As Amazon Hits India’s Job Market & Small Businesses, Need of the Hour is to Rein in the Corporate Giant

Never in India’s history have the micro and small sector been under such a sustained attack for so long. What is amazing in all of this is, that not only is this the same segment of job creators who have been forced to pick up the highest tab in the governments demonetisation and GST implementation, but also the ones whose livelihood and interests have been trampled upon by large corporates like Amazon in absolute and flagrant violation of Indian law, with negligible regulatory or legal consequences. In effect, what has happened here is that to circumvent Indian laws, different and transparently false subsidiary vendors are being created under various labels “choice, brand, basics, solimo etc” while the vendor is in fact just one – Amazon. The problem with this model is that it has the devastating impact of what is called the “Walmart effect” – that when a Walmart comes to town – the effect on local small businesses is no less than a nuclear strike, with absolute devastation and significant economic depression in that area. Be it the compliance cost of GST; or the ongoing extortion of small businesses by GST officials who reclassify products at will, without consequence or accountability even when their classification is found to be wrong; to bearing a disproportionate burden during demonetisation given the nature of the informal economy in an overwhelmingly low disposable income country; small business have been through an absolute nightmare.