India: A nation of little red tape riding hoods

On paper, India is set to become a global economic player. Unfortunately, economics, or for that matter anything else, is not conducted on paper. But here in India, we seem to know otherwise. When Solar Impulse-2 (Si2), the world’s first aircraft running solely on solar power making a round-theworld trip, decided to take off from Ahmedabad to fly to Varanasi, India was happily set to be part of a futuristic script. The trouble is, the clichés refuse to jump off, and tomorrow in India is stuck in yesterday. And nothing — not even homilies and exhortations like ‘Make in India’ — could stop Si2 from being stuck in Ahmedabad for five days because of, in the words of the project’s chairman and one of the pilots, “administration, papers, stamps”. A red carpet was readily replaced by red tape.

In a country that worships the secular ritual of paperwork, the reason for so much red tape to exist is to keep an x number of people employed in ‘conducting’ red tape. We, insiders, may have become tolerant of the insanity of this Byzantine-Brahminical system. But for outsiders, it is as welcoming as an ‘Out, damned spot!’ sign. If we can effortlessly make life so difficult for a team circumnavigating the world, imagine what genius with paper clips and ‘triplicates’ we can showcase for anyone wishing to do business in Incredible India.