India's democracy better than European Union: Arvind Panagariya

While Comparing diversity issues in India and the European Union, Arvind Panagariya (Niti Aayog Vice Chairman) said that the world's largest democracy is better placed as a well-integrated unit than European union and in future it is able to see high growth rates in the coming decades. Replying to a question on India often being called a 'noisy democracy' at an industry body CII event, the Arvind said India despite its huge diversity and varied traditions and cultures, has stayed as a single cohesive unit. Jagdish Bhagwati, Panagariya said that Bhagwati told Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in response to his comment on India being a noisy democracy, that you hear the noise, I hear the music.

He added that quite contrary to that, with much greater diversity in India, the country has stayed as a single nation. And not only have we stayed together, but the nation has grown over time. Because in today's noise we tend to forget that in 1950s and 1960s when you go back there were so many separatist movements based on language, etc, he noted. On the way ahead, he said So I see it as a huge success of India's democracy. I think I will not have it any other way. In the long run we will see our growth rate in the next 15-30 years return to the rate of 8-10%.

On steps India needs to take to make its growth more inclusive, Panagariya said India's nature of growth has been different. In earlier success stories of Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and China, most recently, growth happened through rapid growth of labour-intensive industry, which created a lot of jobs and then that was led by growth in services sector.

(Also Read about India's Current Account Deficit seen at 1.3%).