I think in those countries, including my own in India, where I think primary education has been badly neglected by successive governments, I blame the opposition as much. Why have they allowed the government to get away with it?
Amartya SenYou have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.
Amartya SenIf the government is vulnerable to public opinion, then famines are a dreadfully bad thing to have. You canยt win many elections after a famine, and you donยt like being criticized by newspapers, opposition parties in parliament, and so on. Democracy gives the government an immediate political incentive to act.
Amartya SenItยs scandalous when one thinks about the people who live in a world in which they need not be hungry, in which they need not die without medical care, in which they need not be illiterate, they need not feel hopeless and miserable so much of the time, and yet they are.
Amartya Sen