India is a country of chaos. Overcrowded streets filled with potholes, power cuts at unpredictable times, and water shortages are just the way of life in this democracy of 1.1 billion people speaking a cacophony of languages and practicing a pantheon of religions.

Somehow, the country manages to function. Sometimes, just barely.

I used to just think that all India needed to do was crank out some brainy urban planners and civil engineers from its universities and all infrastructural problems would be solved. Roads without lanes would become mere memories. If the IITs could produce brilliant computer scientists, then surely a similarly inspired institution could mint fastidious urban planners who could impose sanity upon the madness that is India.

How naive.

In India, the problem isn’t potholes, or power cuts, or taps that yield no water. The problem is democracy.

Yes, the “hard” infrastructure of roads, power lines, and water pipes is in crisis, but so too is the “soft” infrastructure of transparency, civil society, and representative government.

A recent BusinessWeek cover story “The Trouble With India,” alludes to this underlying problem, even if its subheading only references hard infrastructure, stating “Crumbling roads, jammed airports, power blackouts could hobble growth.” Indeed, India’s “revolving-door” democracy is a true “tyranny of the majority'’—its poor populist masses call the shots. Recently, a new government was voted into Tamil Nadu after it promised free color TVs to poor households. Why vote for a politician who promises shiny, wide roads when you can vote for one who promises shiny, wide TVs?

And look what happened to N. Chandrabubu Naidu, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. He turned Hyderabad into Cyberabad by improving road conditions and priming the land for factories and office parks that are today the sites of R&D facilities for Google and Microsoft.

What happened to him? Two years ago, the populist masses voted him out for neglecting rural areas.

And, of course, there’s the perpetual problem of corruption. For any infrastructural project, whether it be a road, bridge, or sewer system, expect 25 percent of the budget to get siphoned off to government officials. They want their cut.

If Indian people, their politicians, and their government simply got their acts together, the subcontinent would have world-class infrastructure. Instead, the situation is so out of control that Aruna Newton, a vice president for Infosys, says, “I wish building a road was as easy as writing a software program.”

Only in India could constructing a functional road be more complex that computer coding for a transnational corporation.

Democracy, by its very nature, is an inefficient, messy way of getting things done. In comparing China and India, Daniel Vasella, an executive at the pharmaceutical company Novartis, remarks, “If you have to build a road in China, just a handful of people need to make a decision. If you want to build a road in India, it’ll take 10 years of discussion before you get a decision.”

That’s what happens when you have a diverse nation of 1.1 billion.

Does that mean India should ditch democracy in favor of a China-style authoritarian government? Of course not. It just means that the Indian populace needs to do a better job of making democracy work for them by participating in civil society and holding their leaders accountable.

Until then, India will continue being the clumsy elephant that lumbers forward, forging ahead somehow, some way.