Shielding the few, weakening the many

India stands at a pivotal moment. We have the ambition to transition from a $4 trillion to a $30 trillion economy, yet we often seem caught between the impulse to reform and the instinct to protect. While we celebrate our digital public infrastructure and the rise of start-ups, we must also confront the structural shackles that threaten to slow us down: unjust protectionism, bureaucratic inertia, and the need for next-generation governance. The False Shield of Quality Control: One of the most concerning trends in recent policy is the weaponization of Quality Control Orders (QCOs).

Ostensibly designed to ensure safety and standards, QCOs have increasingly morphed into protectionism in its worst form. When QCOs are imposed on final goods to prevent dumping, they serve a strategic purpose. However, the current regime has rampant QCOs spread across over 700 commodities, including critical inputs and intermediates. This is a strategic blunder. By restricting the import of raw materials, we force our MSMEs to buy from a handful of large domestic manufacturers who sell at prices 35-40 per cent higher than global rates. Take the textile sector, particularly man-made fibres. We aim to be global champions, yet we cripple our downstream manufacturers with artificially expensive inputs. This does not build resilience; it kills competitiveness. It protects the profit margins of a few duopolies while decimating job creation for the millions employed in smaller factories.

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If India wants to penetrate Global Value Chains (GVCs), we must accept a simple truth: no country manufactures everything. We must import competitive inputs to export competitive final products. Breaking the Bureaucratic Status Quo: If protectionism is the external barrier, bureaucratic inertia is the internal one. The Indian bureaucracy has traditionally been driven by physical and financial targets – money spent and buildings built – rather than tangible outcomes. We need a shift toward ruthless accountability. The Aspirational Districts Programme offered a template for this. By defining clear outcomes in health, nutrition, and education, and placing real-time data in the public domain, we forced districts to compete.

The result was that 115 of India’s most backward districts transformed themselves because their collectors knew they were being watched and ranked. We must apply this logic to our cities. Delhi’s perpetual garbage crisis or the crumbling infrastructure in our metros is not just a resource problem; it is a governance failure. We need to name and shame underperforming municipalities and reward those, like Indore, that deliver. Compassion has no place in measuring administrative competence. AI – The End of the Language Divide: While we fix our legacy systems, a new frontier is opening up that turns one of India’s oldest governance challenges into an asset.

For decades, our linguistic diversity – with dialects changing every 15 kilometres – was seen as a barrier to administration. Artificial Intelligence is flipping the script. With indigenous Large Language Models (LLMs) and initiatives like Bhashini, we are on the cusp of eliminating the language barrier entirely. Soon, a villager in rural Tamil Nadu or Bihar will not need to know English or even be literate to access government services. They will simply speak to theirphone in their local dialect to apply for a scheme, access credit, or fill a form. This is the next layer of our Digital Public Infrastructure. Just as UPI revolutionized payments, voice-enabled AI will revolutionize access. However, we must ensure that Indian data feeds Indian models.

We cannot afford a new form of colonization where our data trains foreign AIs that are then sold back to us as expensive services. The Roadmap Ahead: The path to a $30 trillion economy requires us to take the “red pill” of difficult reforms. We must finalize the labour codes to decriminalize entrepreneurship and allow our industries to scale. We must stop treating urbanization as a chaotic accident and start planning our cities as engines of growth. And most importantly, we must have the political will to dismantle the protectionist walls that comfort the few but constrain the many. India has the talent, the digital foundation, and the entrepreneurial energy. All we need now is the courage to let them compete.

(The writer is Director – Strategic Partnerships, Mrikal (Data/AI Center) and a Young Alumni Member, Govt. Liaison Task Force, IIT-Kharagpur.)