Many might consider corruption in public life to be a threat to economic growth but recent studies by eminent economists have shown that political instability tends to hurt states more than corruption.
An exhaustive study by Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari finds that India’s ‘best performing’ states are Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Despite the scar of Godhra, Gujarat under Narendra Modi has made great economic strides and is known to be one of the lesser corrupt states.
The south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, ruled successively by two major ruling parties, Karunanidhi’s DMK and Jayalalitha’s AIDMK have often been seen as governments that are highly corrupt but where work gets done quite efficiently. In some states like Jharkhand the authors found that though corruption was rampant work hardly got done due to political instability. It is political stability which has helped Gujarat and Tamil Nadu maintain high growth rates over long periods of time.
Maharashtra on the other hand is a state afflicted with both corruption and political instability. In Andhra Pradesh there was a high degree of corruption during Chandrababau Naidu’s time and also during the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. But corruption did not hurt the state’s growth as much as political instability has in the past two years. Overnight Andhra Pradesh has lost its tag of being a favourite investment destination. Three prominent Hyderabad-based business leaders have moved out of the state in the past year, taking their business not just to other states but also outside India.
Now what lessons does this have for Meghalaya? Political instability has been the hallmark of the State. Hence economic growth has had no chance to take roots. Even if investors were called here, they would be wary to negotiate any deal since governments change every year and they are unsure if what they have invested will have a chance to take off. Meghalaya suffers the double whammy of corruption and political instability. It is the most politically unstable state in the country.
Those who have ruled Meghalaya have had no vision but that of installing themselves in the seats of power and trying to remain there forever. The point is that those who vote have never used the yardstick of development to measure the worth of a government. People have voted for everything else but economic issues. Its time the people of Meghalaya learnt to use the right scales to measure development and demand good governance as a right!