Roll back the Big Indian State and relieve the middle-class

livemint.com:

Speaking at an event on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “I want to take the government out of the lives of people. Especially, I don’t approve of government interference in the lives of the middle-class. What is the need of the government everyday and at every step? We should create such a society where government interference is minimal." For the poor, the Indian state would offer support to fulfil basic needs, but for the rest, he said he would end unnecessary intervention as part of his governance agenda over the next five years.

In some ways, this is reminiscent of Rajiv Gandhi’s observation of welfare leakages, which squarely focused reformist minds on state inefficiency. Modi’s words focus attention on another aspect of our lived reality in India: the Big State. While “Minimum government, maximum governance" is an oft-cited mantra and ‘Ease of living’ has been a catch-phrase for the administration, his promise will resonate with anyone who has had sarkari encounters.

A list of reforms to roll back the state’s presence in Indian lives could go on endlessly. The principal pain-points, though, are in evidence all around. Take taxation.

As its rationale is valid, taxes are inescapable. But how it is levied makes a difference. Not only does it remain far too complex in India, it’s clear that the middle-class bears an outsized burden.

In spite of a ‘faceless’ regime to curb harassment by officials, taxpayers whose ‘high value’ transactions are under watch routinely receive notices asking for explanations. And now there also exists a refundable but pointless levy on money sent overseas that varies by purpose and makes one’s overall tax liability even harder to understand. Likewise, the compliance protocols for