Some years ago, a young businessman dropped into a bookshop in Dehra Dun. There were also some cadets in the shop from the local Rashtriya Indian Military College (the school which had Sam Manekshaw amongst its first cadets when it opened in 1932). One of them joked that instead of Bharat Mata ki jai, they should be shouting Reliance ki jai. The joke upset the young man; he started thinking about what was wrong with his country and how it could be set right.

The man himself had an unusual family tree. His American grandfather had fought in World War II and passed through India on the way to the eastern front. His father joined Macy’s, the New York department store, as a buyer in the 1950s. There he came across handwoven cloth and became interested in it. He took a grant from the Ford Foundation and came to study Indian handicrafts in 1958. In Delhi, he courted Bimla Nanda, the social secretary in the American embassy, and married her. Together, they set up a business to export handloom products. Later they opened retail outlets in the country, and started selling other handicraft products. Today, the son runs the business. In its pursuit he has travelled much, and seen a good deal of India. He was disturbed by the widespread cynicism about the government, and worried that in their eagerness to get rid of the corrupt politicians, the people would put their trust in a dictator. He sat down to think of reforms that could save this country.

He thinks that the muddled geographical hierarchy, which currently consists of villages, talukas, districts, divisions, states and Union territories, should be cleaned up. The country should be divided into 480 communities of about 25,000 people each; they would replace the present panchayats, blocks and subdivisions. The people of a community would directly elect a chairman and four members of a council. Their salaries would be a fixed multiple of the community’s average income; the richer it got, the more they would earn.

The community would levy a one per cent property tax, and sell or lease out all community assets, like land, water, forests and rights of way. It would issue, free of cost, six targeted catalysts (TCs) to every citizen; they would entitle him to 2,000 calories of food, 4.5 litres of drinking water, 35.5 litres of water for washing in villages and 130.5 litres in cities, full-time education from kindergarten to university, basic medical insurance, and services of a lawyer for enforcing rights and preparing contracts. The citizen could take the TCs to competing service providers and exchange them for his requirements. The market in the services would minimize costs. The service providers would be able to sell the TCs to the community administration; it would pay a fixed price for each TC, plus a premium for quality. The lower their costs and higher their quality, the higher the service providers’ profits would be.

Every citizen would also have equal habitat rights: to minimum residential space, clean water, sewage disposal, power, and access to green space within a certain distance of his habitat. Besides these inviolable habitat rights, the citizen would have limited rights to quality air, limitations on traffic, relative quiet, solid waste disposal, and ambient temperature. For these five variables there would be a national minimum, but a community could aim at higher standards.

In sum, the community council must ensure that the basic requirements of every one of its citizens are met out of its tax revenue. In addition, it would be required to maintain a certain minimum level of ecological assets such as forests and water bodies. Any council may build up more than its required level of assets, and sell the surplus to any other council that has a deficit.

Groups of 100 contiguous communities would make up an area. It would be administered by the 100 chairmen of community councils, headed by an elected member of parliament. Ten areas would make up a region, governed by 10 members of parliament headed by a governor; he would replace the present chief minister. The country of 120 crore citizens would be divided into 48 regions. It would have a parliament of 480 members — each elected by an area — who in turn would elect the government as now. Just like communities, area and regional governments would finance themselves by selling and leasing assets under their control. Public assets would be divided among the four tiers of government. In addition, the national government would levy a one per cent tax on all financial transactions done through the electronic payment system, and a one per cent inheritance tax on the death of any individual with assets exceeding 1,000 times per capita gross domestic product.

Cash would be abolished. All transactions would be done electronically from a national identity card issued to every citizen; possession of the card would entitle the citizen to the six TCs. All the transactions he did with the card would be centrally recorded. He would be able to use the records to prove his credit, and take loans. Abolition of cash would spell the death of the black economy.

The various legal business entities, such as companies and partnerships, would be replaced by a simple two-fold distinction between shareholder associations and stakeholder associations. The difference would be that shareholders might receive dividends, whereas there would be no dividends for stakeholders. Members of all associations would have four levels of rights. As an individual, a member would be entitled to information. If he then had a grievance, and if he gathered the support of 10 per cent of the members, his demand would have to be discussed by the board and the outcome conveyed to the membership. On a more serious matter, if the individual member collected the support of 25 per cent of the members, he would be able to command a referendum. If he got the support of over 50 per cent, he would be able to change the management of the association.

Corruption would be eliminated by four types of changes. First, arbitrary rules, which give their enforcers power that they can turn into cash, would be abolished. Second, replacing the current numerous and complicated laws by a small number of simple ones, together with the provision of a legal TC to everyone, would remove law-based corruption. Third, elimination of taxes on income would remove the incentive to conceal it. Finally, introduction of standards, and of markets to provide TC services, would eliminate corruption relating to quality debasement.

These are only some of the ideas to be found in Making India Work (Penguin) by William Nanda Bissell, the CEO of Fabindia, which has now spread its shops to most major cities in India and its procurement to many areas of rural talent. I would be delighted if India’s disillusioned people staged a revolution and made him their dictator. That is unlikely in the present circumstances. But at a more modest level, he would make a good minister of rural development in the national government. The number of people with good ideas is small. In Bissell we have such a rare one.