How cronyism dictates Modi’s India

Gautam Adani & Narendra Modi

• Strategic litigations are being used by big corporates to curb free speech and discourage high-quality investigative journalism.
• While Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims that there’s not a single stain of corruption on his three-year tenure in the Centre, a barrage of attacks on media, creeping self-censorship and a belligerent government clamping down on those trying to do their job well and ask critical, uncomfortable questions about the state of the political economy.
• With 58% of India’s wealth owned by the top 1% of population, crony capitalism is thriving and under this government's regime. Despite PM Modi’s hard talk against corruption and claims of ending it altogether, there exists a concerted attempt to delete every mention of such collusions.
• The "collusions" of the alleged Modi-Adani nexus, whether in terms of bending of rules pertaining to special economic zones as to benefit the Adani Group per se, or helping the businessman deal with black money, give him undue loans from public sector banks on overseas projects that had run into troubles with local authorities there.
• It was SBI trying to extend a line of credit worth $ one billion to Adani Group for the Carmichael coal mining project in Australia, or helping the billionaire from Gujarat engage in "riskless capitalism" by tweaking SEZ rules, laying waste to India's environment, or saving Adani from green penalties, the collusion has been happening right before our eyes. 
• Of course, Gautam Adani* had reportedly poured money into Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha election campaign in 2013-14, making it the costliest ever in the history of India. The Gujarat-based businessman's proximity to the prime minister was flaunted in the politician flying all over India in Adani's private planes and choppers.
  *Adani is a college dropout, who spurned his father's textile shop to set up a commodities export firm in 1988. He survived the terrorist attack in Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in 2008.
• Adani Group allegedly took out over Rs 5,000 crore to tax havens abroad, using inflated bills for the import of power equipment from South Korea and China, and the SIT on black money was told by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
• Despite his anti-black money bluster, one of the biggest black money cases before the retired Supreme Court judge-led Special Investigation Team - a decision taken by PM Modi himself in the initial days of his taking office - has been that of the Adani Group of Industries. 
• What has happened to that investigation? No clue. Brutal clampdown on any mention of the alleged Modi-Adani nexus, strangling free press by using what in legal jargon has come to be known as a "SLAPP", or strategic litigation to avoid public participation.  
• Press freedom in India ranks at a dismal number 138.

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Beware of those propagandist tricks

The daily belabouring of issues only creates a frenetic public parade of issues and allegations. But nothing is followed up to establish the truth.

• In a democracy, those who are spiritual have to be political. It suits the interests of the corrupt and oppressive players in politics to sustain the myth that politics is a truth, justice, welfare, den of scoundrels. 
• Politics is sacred. A Swachh Bharat will be possible only through swachh politics.
• Commitment to truth is the core that spirituality and politics should share. Truth operates on the ground as justice. Justice addresses human dignity and welfare. Wherever truth is compromised, people’s welfare has suffered and oppression has bared its fangs.
• It is politics that contextualises commitment to truth and makes it concrete. Those who care for truth in politics remain continually vigilant against every measure, every propagandist trick, meant to hypnotise the masses. 
• Commitment to truth creates a national culture marked by scientific temper and rational thinking.
• Capacity of the masses to think rationally can be disabled by a variety of factors such as lack of education, their inability to think rationally, their vulnerability to propaganda, the non-availability of relevant data, the creation of hype and waves, and so on.
• Democracy, especially, is under a duty to educate and empower citizens to think rationally and choose objectively. Oppressive regimes are averse to spreading education and free thinking.
• The dogmas of patriotism and nationalism are valuable to the extent of serving as catalytic agents to galvanise people’s energy for nation-building. But in the history, these concepts have been used mostly to spread hatred among nations and within them, between castes, groups, communities.
• Commitment to truth on the part of citizens requires that they see through the avalanche of issues. An illusion of upholding accountability is created by the daily belabouring of issues. A new issue is ushered even before the current one settles down. Nothing is followed up to the extent of establishing the truth of issues. Nothing changes.
• In a democracy, its citizens must remain in harmony with one another. They should never treat each other as enemies. Enmity is spread by vested interests to thrive by polarising citizens. The policy of ‘divide and rule’ never promotes people’s welfare.
• A democracy ought to take care of the majority that are poor. The fruits of development should be distributed preferentially among the poor. 
• The oligarchic element lurks in every democratic polity should never be allowed to become powerful enough to scuttle democracy. The corporates of today are the successors of yesteryear oligarchs. 
• The threat that the oligarchic elements hold out to democracy becomes ominous when the media play a partisan and propagandist role. When this process crosses the Lakshman rekha, it imperils democracy.
• The dogma of stability and its implications for the dynamic of democracy needs to be watched. Every centre of power is apt to deem itself to be the sole and legitimate custodian of national destiny. It views prospects for change with extreme intolerance. This keeps the dividing line between ‘freedom of choice’ and ‘sedition’ continually fluid. This brings ‘the right to choose’ under extreme stress and strain.
• The difference between a corrupt government and a tyrannical one is that the former knows itself to be a bird of passage and are fixated on reaping a bumper harvest in quick time. A tyrannical government is obsessed not with megabucks but with self-perpetuation. It substitutes the money with monopoly. The corrupt do not wish to be caught. The tyrannical do not wish to be shown the door. Both addictions harm democracy. And both skip on thin ice.

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