ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

The Shadow Government

We all know that there is a government that runs India. That runs India for better or for worse, depending on how you choose to see it. We vote this government to power every time there is an election. Then we see it at work. Some times we are proud of it. But usually we are disappointed. Invariably we criticise it. But it is your government and mine because we are responsible for bringing it to office. You with your vote. I with mine.

But sometimes it appears that there is another government at work. Behind the scenes. A government that neither you nor I voted to power. A government which has no electoral mandate for its existence, which sneaked in through the backdoor and has been in place for quite a while. We do not always notice it but its shadowy presence is always felt. You know it is there even when you do not see it.

It is far more stable than the governments we vote to power from time to time.

It is also secular, apolitical, extremely businesslike. A government that does not believe in communalism or communism or casteism. It is a government that is consistent in what it believes in, that does not waiver from its single minded devotion to its ideology. A smart, practical, realistic government. A government that never falls because it never exists in the first place. It is a government rarely under scrutiny. A government that is run by people who are committed to one simple thing: Making money.

Making big money. By means that are not exactly the most honourable.

It is no use calling it corruption any more. Corruption sounds dirty. It is like a crime, an aberration. Something to be frowned upon. Making money is not corruption any longer. It is the acknowledged lingua franca of our new society which is based on the tenets of economic liberalism and individual enterprise. Where everyone is for himself or herself and the devil can take the rest.

This shadowy government which is committed full time to the artistry of making money, big money, is run by some of our top business houses. They take all the decisions. They call the shots. I am not even bothering to name these business houses because we all know exactly who they are and what they are up to. It sounds almost childish to keep listing them when you and I can do precious little to stop them from doing what they are doing to India.

Some of these business houses run huge industrial empires. Some of these empires are well run and profitable. Most of them are not. But that hardly makes any difference because the purpose of running these businesses is not to create wealth for India. It is to create wealth for themselves, their families, friends and benefactors in politics and the bureaucracy. Some of these business houses do not even run industrial empires. They are plain and simple traders masquerading as industrialists because that is the only way they can attract hundreds of millions of rupees from banks and financial institutions.

They all have a common agenda: To loot the national exchequer in various ways.

How do they get away with it? Simple. They know how to beat the law.

Even when they don't, there are many people ready to advise and help them. The politicians they bankroll, the bureaucrats they pamper are their servants. They are available at their beck and call, to tell them how to move things. They change the laws for them, they create the loopholes. They help them to put in place pliant officers in banks and financial institutions. They assist them to manipulate the media, subvert the courts, corrupt the system, defile the political set-up.

It does not really matter who we vote to power. The Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress or the Third Force. Governments will come and go. In each of these governments, there are people who actually work for the government I am talking about. These people pretend to work for the BJP or the Congress or the Samajwadi Party or whoever. But behind that facade they are actually working for their real masters. That is why ideology no longer matters in politics, issues no longer count. What is important is which business house you are connected with, who you are fronting for.

Mind you, it would be foolish to blame only the Indian business community for this. With large multinationals coming in and making huge investments in India, the so-called expenses of education (a definition that Enron has immortalised for all time) are going up and the opportunities to make money are increasing by the day. Whoever you are, if you are powerful or influential, there is someone behind you, ensuring that you are being useful to them. That is how this secret, shadowy government works. That is how it ensures continuity irrespective of who comes to power and who calls the shots.

If you think I am exaggerating, read the confessions of Mohan Guruswamy, cannily timed to coincide with the opening of Parliament. Guruswamy, till recently, was the all-powerful adviser to Yashwant Sinha in the finance ministry and took some rather curious decisions which prompted Sinha to sack him. After lying low for a while,Guruswamy has struck back with an expose that will not easily die down for a long time. It drags everyone in, from the prime minister downwards. Read it to get a first-hand picture of what actually happens in North Block and the PMO and even though I may not care overmuch for the author of the expose, who is himself reputed to be a key player in the same game, it is important to read his explosive piece to understand why things happen the way they do and how strong the stranglehold of venal businessmen is over the government you and I elect to power.

It is a story of intrigue and deception, manipulation and economic dacoity. It is a story of wicked bureaucrats and corrupt politicians all working to the bidding of different business houses who are flagrantly looting India and subverting every institution that we have built up over the years to run the Indian economy. If you read the article, you will know exactly why India can never make real progress unless we are able to break this criminal stranglehold. It does not matter who is doing what. Every big business house appears to have a political agenda of its own, the sole purpose of which is to corrupt the system and beggar India. The tragedy is that in this scary game plan they are being supported by the politicians we elect, the bureaucrats we pay for with our taxes. It is a sad and desperately disquieting story that exposes the rot in the system.

As a top police officer in New Delhi was telling me the other day, he was investigating this case where a top executive of a big industrial house was called in for questioning. When a blatantly criminal act of his was pointed out to the person, he suggested mildly that the charge be dropped. Otherwise, he said, he would be forced to go through the embarrassing process of getting the government to change the law itself. The law under which his act was considered criminal. The officer refused. A week later, he read in the newspapers that the government had decided to change the law.

Needless to say, the executive is strutting about and openly doing what he has been doing for thirty years now, fixing deals and bribing politicians. The case against him is, for all practical purposes, dead. Stone dead.

Pritish Nandy

Tell us what you think of this column