The Indian state is the antithesis of what any state should do. It barely provides public goods and is instead overwhelmingly present in provisioning and subsidizing private goods or regulating private interactions.
This extends to everything. Instead of law and order, the government focuses on providing cooking gas subsidies. Instead of enforcing justice for crimes against Dalits, the state absolves itself of responsibility, often by pointing to reservations. Instead of enforcing contracts and having fair rules for all private enterprise, the state is seen to pick cronies as economic winners, granting them subsidies and monopoly privileges. Instead of investing in strengthening public goods and services, the state games electoral politics by giving away private entitlements. As always, religious and caste minorities and women are the worst affected, by the underprovisioning of public goods.
This shift from public goods to unequal private entitlements has been the modus operandi of the bloated and costly Indian state, post-liberalization.
