Quick economic reform in India depends on quicker political reform

Here’s a problem the proposed repeal of the farm laws poses once again: while anyone with any brains wants economic reform, meaning taking the bureaucracy--not the state--out of economic activity, no one really wants political reform, other than funding of elections. 

So since 1991, there has been relentless pressure to reform the economy. But there is no such pressure to reform the political arrangements. 

That’s why the two major fiascos of the Modi government — first land acquisition reform in 2015 and now the farm laws reform — point to just one thing: political reform must proceed alongside, if not indeed precede, economic reform.