Kanika Datta: Dangers of authoritarianism

SWOT

Is democracy compatible with economic growth? Despite strong confirming evidence from the developed world, Indian businesses have often longed for authoritarian rule.

As they see it a "strong" government is the secret of China's economic success. China, it is enviously pointed out, is able to "control" its people, make available land for vast projects without fuss and generally get on with the business of making the nation prosperous.

Non-democratic rule is seen as the panacea for all the ills that beset India "" from endemic corruption to this reluctance of farmers to give up their lands for transformational industrial projects and special economic zones. That is why many businessmen actually admired the Emergency with its Stalinist slogans ("The Nation is on the Move" being a memorable one) and open subversion of people's rights.

Viewed from some perspectives, the lack of democracy looks attractive, especially when it comes to, say, clearing lands for projects in a trice. There are no Nandigram-style protests nor Naxalite atrocities to contend with.

But the question is whether ignoring people's rights and opinions in the broader interests of business and economy is a rational thing to do.

Answers to this conundrum in China have been unclear because the scale of change has been so breath-taking and undeniably impressive. Also, as long as China remains an engine of economic growth the developed world will look the other way on human rights.

But perhaps Indian businesses should consider the longer-term consequences of China's giant authoritarian licence raj. It is one thing to be authoritarian in enforcing rules and regulations as western democracies do; quite another to repress people's rights.

Evidence of this growing disconnect between enforcement and tyranny has been increasing over the past few years as protests from those excluded from the spoils of economic transformation are growing in the north and west in that country. This year alone has seen some 75,000 popular protests in China.

Nothing probably illustrates the problems of authoritarian rule than the unfolding scandal over the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze river. It is a project that started with the twin objectives of controlling devastating floods and harnessing China's longest river to serve the needs of the country's growing power needs.

Although the project faced intense criticism both internationally and within China the prospect of building this showpiece "" the world's largest hydropower station "" proved irresistible to the Chinese leadership.

The project was completed in 2006 but now officials are openly admitting that China's celebrated project is an environmental and financial disaster. Damming the Yangtze has slowed its flow, resulting in a growing problem of silting and pollution and the power generated fulfils a fraction of China's fast-growing needs. They also admit that the costs of building this so-called engineering marvel are way off original estimates.

The local administration, a cesspool of corruption, is also increasingly facing growing discontent from refugees. Some 1.3 million people, mostly peasant farmers, were relocated from the area to make way for the project for which the government promised to pay them compensation. Many are still waiting to be paid the full amount.

One such farmer is Fu Xiancai. The government was to have paid him 30,000 renminbi as compensation but he received only 5,000. Fu took up the issue with the authorities, even travelling to Beijing to lobby for his rights.

For his pains, he was regularly intimidated by local officials. Last year, he was beaten so severely that he was paralysed. Fu's predicament was widely suspected to be the work of official goons.

The village party secretary's explanation to the Financial Times could be straight out of George Orwell's 1984. He said that investigation had found that Fu had hurt himself by "falling accidentally while walking carelessly".

"We have to believe the scientific conclusion reached by the public security ministry," he concluded.

Three Gorges has proved a disaster because the government chose to suppress both informed and popular protest to the project, some of which dates back more than 20 years. Today, it brings few benefits to the people in the People's Republic. Because the flow of the river has slowed, pollutants have accumulated, making the water unfit for use. Silt is also accumulating at a rapid pace, weakening the government's claim that bigger craft will be able to navigate this section of the river.

In many ways, Three Gorges demonstrates the dangers of the absence of democratic checks and balances. India, though, has little reason to feel proud. Its own human rights record vis-à-vis big projects "" Sardar Sarovar comes readily to mind "" has hardly been exemplary and the current rising groundswell of popular protest demonstrates the problems of too little democracy rather than too much.

It is telling that those companies that are closely involved in the business of acquiring land are now working hard at ways that will ensure that land losers somehow benefit "" cooperative farmers, fish and pickle factories, soccer stadiums et al, the suggestions are both creative and entertaining.

As the Marxist government is learning again and again in Bengal, only projects that are truly for the people have a chance of enduring success.