The fundamental issue in India - my perspective

The historical world was of authoritarian nature - ruled by monarchs. I won't say that this philosophy was a failure, given it stayed for several hundred years if not a thousand. Indeed there had been dynasties that lasted merely a decade but at the same time, some dynasties lasted several generations. I believe it is worth pondering as to what was the reason behind such long survival of such authoritarian regimes. Their secret, I believe, is the rule of law. 

In any society, I believe, the expectations from any subject would be to get heard and justice be served. Any subject would only reach the leader when things cannot be resolved at their levels and they trust that the leader would provide the correct resolution. Hence, regimes where the rule of law dominated enjoyed success.

Over time we transformed towards democracies. This is because the rule of law had started to become subjective to the monarchs. Hence, subjects decided to jot down the rule of law and re-organize society. This created the constitution and democratic setups. It was believed that the rules would now remain objective and the era where the rule of law dominated would come again. However, the continual evolution of human cranial capacity now made us twist and turn and mend the so-called "rule of law". And it is this, I believe, that is the very fundamental problem in our democratic setup today, esp. in India.

Usually, we blame corruption and red tape for the inefficiencies of democracy, however, I see them as a negative externality of failure of the "rule of law" rather than the true causes. To further demonstrate this, let's visualize it through a simple game-theoretic example. 

Suppose we have two players, say a weak un-resourceful player named 2 and a strong resourceful player named 1. Now, suppose they have to undergo some agreement, according to which both the players would have to abide (A, A). Individually, each player has the incentive to deviate to (B), as it would provide them with a higher payoff. However, it may be the case that (A, A) is the socially optimal solution. Also, it is important to note that if both the players deviate, i.e, (B, B) then it incurs the highest social cost. Thus, the responsibility to save society comes to the agreement being adhered to.

Now, the role of "rule of law" in ensuring adherence to the (A,A) could be severe punishment if either player deviates. In this way, the players would not be incentivized to deviate and (A,A) would sustain. But note, it is very important for the rule of law to be strong enough that each player realizes it and incorporates its effect while making their payoff calculations. Only in such cases, the constitution would enable the expected domination of law in society. But what if, the resourceful player could take advantage of its position. In such case, the deviation would not incur cost to the player and indeed the player would deviate. Now, what if, player 2 knows the power of player 1 and that the counter-party would indeed deceive. Either, player 2 won't go into the agreement or it would try to grease some hands so as to at least get a slightly improved payoff if player-1 defects. While the former indicates market failure - loss to society, the latter would encourage corruption. Hence, we see, the failure of rule of law is a complete loss to society in a democratic setup and a strong existential crisis for the same. 

India, respectfully but unfortunately has been failing for implementing the fair rule of law and this, I believe, is the fundamental issue hampering its growth. The cost of getting justice is immense in India and, in fact, un-affordable to the common man. It is this reason that leads to proliferating corruption and all sorts of related issues. The immense shortfall in Indian judicial services, the corruptions in the judicial (bitter truth that I have myself witnessed at session levels) and the inefficiencies call for urgent reform and paramount attention. In order to improve economic conditions, trust between govt-citizens will have to improve, with the primary cause being strong, efficient, quick and affordable access to justice - the only and true success of the democracy.