India needs institutional reform — now!

India must reform its institutions before accumulated frustration turns into a crisis that will be far more difficult and costly to control. The time for complacency is over; the time for systemic reform is now an urgency for the nation

India is witnessing an institutional crisis that can no longer be dismissed as isolated corruption, administrative inefficiency or the occasional failure of an individual officer. Millions of ordinary Indians interact every day with hospitals, police stations, courts, schools, municipal corporations, revenue offices and administrative authorities. For the common citizen, the State is not an abstract constitutional concept. It is the police station where a complaint must be registered, the government hospital where treatment is expected, the court where justice is sought, the school where children are educated, the municipal corporation responsible for basic services and the government office where a simple document may require repeated visits. For millions, these everyday interactions have increasingly become sources of frustration, humiliation, delay and extraordinary mental stress.

The scale of the problem is almost unimaginable. Nearly one-fifth of humanity lives in India, and when such a vast population is subjected to inefficient institutions, procedural delays, corruption, arbitrary decision-making and administrative indifference, the consequences extend far beyond individual grievances. They gradually damage the social fabric of the nation. A citizen who spends years pursuing justice, repeatedly visits government offices for legitimate services, encounters corruption in routine transactions or faces arbitrary action by an authority begins to lose faith not only in that institution but in the State itself.

India's political discourse, however, remains overwhelmingly focused on elections. Political parties devote enormous energy to winning power, managing constituencies, defeating opponents and controlling political narratives. Governments are judged largely through electoral victories, announcements, infrastructure projects and welfare programmes. Yet the most fundamental question is rarely asked with sufficient seriousness: How does an ordinary citizen experience the State every day?

Does a police station deliver timely and impartial justice? Can an ordinary citizen approach the courts without spending years and enormous sums of money? Can the administrative machinery provide services without corruption, favouritism and unnecessary delays? Can municipal corporations deliver basic civic services efficiently? Can government hospitals and schools provide quality services with accountability? These are not ideological questions. They are questions about the functioning and credibility of the Republic.

The crisis becomes even more serious when taxation is considered. Citizens are expected to pay direct and indirect taxes, yet many increasingly feel that the State possesses enormous power to scrutinise, penalise and recover taxes while providing inadequate accountability for how public money is collected and spent. Excessive compliance burdens, aggressive enforcement and disproportionate proceedings can create a perception of tax terrorism, particularly among honest taxpayers, entrepreneurs and small businesses. Tax collection is essential for a modern State, but taxation must operate within fairness, transparency, predictability and due process. The citizen cannot be treated merely as a source of revenue.

India now requires an extremely stringent and comprehensive anti-corruption framework applicable without exception to every person drawing a salary, remuneration or pension from the public exchequer. From the President of India and ministers to senior bureaucrats, judges, police officers, public-sector employees and the last-mile government employee, no public servant should be above accountability. A proposed framework could provide severe imprisonment, potentially extending to 20 years in the gravest proven cases of corruption, embezzlement, bribery or deliberate misuse of public funds, along with recovery of illicitly acquired assets, subject to due process and judicial determination.

This reform is essential if India genuinely intends to become a global power. India cannot seriously aspire to challenge the United States or China while operating a government machinery weighed down by mediocrity, inefficiency, excessive bureaucracy, corruption and weak accountability. A nation cannot become a superpower merely through international speeches, impressive statistics, media campaigns, podcasts or chest-thumping nationalism. Great nations are built by competent institutions and millions of honest, capable and professionally accountable people performing their responsibilities every day.

There is another emerging vulnerability that the ruling establishment cannot afford to ignore. In an era of largely unregulated social media, a spark can travel across an entire country within hours. Traditional mainstream media, once the principal instrument for shaping public narratives and communicating during national crises, has lost much of its influence among large sections of the younger and digitally connected population. Consequently, the government's ability to communicate directly and effectively during a rapidly developing crisis is becoming increasingly limited.

Social-media algorithms determine what millions of people see, share and discuss, often rewarding outrage, sensationalism and emotional content. While it would be simplistic to claim that algorithms are universally controlled by external forces, the possibility of foreign influence operations, coordinated disinformation, manipulated narratives or hostile actors exploiting India's social and institutional weaknesses represents a genuine strategic vulnerability. A crisis generated internally or amplified by forces outside the country can therefore escalate at extraordinary speed. Crisis management is no longer merely a question of police deployment or administrative orders; it is also a question of information, trust, digital communication and institutional credibility.

It is high time that the Indian State restores the basic meaning of public service. Citizens should receive reliable drinking water from Jal Boards rather than depending on mineral-water vendors; dependable electricity from electricity distribution authorities rather than generators and inverters; regular garbage collection from municipal corporations rather than private vendors; and public security from accountable police stations rather than private guards standing outside homes in almost every affluent colony across India. Citizens should be able to obtain legitimate certificates and regulatory approvals directly and transparently, without paying touts or middlemen. The disturbing presence of intermediaries managing access to courts, brokers facilitating admissions in government schools and hospitals, and agents controlling routine government services has become so normalised that a parallel economy of influence appears to have developed around public institutions.

Surely, nobody wants to live in a country where basic civic necessities and constitutional rights require private substitutes, personal connections or additional payments. But where can nearly one-fifth of humanity go if its own institutions fail to provide these essentials? There is no alternate India to which millions can simply migrate. That is precisely why preventive and corrective measures cannot be postponed. The objective is not to predict a storm but to prevent one. India must reform its institutions before accumulated frustration turns into a crisis that will be far more difficult and costly to control. The time for complacency is over; the time for systemic reform is now.

India needs a governance revolution: justice that is accessible, policing that is accountable, administration that is efficient, taxation that is fair, public expenditure that is transparent, social-media resilience that is strategic and an anti-corruption regime that respects both citizens and honest public servants. The true measure of democracy is not how successfully politicians win elections. It is how fairly, efficiently and respectfully the State treats an ordinary citizen. India has demonstrated that it can build a powerful modern economy. It must now build institutions worthy of its people. The time for cosmetic reform is over. India is crying for systemic reform. The objective is not to predict a storm but to prevent one.

It is high time that the Indian State restores the basic meaning of public service. Citizens should receive reliable drinking water from Jal Boards rather than depending on mineral-water vendors; dependable electricity from electricity distribution authorities rather than generators and inverters; regular garbage collection from municipal corporations rather than private vendors; and public security from accountable police stations rather than private guards standing outside homes in almost every affluent colony across India

The writer is a public policy expert and columnist; Views presented are personal.