CD Deshmukh didn't have to look over his shoulder.

"If the tax department goes to the extent of going through your Instagram handle to check if you have posted any photo of a purchase you did not account for, it shows a major distrust between the government and the taxpayer," wrote an editorial in the Economic Times. "About seven decades ago, when India had just started out as an independent country, the government believed taxpayers were vulnerable to moral appeals and did not require extreme measure." The first Finance Minister of India, CD Deshmukh had every confidence in "our people to sustain and support the government in whatever measures may be necessary to maintain the finances of the country in a sound position". The present government is spending vast sums of taxpayer money to scan social media and analyse "satellite pictures of farms". This mistrust between politicians and people was dramatically illustrated by the demonetization of high denomination notes on 8 November 2016 which stigmatised the entire nation of 1.3 billion people as thieves. Caught off guard people resorted to any means to convert their money into new notes and this turned usually law abiding people into money launderers. Plane loads of cash were sent to northeastern states, like Nagaland, to take advantage of different tax rules, prompting BJP politician, Arun Shourie to call it the "largest money laundering scheme' the world has seen. Does it mean that every Indian is a crook? Are Indians the only people in the world to have a gene for corruption? 34% of Members of the Lok Sabha have criminal charges against them, 20% of them are for murder, kidnap and rioting. Parties choose criminals as candidates because they have money and goons required to win, wrote M Vaishnav, while the people vote for criminals because they can deliver essential services for which they have to pay bribes to civil servants and the police. Taxpayers get nothing in return for their taxes, no pension, no healthcare and no education. Around 50 million people get pushed into poverty by healthcare costs every year. Essential medicines, for blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, get taxed at 12%, while civil servants and family can get treatment abroad at taxpayer expense. Politicians can of course spend taxpayer money anyway they like, as a Karnataka Minister showed. Children die in hospitals for lack of oxygen. A mysterious fire burnt all the files, which could have proved responsibility. The case against the 2G scam accused collapsed because it was deliberately undermined by politicians and civil servants, said an angry judge. Arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari was able to escape from India without his passport, and no one knows his whereabouts. There were no criminals sitting behind CD Deshmukh when he presented his budget in 1952. That is the difference.