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Words of Freedom

Excerpts From “Democracy: The Only Way Out of Poverty” by Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University

Amartya Sen (© AP Images)

As the century comes to an end, we may well ask: What happened in this one? Well, many things did – some terrible, some nice, others neither. Let me ask a different question. What is the most distinguished thing that happened in this century? Everyone does, I am sure, have his or her own answer to this difficult and possibly ill-posed question. I am no good at sorting out my answer to any momentous question, but if I had to point to something, I would, I guess, give the pride of place to the emergence of democracy as the pre-eminently acceptable form of government. This is not to deny that billions of people still live outside democracies. But democracy has progressed quite rapidly in every continent, and has acquired a normative distinction that would have been hard to imagine at cite turn of the last century. There are very few non-democratic countries left that do not have a vigorous pro-democracy movement.

Though the ingredients of democracy have evolved over a very long time, it is only in the 20th century that the idea of democracy got established as the “normal” form of government to which any nation is entitled—whether in Europe, or America, or Asia, or Africa. Earlier on, there used to be lengthy discussions on whether one country or another was — or was yet — “fit for democracy” (for example, the British discussed it regularly in denying India independence). That changed only quite recently, with the recognition that the question itself was wrong-headed: a country does not have to be judged to be fit for democracy, rather is has to become fit through democracy. We do not have to establish afresh, each time, whether such and such country (South Africa, or Chile, or Cambodia, or Congo) is “ready” for democracy. That much is now taken for granted. This is indeed a momentous change.

Why is democracy important? There are different ways of approaching this question, some more sophisticated than others. Let me stick to some very rudimentary points. I shall suggest three distinct reasons for valuing democracy. First, democracy and the associated political freedoms are significant parts of human freedom in general. Insofar as freedom is an important necessity for good living, so is democracy. To be prevented from participation in the political life of the community cannot but be a major deprivation.

Second, democracy can serve to enhance the political attention that vulnerable people get. The rulers have to listen to expressions of needs, frustrations, complaints, that people may have. Of course, some leaders may listen anyway even when they are not forced to do so. But democracy through multi-party elections, open political discussion, a free media and so on can ensure that this must happen. This is one reason why no substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country — rich or poor. For one thing, elections are not easy to win after a famine. Nor are governments of democratic countries immune from criticism and censure in the media or in the parliament when mass starvation occurs. Famines have, thus, been confined to countries governed by colonial or alien rulers (for example, in British India or Ireland), or by one-party regimes (for example, in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, or in China during 1958-61, or in Cambodia in the 1970s, or in North Korea today), or by military dictators (for example, in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan in recent years).

At a less intense but nevertheless significant level, the vulnerable people in Indonesia or South Korea had not missed democracy much when things went up and tip together, during the East Asian boom. But they found their voices muffled when the East Asian crisis occurred. The same happened to the need for more transparency in business and in running the government. Democracy suddenly became a central issue then, and happily remains so in Asia. One should not have to wait for a crisis to give democracy its due.

Third, democracy helps the formation of values and priorities through open public discussion and responsible participation. The citizens are given the opportunity to interact with each other—comparing notes, debating issues and understanding one another. For example, in the context of falling fertility rates (in a world of six billion people), the idea that a happy family is a relatively small one—not overburdened with children — spreads from one group to another, with a downward impact on fertility rates. Also, the need for justice within the family in not subjecting young women to constant bearing and rearing of children has also received growing recognition as new values have spread. It happened in Europe mainly in the last two centuries and is now happening in many countries in Asia and Africa today.

Many statistical studies have confirmed the linkage of democracy with fertility reduction. The last observation may appear to be at variance with the belief, which is often articulated, that it is only through coercive—and rather undemocratic—policies that China has been able to cut its fertility rate down in a way that, say, democratic India has not. This way of seeing the contrast can, however, be very misleading. There is, in fact, much support in the contemporary empirical literature, of the impact of education, especially of female education, on reducing fertility rates (along with decreasing child mortality rates). High fertility rates are adverse to the quality of life especially of young women, since recurrent child bearing and rearing can be very detrimental the well-being and freedom of the young mother. Indeed, it is precisely this connection that makes the empowerment of women (for example, through more outside employment, more school education and so on) so effective in reducing fertility races. Young women have a strong reason for moderating birth rates, and the extent of their influence on family decisions increases with their empowerment.

Even though India’s average fertility rate is higher than China’s, it is a matter of interest that in those parts of India where female education and women’s empowerment are more advanced than in China (most prominently, in Kerala), the fertility rare is significantly lower than in China, despite there being no compulsion whatsoever. While the Chinese fertility rate fell from 2.8 to 2.0 between 1979 (when the “one-child policy” and other coercive measures were instituted) and 1991, it fell from 3.0 to 1.8 in the same period in Kerala. Kerala has kept its lead over China both in female education and in fertility decline (by the middle of the 1990s, Kerala’s fertility rate fell to 1.7, China’s to about 1.9).

The development of democracy is certainly a distinguished contribution of the 20th century. However, the normative acceptability of democracy has grown faster than its actual practice. The growing use of the term of democracy, which we can now see in non-democratic regimes also, is one illustration of this gap between accepted norms and actual practice. Since the work is half done, the new century will have to complete the job. I hope—and expect— that democracy will remain a central issue in the early decades of the 21st century. We could do worse.