, but my visits this time to Delhi, Hyderabad, and Cochin would, I believed, allow me to answer some questions about the so-called “Indian economic miracle.” In other words, with all the talk about the economic growth of India over the past few years, I was anxious to come back to see if three years was enough time to notice a difference. Would the streets be cleaner? Would the smells be less noxious? Would there be fewer people sleeping in the streets?

The answer to those questions is yes.

To be sure, Delhi is a city unlike any in the United States. With more than 15-million people, Delhi is half-again as big as New York, and is considered the sixth most populous city in the world. In the 1990s the World Bank also called it the world’s most polluted.

But remarkable things are happening here. Though India has been a democracy since 1947, a weak government has meant widespread corruption and much scoffing of the law. This lack of a full and complete “rule of law” has often resulted in violence both by and against minorities and leaders in the country – including Christians, who make up a growing but still small four percent of the population.

But on a daily basis this lack of respect for the law showed up in more subtle ways. People didn’t pay their taxes. Building inspectors could be given small bribes to expedite approval processes. And red lights were routinely ignored, creating chaos and massive traffic jams on the streets.

The difference between three years ago and today is palpable even to a short-term observer. Since I was here in 2003, the Indian economy has been growing at 8 percent a year, and economists say it will continue to do so for as long as it is reasonable to predict. When I was here before, the big news story was the Bombay Stock Exchange’s SENSEX average passing the 5000 mark. Today, it is at 12,000.

Even pollution is getting better. In part because more people are paying their taxes, the government has embarked on huge public works projects that are dramatically improving the roads and other vital infrastructure, including rapid transit, and at the same time requiring commercial vehicles – including taxis and government vehicles – to run on compressed natural gas. One result: when you step outside the airport for the first time in Delhi or Bombay, you are not assaulted by the smell and sound of roaring and belching diesel engines – but by the whir of engines and the sweetish smell of natural gas exhaust.

To be sure, there are still problems here. Huge ones. There is a water shortage in much of the country. Delhi itself sits on a huge high plain in an a semi-arid region that gets less than 30 inches of rain a year. AIDS inflicts more than 5-million people. Remnants of the odious caste system remain. Persecution against Christians, especially in rural areas, continues. My host on this trip, the Christian ministry Gospel for Asia (GFA), has introduced me to people whose names I cannot use in my stories, for fear they will face physical retribution.

But GFA is also growing rapidly in this country, both north and south. Gospel for Asia has literally tens of thousands of children and adults in their various educational and benevolence programs, some of what I saw first-hand in Delhi. Others I will see in the days ahead. The group often owns the land and the facilities where they minister, and they have purchased or built these facilities following a strict “no bribe” policy. When they encounter a problem, so say my GFA hosts, they pray and continue to work hard – but they don’t bribe or cajole. The excellence and integrity of Gospel for Asia’s work has broken down many barriers.

Obviously, the world is a complicated place, and I am not trying to suggest there are not massive differences between Iraq and India. But if it took a country that became independent in a peaceful revolution nearly 60 years to begin to experience the full benefits of democracy and capitalism, surely we can give Iraq a few years more before we throw up our hands in despair.

Warren Smith is the editor and publisher of The Charlotte World and Evangelical Press News Service. He reported this story from Delhi, India. (10/22/2006)

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