India will take two years to achieve 6% growth rate, says US professor

Professor Varshney discussed in large about democratic politics. He said that India is the longest surviving low-income democracy in history and Nehru played a great role in strengthening of democracy. Further, he said that contemporary democratic theory states that democracies can be established at low levels of income, but they survive only at high levels of income. On July 26, Varshney will be delivering a lecture on the ‘Impact of caste and religion on Indian politics’.

Talking about democracy, Varshney said that income is the best predictor of democracy. “It has correctly predicted the type of regime in 77.5% of the cases; only in 22.5%, it did not. India is in the latter 22.5% set, where it has defied. Indeed, if we consider only decolonised countries, democracies that emerged from decolonisation survived only in India, Mauritius, Belize, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu,” he added.

He deliberated on why democracy in India, still a lower middle income country, lasted for so long and why India did not become a Pakistan or an Indonesia where democracy collapsed.

Talking about the present political scenario of the country under the reign of Narendra Modi, Varshney said that he needs to work on increasing the growth rate, which could further create employment across the country.