Why is the government so shy of spending?

'Why is it that a nation that has very low standards for life and living has such high standards in its war against one disease?" asked Manu Joseph about India's reaction to the coronavirus. In 2009-2010, one billion people in the world were infected by swine flu and half a million died. But there was no such panic. So far, this virus has infected over 3 million people worldwide, killing 211,609, much less than swine flu. The panic has been produced by admirers of China, especially US business people, wrote Joseph. India has its very own problems. "On 15 April, the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA)" "allowed e-commerce companies to expand their offering beyond the existing list of essential commodities", wrote Anil Padmanabhan, but "a fresh clarification from the MHA on 19 April reversed the relaxation". "It is the most open secret that the flip-flop was influenced by the powerful lobby of domestic traders." It is a typical example of bureaucratic overreach "reminiscent of the licence raj". Is it? "One of the saddest statements about India's informal Covid taskforce is that of a senior official: "Most instructions come form the PM. Even in technical matters, his vision and knowledge are exemplary. We always feel he is ahead of us," wrote Prof Kanti Bajpai. Yesterday, the government told the Supreme Court it does not want migrant workers to return to their villages. At the same time, over 12,000 laborers were brought back from Haryana by the UP state government which is of the same party as Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "With both geopolitics and the pandemic creating incentives for foreign companies to shift their supply chains from China, the Indian economy has a once-in-a-century window of opportunity to capture some business," wrote Nitin Pai, but "such windows have appeared periodically since 2009, all of which India has missed". "That leaves us with only one answer: get India back to work." That will require widespread testing which will cost a lot of money. Fiscal rectitude should be discarded and the government should spend Rs 9-10 trillion to stimulate the economy, wrote an editorial in the Mint. "This is the time to save the economy by spending big and show the world how a big economy can be salvaged by decisive action and force rating agencies and other finger-wagging busybodies to relearn their economic lessons," said an editorial in the Economic Times. Modi has spent 6 years in power through his ability to mesmerize the masses with his non-stop speeches, the windfall gains from taxes on fuel and the vertigo-inducing rise of the stock market index the Sensex. His bluff has caught up with him and he is petrified of a collapse of the economy if he does nothing or an explosion of new cases if he opens up or a fall to junk status if he spends. Hot air has its limits.