[alephnerd]

> The hurdles to establishment of a manufacturing base are not labor shortages. The biggest issue in India is the ease of doing business[0] and the bureaucratic red tape. India ranks 136 in 190 countries in starting new businesses, among many other accolades

It all comes down to India's Labor Laws and Land Acquisition Laws.

No one actually follows Labor Laws in India, but Enforcement Agencies and local Politicians will use them to extract bribes. You will invariably be breaking some labor law (eg. under Indian Labor Laws, you need to provide a baby room/creche for every woman), and as such you need to pay off the Trade Unions, local ruling Politician, local opposition Politician, the district labor commissioner, the district magistrate, etc.

In India, the laws are used as a way to extract the maximum number of bribes out of you.

This is why Tamil Nadu and Gujarat do so well at manufacturing in India - the politicans in both states are equally corrupt, but the ruling parties (DMK and BJP respectively) run a One-Party State where you only pay them off, and everyone has to listen.

If you pay off your GJ BJP MLA or your TN DMK MLA, you will be free to do whatever you want - similar to how you operate in Guangdong or HCMC.

In a lot of other states in India, corruption is nowhere near as streamlined.

[abdullahkhalids]

Is India still stuck on the Land Acquisition Act of 1894? Pakistan has been totally unable to make any changes to it, despite/because it allows for so much corruption, graft and control.

[alephnerd]

Yep.

Narendra Modi has been campaigning on radically reforming the LAA since he became Prime Minister in 2014, but he never got the supermajority needed to safely pass it.

The current 2024 election is basically being fought over this Land Reform Law [0].

The UCC, Ram Mandir, etc stuff is all a distraction from interests fighting for and against this law.

It's a good reform, but Modi isn't fighting for it out of altruism. Easier land acquisition makes it easier to manufacture mass housing under the PMAY-U program, which would basically make Singaporean style HDBs for Indians. Once that is in place, the BJP will win elections for the next 20 years, because they've provided modern housing (and the ability to get rich from graft on the way).

[0] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/land-reforms-included...

[Karrot_Kream]

Changing land acquisition would be a huge boon for much more than just housing for the BJP. As you say this opens up a lot more opportunities to get rich from graft for a lot of non-housing purposes as well.

[alephnerd]

Yep! I mentioned housing specifically because PMAY-U and PMAY-G was supposed to be Modi's crowing achievement (also the easiest way to pull off graft en masse), along with UBI [0].

Food security, Housing, and UBI are the three holy grails - whichever party successfully delivers on all 3 becomes invincible for a generation, and why the BJP has been doing what it's doing.

[0] - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/02/04/i...

[pkd]

This government's track record of passing radical reforms has been pretty poor (the Farm bills, labour reforms, GST implementation) so I am not holding my breath. It is not the supermajority that was hindering the Farm bills either - their main issue has been the lack of advance outreach to the relevant sections of society. There is no way you are going to simply pass laws like that in India without first priming the farmers / labour unions etc. first, even at acute tax payer expense. If they learnt from their mistakes then we can hope for something but their modus operandi has been to completely ignore any opposition to their policies so I will not hold my breath.