Education, infrastructure, and even basic literacy are at least an order of magnitude worse in India than in Taiwan.
1.) large population
2.) squatters rights
3.) apathetic/spineless voters
4.) human fecal matters on the streets
5.) water shortage
6.) religious ferver
7.) entranched corruption
8.)....many more
Today see China, or Singapore if you think maybe the Lee family has a bit too much power than is justified in a real democracy.
India has an English democracy. Everything in India was originally designed to support a wealthy English middle-class (if it was important directly from the UK), or to extract wealth from poor Indians so it could be exported to the UK.
I'm saying, India's institutions are overbuilt. They were originally designed to work in a far richer, and far more orderly country. There are certainly some things which are "one size fits all", but for anything which is only appropriate with a large, law abiding middle class it fails horribly in India.
1) Some countries in other parts of the world developed AS democracies, even earlier than Taiwan.
2) Taiwan has continued to develop and improve most aspects of its living standards since it became a democracy.
Dictatorships miss out on the valuable reality-checks on public policy provided by free and fair election campaigns.
I don't get this point. Sure some countries developed as democracies, but effectiveness is contextual.
> 2) Taiwan has continued to develop and improve most aspects of its living standards since it became a democracy.
No one is arguing here that democracy is not eventually the best form of government, only when democracy is appropriate. Once a country is solidly middle class, I think democracy is a solid win and the people will demand it anyways.