Amit Chandra

#Opinion | The latest Global Innovation Index placed India 38th. The commentariat will repeat what it says every year: Our R&D expenditure is only ~0.6% of GDP, against China’s ~2.7% and Korea’s ~5%; only 41% of our R&D comes from the private sector, compared to 70-80% in peer economies; and we have no patience with failure. (@Ahlurahul✍️) Read More - hindustantimes.com/opinion/t… 📲 For News on the go, Download HT app. Click hindustantimes.com/s/14lS24m

The entire Indian system is geared towards *prevention*. *Prevent* all the bad things from happening, because recourse to cure is so poor. Why is there no cure? Courts and police are total failures - for instance, if somebody commits a financial fraud, it can take decades to prosecute them. Hence prevent the fraud - throw multiple OTPs at the user for a Rs 5000 fund transfer. Banks make you do KYC like fanatics because they are trying to *prevent* the last bad actor from getting away - if millions are to be tortured for it, so be it. This prevention-first mindset throws sand in the wheels for everything. It makes life hell for consumers and small businesses. Just imagine what the accumulated cost is of preventing all the bad things from happening - surely it shaves off many basis points from GDP growth when you stack up all of it. And yet the cheats, criminals, troublemakers and frauds all find ways to do what they do anyway. Those who are just trying to run their business and get through life are burdened with this mountain of compliance and paperwork. None of this moves babus and ministers - they live in a parallel reality where somebody else works (at taxpayer expense of course) to remove these frictions from their existence. Then they blithely bark at poor consumers and business operators: “ek form hi to hai, bhar do”. But of course it is never one form - every leech in the system demands a form and a submission. Stacked up, it goes into hundreds of pages of documents and dozens of tasks. The associated parasite lobby of lawyers, consultants, company secretaries and chartered accountants makes merry. They lobby the government for more regulations and offer compliance services to hapless people. In exchange, they place the government elite’s nepo kids in jobs. This parasite gang has a field day because more documents means more business for them. They are joined by economists and intellectuals, who want to join the leeching and bloodsucking bacchanalia. This intellectual cabal wants to snag a coveted role in the “world’s best” prize winner central bank or other sarkaari gig. Productivity dies in India, businesses slow down and overall it is a slow-motion economic disaster. In isolation we feel happy to have 6-7% economic growth. Decades go on then somebody says - oh, how did Singapore, Vietnam and China do so well? We look at the delta and feel awkward. We justify it saying “we have democracy”. The super-cabal didn’t just prevent accidents or disasters like they claimed - they killed off and prevented growth and progress with it. Mega accidents and disasters happened anyway. Enjoy the democracy. Praise the cockroaches and jholachhaps. Celebrate the thugs, parasites, leeches and bureaucrat-goons all around you. Mera Bharat Mahaan!