No easing off 'ease of doing business'

Easy now. The buzz-phrase, 'ease of doing business', is doing the rounds again. And more than ever, it's being interpreted less as a policy metric and more as a mantra - chanted by 'entrepreneurs' (read: businessmen who don't like being called businessmen) in an attempt to cut corners and assure everyone that what they are doing is for the sole purpose of 'nation-building'. The World Bank in its original definition meant 'streamlined regulations'. These folks hear, 'Do what you want, just don't get caught.'

For many, it's a licence to instal a factory in a cow shed, register it under three different names, and claim GST refunds on imaginary exports to Wakanda. Paperwork is for Nehruvian boomers. Real 'innovators' run the system on WhatsApp forwards, cousin connections and 'jugaad', now renamed 'disruption'. Ask your standard success-hungry entrepreneur about compliance, and he'll show you how in those hoary pre-liberalisation days, exactly those kinds of concepts like compliance brought the nation to the brink of communism. Labour laws, in today's set-up with AI on the prowl, means sniffing about for workarounds. 'Ease...' is not about reducing red tape, it's about wrapping it around everyone else except your business. So, next time someone quotes India's ranking, ask, 'Ease for whom?' The answer is always: 'Sir, you have to understand....'