‘Less democratic India would be a China’

“If India is not too democratic it will be like China in terms of development,” he said.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia and BJD MP Jay Panda disagreed with Mahatir’s contention arguing that India looked towards development as a marathon and not a sprint.

Panda said the Indian democratic system was evolving and there were plenty of countries in the world which do not have democracy and have not developed.

“As far as whether democracy is more of a hindrance to India,it is certainly more difficult. Our system is evolving,our trajectory of growth is certainly better than it was in earlier decades. We do need to tweak our system,but we do not need to change our system,” Panda said.

Mahathir said though India has been a democracy for a long time but its socialist leaning had come in the path of growth.

Suggesting a model of a strong Centre and less powerful provinces for India,he said such an approach would help promote development.

“You need a much stronger central government and less powers to the provincial governments,because there will never be an agreement between the Centre and the provinces. This makes it difficult for the government to promote any policy,” Mahatir said.

Referring to the recent multi-nation military actions in Iraq and Libya,the Malaysian leader said when people are killed they do not enjoy the democracy foisted upon them.

“Forcing some countries to accept democracy is something that should not be done. When you kill people so that they can accept democracy… the people who are killed do not enjoy democracy,” he argued.

Mahatir also rubbished the idea that a country becomes stable and prosperous when it embraces democracy.

“Running a democratic country is one of the most difficult things for any government,” he said,adding that it was important for the world to understand the limitations of such a political system.

Mahatir said the current financial crises was a result of abuse of democratic systems and it needs to be corrected through regulation.

Contending that the present challenges faced by the world had their roots in the last century,he said the countries which chose the capitalist economies grew better than the socialist economies.

Giving examples,Mahatir said when Russia faced challenge,it changed its economic and political path which led to lot of disruptions and the country could not grow and develop.

He said China was more careful and made changes to its economic policies but retained the political system. This resulted in fast economic growth.

China has become the factory of the world and even the capitalist countries today look towards China to see them through their financial difficulties,he said.

Mahathir said a closed economy hindered India’s growth but it still did better.