In a way, the government was lucky that India didn’t see any of the riotous scenes that were witnessed in Venezuela when a somewhat similar decision was taken in that country. The reason for this was not only that most people saw some good emerging from demonetisation, but also because of the faith they seem to place in Modi doing the right thing by them. Trusting Modi is one thing, but it would take an unimaginable leap of faith to repose trust in the rapacious and unreformed, unreconstructed bureaucracy to not extort money from even the honest taxpayer. This is one of the main reasons why many people prefer to stay out of the radar screen of the tax machinery and do their business in cash. There is also the factor of complex tax laws that are difficult for an ordinary small businessman to follow. This means that unless there are sweeping legal and tax reforms, there will not be enough incentive for people to voluntarily enter the tax system. So far, however, there is little indication of such reforms being undertaken. Quite to the contrary, as opposed to the Prime Minister’s promise of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’, there is a real fear of a ‘big’ and intrusive government unleashing a new inspector raj on the people, what with all sorts of new taxes rumoured to be in the offing and fears that tax officials will be given more powers with very little oversight (forget about a robust grievance redressal system). Surely, such an inspector regime will strangulate the economy, just like it did in its previous avatar.