A new fad is catching up this season. It’s not about fashion or lifestyle choices. It’s not about the upcoming COVID vaccine either. Instead, it’s about a pervasive idea that holds a sway over much of the world — democracy.
Apparently, the ‘world’s largest democracy’ is ‘too much of a democracy,’ a condition which makes it difficult to implement ‘tough,’ ‘hard headed reforms’ in the country. Speaking at an event, ‘The Road to Atmanirbhar Bharat,’ organised by a right-wing magazine, Amitabh Kant, the CEO of NITI Aaayog, India’s premiere policy think tank, said:
So tough reforms are very difficult in the Indian context, we are too much of a democracy. For the first time, the government has had the courage and the determination to carry out very hard-headed reforms across sectors… mining, coal, labour, agriculture… these are very, very difficult reforms… You needed a huge amount of political determination and administrative will to carry out these reforms which are being done.
Amitabh Kant’s utterances would probably make the other Kant—Immanuel Kant— turn in his grave. There is, of course, no connection between the two; thankfully their standing, at a global level, isn’t the same either. Amitabh Kant is a genuflecting bureaucrat, while Immanuel Kant is a political philosopher whose comprehensive body of work in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics need no mention.
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