'Regulations bigger challenges to economy than China'

Ram Madhav calls the state "the perpetuator of inequality"

Advocating a limited role of the state in society, BJP senior leader Ram Madhav on Friday said that the biggest 'enemy' of the economy was not China, but its own economic policies and regulations.

Speaking at a conference on 'Indian Democracy at Work- Money Power in Politics' at the Indian School of Business here, he opined that the control of the state should not be enormous and omnipresent.

The state in India is the "perpetuator of inequalities" and politics thrives on inequalities and injustices, he said.

He said Indian society has shown enough resilience all these centuries to address many challenges like inequality or caste system or gender issues with the help of non-political and non-governmental institutions.

The BJP leader said he was not for completely doing away with the state, but was conservative to the extent that its role in dispensation should be limited. "It should not be omnipresent and omnipotent. That has to change. That is crippling our society... crippling our economy," he said.

Madhav said the biggest 'enemy' of the economy was not China, but the nation's economic system and regulations. "China is a challenge, I agree. Chinese challenge we will tackle. But how to tackle our own challenge?" he asked. He was replying to a query on the inequalities in society and the state's role in addressing them.

"I am also on the ruling side... Yet let me openly tell you that there was never a time when you had 10 different institutions having powers to arrest people. There used to be only uniformed police. Today in India we have seven or eight institutions that have powers to arrest. So the state controlling so much is not good. Again as I said it is against India's ethos and DNA, he explained. To a query on the caste system in the country's political culture, the BJP leader said it has outlived its utility and the political parties thrive on it.