Indian Political Structure needs to change

Rahul Gandhi hit the nail on the head - India's political structure needs to change (news). Even though India is a democracy like the US, the political structure is very different. In the US, the President is directly elected by the people, and this reduces the President's dependency on other congressmen, though it does not eliminate altogether. That really helps drive decisions at the national level. In India, no top leader like the President or Prime Minister is directly elected, and this means they have to rely on local politicians or political parties for support, causing all kinds of alliance politics woes. It is also not being possible for a national leader to emerge, since there is no direct national level election where people are forced to make a choice of one leader. That is simply not helping drive strategy or decisions at the national level, since the leader's hands are always tied by some local party or other who would indirectly elect. Of course there are other problems like a rubber-stamp President post. India will benefit if people are forced to pick a Prime Minister of their choice through direct election.

Nation building requires a lot more than just pursuing economic or GDP growth. It is not new theory, and the latest warning comes from Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate, when he was speaking at an entrepreneur conference in India (news).

Nation building requires careful planning of several systems such as political, legal, financial and human development systems, as well as reasonable execution of the plans, sensible policy making, fine tuning tactical economic and implementation issues, so the results yield fruit in about 20 years! Together, these systems will address growth, poverty and inequality issues and keep the nation in balance.

Some Indian policy makers know all this, and talk about inclusive growth - definitely, when the current prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh himself is an economist that started liberalization of the Indian economy. However, there is plenty of room for improvement in the current Indian national systems, and this blog hopes to provide some constructive insights and suggestions that will help in shaping the future of this great nation.

Welcome to Bharat Builders Blog

Welcome to Bharat Builders blog. It may sound more like the name of a real estate company, but this blog is about nation building - ideas for building a better Bharat, the other name for India. This is not about filling up India with concrete!