A multi-polar world ahead, says Tharoor

Member of Parliament and author Shashi Tharoor said here on Thursday that a big super-national institution such as Lokpal would not tackle corruption in the lower rungs of governance that directly affected ordinary Indians.

Speaking on the topic ‘The new superpowers' at the inaugural day of Hay Festival here, Mr. Tharoor said petty corruptions that affected the common man could not be ended by a piece of legislation but only through a mass awakening and a series of systemic changes.

Mr. Tharoor, who was interacting with BBC correspondent Anita Anand, said the presence of 24-hour news channels in India had actually become a factor in improving accountability in governance.

Asked if democracy was India's problem, Mr. Tharoor said it was not democracy but the way in which our system operated that was holding us back. “I don't think we should sacrifice our democracy for attaining economic development. But we should refine our system which unfortunately does not favour effective and objective decision making,'' he said.

Talking about the emergence of India and China as the future super powers, Mr. Tharoor said he was convinced that the 21st century would be a century without super powers. “The vision I have is that of an increasingly networked, multi-polar world where everyone has a place of their own. And India is well poised to become a significant player in this networked world,'' he said.

“The few Chinese scholars who have taken the trouble to study India are usually quite dismissive of the advantages of democracy. They feel that India suffers from democracy rather than benefit from it. They feel the conformity and order in their system has actually promoted the economic growth in their country,” Mr. Tharoor said.

Dismissing the phrase ‘Chindia' as awful, Mr. Tharoor said India and China had very less in common. Although, in the ancient times, India was a favoured foreign destination for Chinese scholars and students, today the Chinese public was largely ignorant about India, he said.

“But the Chinese elite today has certain consciousness or even resentment in India's ease with the rest of the world,” he said, adding that India and China were heading towards a new status in the world.