Actual article: There are a lot of laws that haven’t been changed either because the government wants a say in people’s life or because it doesn’t matter because people just ignore the law and no one gets prosecuted.
People from the subcontinent will be the first to say that rule breaking is the biggest problem on the subcontinent. The phone guy demanding a bribe to install a second phone line is the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused my dad to schlep us to the U.S.
The explanation seems superficial: “Because the state makes it impossible not to be.”
That suggests we could get Indians to become rule followers by having some McKinsey folks come over and write different rules. I’d put that into the same bucket of willful denial of reality as the folks who thought you could make Iraq and Afghanistan into democracies by giving them different rules and laws.
This is unfortunate, because the underlying issue is extremely important. Getting to the bottom of it would change billions of people’s lives for the better.
> IF YOU HAVE ever relaxed with a cold Kingfisher beer at the end of a long, sweaty day in Mumbai, the party capital of India, you have almost certainly broken the law. Specifically, you violated section 40 of the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949, under which you must hold a permit to drink booze. A first offence is punishable by a fine of 10,000 rupees ($115) and up to six months in prison.
