Once upon a time in the not-too-distant past, this correspondent admired medical doctor Mahathir Mohamad who was the longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia for 22 years. Not any longer. Not after his stupid — yes, there is no other word more appropriate — remarks on democracy and development while speaking in New Delhi on December 2. He may be described as the architect of modern Malaysia and a man under whose stewardship, this southeast Asian country became an economic powerhouse. But, at the age of 86, the doctor seems to have clearly lost the plot.

Most visitors to Kuala Lumpur are greatly impressed by its environs, its famous twin skyscrapers, the Petronas Towers, not to mention the apparently super-efficient manner in which everything seems to be administered. Unlike the chaos and anarchy that any visitor encounters on Indian streets, Kuala Lumpur is an orderly study in contrast. During a visit to that country more than two decades ago in 1990, one met a person of Indian origin, a humble waiter named after Subhash Chandra Bose, who mentioned to me that Malaysia’s tranquil surface was deceptive, that the country’s leadership was not just paternalistic but authoritarian and, what is worse, also racist. When I reproduced his views in an article published here, a representative of the Malaysian high commission was most upset at what I had written and wrote an angry rejoinder to the editor of the magazine that had employed me.
Malaysia has indeed become more economically affluent, but its Bhumiputra (or “sons of the soil”) policy is clearly biased in favour of the influential Malay community to the exclusion of others (including Indians of Tamil origin). For decades, Dr Mahathir and his followers have ruthlessly suppressed voices of dissent within his own political party and in the Opposition. Even then, one could not help but admire a man who spoke in such an articulate manner at international conferences about the manner in which the developed West had exploited the developing East. One thought he had become more than a worthy successor of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter and her son, all of whom had ranted against the depredations that decisions by governments in advanced capitalist societies inflicted on the poorer parts of the planet we live in.
Dr Mahathir’s famous fulminations came as a refreshing breath of fresh air at a time when India’s political leaders were bending over backwards to appease the North and who had made “non-alignment” a dirty phrase in popular discourse. Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, on the other hand, was an outspoken critic of American policies although the US was Malaysia’s biggest trading partner, foreign investor and provider of military training. It is said that in 1998, the then US vice-president, Al Gore, left an international conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference held in Kuala Lumpur in a huff after Dr Mahathir sarcastically remarked that “among nations suffering economic crises, we continue to hear calls for democracy, calls for reform, in many languages…” (This was a time when Dr Mahathir had clamped down hard on Anwar Ibrahim, his one-time deputy who became his bitter political opponent.)
The former PM’s statements fall into a pattern. In New Delhi, he reportedly claimed that India could have clocked faster rates of economic growth matching those of China had our country been a bit less democratic. Dr Mahathir added that while democracy is the best form of government, it did not make for easy governance. He added that India’s so-called socialist leanings came in the way of speedy economic growth before the 1990s and that thereafter, democracy had slowed down the rate of growth of the economy. “Running a democratic country is one of the most difficult things for any government,” he said.
The former PM also drew parallels with other countries in the world. Referring to Libya and Iraq, he said, “Forcing some countries to accept democracy is something that should not be done. When you kill people so that they can accept democracy... the people who are killed do not enjoy democracy…”
After Russia changed its economic and political system two decades ago, its “reforms” were so radical and implemented so quickly that major economic upheavals took place. China, according to Dr Mahathir, was more “careful” which brought about rapid economic growth. “If India is not too democratic, it will be like China in terms of development,” he said, adding that there was no guarantee that a country will become stable and affluent if it embraces democracy. “You need a much stronger Central government and less powers to the provincial governments, because there will never be an agreement between the Centre and the provinces. This makes it difficult for the government to promote any policy.”
Dr Mahathir’s controversial comments have come at a juncture when there is a debate raging within India on the desirability or otherwise of allowing foreign firms to have a majority stake in multi-brand retail companies. At the conference where he spoke, he was countered by minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya Scindia and Biju Janata Dal MP Baijayant Panda. The first compared India’s economic growth story to a marathon not a sprint, while the latter argued that while we needed to “tweak” our democratic system, we should not change it altogether.
There is much that is wrong with democracy in India. The list of our shortcomings is tediously long. But there is absolutely no evidence from across the globe to indicate that the presence or the absence of democracy in a country is directly correlated to economic development in the broadest sense of the term. And what is particularly important to note in this context is that rapid economic growth is neither a sufficient condition for inclusiveness nor is it for job creation. We in India should be particularly aware of this aspect of our reality.
Despite impressive growth numbers over the past decades, there is evidence to indicate that relatively inequality in this country has widened. The poor in India may not necessarily have become poorer, but the gaps in income and wealth between the underprivileged and the affluent have sharpened, especially in recent years and particularly on account of high food inflation.

The writer is an educator and commentator