Can the World’s Two Largest Democracies Diffuse These Tensions?
The latest article in the Economist magazine talks about the growing unusual gap in wealth between the Northern and Southern Indian states, where in some cases, a Southern state is ten times richer per capita, than a northern state. On the other hand, the gap in population growth is the other way around. The Northern States in India are growing faster in population than the southern states.
The article is warning about the impending explosive situation, if a further shift in voting power results in favor of the northern states with above average increased population, at the expense of the Southern States with moderate population growth.
A similar issue now also exists in the United States. Here, the voting power is shifting more to the heartland region, if you compare electoral voting power between the heartland and coastal states vis a vis the proportion of actual population. The economic disparity between the red and blue states on the other hand grew from less than 5% in 1999 to greater than 50% in 2018, according to the Georgetown Public Policy Review. There is already a public discussion of the possibility of another civil war in the US.
Democracies are expected to address issues that would diffuse social tensions. Instead, the world’s two largest democracies are further aggravating the situation. I don’t imply that autocratic regimes like China are better, even though the Economist points out that the ratio of the prosperous to poor states in China is five times compared to ten times in India.
Any solution to effectively address the issue would likely be counterproductive for the politicians to acquire and stay in power. It’s therefore wrong to expect politicians to address it. Instead, grassroots awareness and education are needed, which hopefully will result in an independent constitutional and economic review and recommendations to follow.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/27/indias-regional-inequality-could-be-politically-explosive
