SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
By Vivek Menezes
In what may yet be seen as the last gasp of India’s constitutional democracy, the Supreme Court’s rulings against the billion-dollar flow of anonymized electoral bonds have unexpectedly ripped the lid off an extraordinarily sordid nexus of corruption, coercion and blackmail. It has long been clear things are bad, but even the partial revelations of the past few days have been shocking in the extreme, with implications almost too painful to contemplate. There can be no further pretences about “of the people, for the people and by the people” because it’s perfectly clear that everything is actually bought and paid for right up front, by corporations and criminals alike.
We still do not have all the information State Bank of India has been trying to keep secret, and what has been reluctantly divulged under threat of being held for contempt remains fragmentary. Nonetheless, what we’ve learned is damaging enough, as the clear-thinking Tamil Nadu Minister Palanivel “PTR” Thiaga Rajan said on Friday: “the electoral bonds scheme was atrociously bad. It built a platform where the government knew not only who was donating to it but also who was donating to its opponents. Whereas, the opponents knew nothing, the public knew nothing [and] the rest of the state, the country and the people were left in the dark. [Actually, it] should have been struck down as unconstitutional on the day it was announced, or shortly thereafter.”
PTR explained that “the data shows so many cases of quid pro quo both positive and negative, that is people [who are] already raided and targeted end up paying money to get the investigation quashed, and people who are about to get contracts pay money to get [them] while people who have got contracts go and pay money, so this quid pro quo against the very fabric of democracy is institutionalized.” He pointed out the SBI has yet to reveal details of 2500 crores “donated” before 2019 of which 95% went to the BJP, warning that “now you have full-fledged crony capitalism, and the state being used as a weapon by one party. Democracy is in grave danger, and has been for several years.”
In an editorial note for his excellent online publication Article 14, focussed on research and reportage on issues related to the rule of law in India, the veteran editor of Goan origin Samar Halarnkar wrote that “in a functioning democracy, these revelations would have been enough to bring down the government. But India, as the latest global democracy index told us this week, remains an “electoral autocracy” with falling scores, ranked 108 between turmoil-ridden Niger and the Ivory Coast.” He said “the list of electoral bond buyers reveal more than the existence of a sprawling government-controlled hafta-vasooli operation. It exposes a fundamental truth about Modi’s new India and its hierarchy of influence.”
Halarnkar’s publication specializes in bringing sunlight to the darkest corners of Indian governance, so I emailed him to ask what was fresh enough to surprise him in the SBI data despite everything he already knows. He said it was “the depth and brazenness of what is essentially a government-controlled protection racket. Now we see the country is heading into elections with the election system deeply compromised and undermined by corruption through electoral bonds. It is ironic that the BJP - which rode an anti-corruption wave to power - is now instead spearheading an unprecedented wave of government-backed corruption. Voters must appreciate how electoral bonds have, far from cleaning up campaign funds, created an entirely new system of legalised extortion.”
Will this corruption debacle have any effect on public opinion and the upcoming elections? I was struck by what another veteran editor of Goan origin Sunit Arora – he is the grandson of AL Dias of Assagao, the ICS officer and former Governor of West Bengal from 1971-77– cautioned on Twitter: “Rarely do we get a peek into the matrix that rules India today, a business-political enterprise that is fuelled by bullying, favours and kickbacks. Remember Niira Radia tapes more than decade ago? What happened to all of that?”
Vie email, Arora told me “that the country is managed by this toxic cocktail of shared interests is by itself no surprise. Over the past three decades, the confluence between the political establishment and business has only become more sophisticated. A quick parsing of the sectors — gaming, metals and mining, real estate, infrastructure, telecoms — that have given the most funds show the government's role here is crucial, both at the centre and the state. For all the talk of tenders, transparency and audits, this brazen system has institutionalized crony capitalism.”
Arora says “what is surprising, perhaps, is the scale [but] but the continuing brazenness of the ruling party and its supporters is surprising too. For a political party that came to power on an anti-corruption plank, the BJP has come a long way. That many of its core supporters do not see anything wrong with the scale of corporate funding, and refuse to connect the dots, is worrying. Hindutva has blinded them to reason, logic and facts. Equally surprising is the silence of the opposition parties. It’s difficult to say how the voter will react to this institutionalized corruption. But even if a small number connect the dots and voice their disgust, that will be a victory for democracy.”
The bottom line, says Arora, is “electoral democracy is compromised. In recent years, there’s a worrying tendency to view the tenets of democracy in a restricted sense: electoral outcomes. People are told to vote in a new government if they want to change laws, many of them draconian. In future, there is a likelihood of elections being clubbed, accentuating the loading of democratic values into that one event. Indians are constantly told that free and fair elections ensure that our democracy is vibrant [but it is now] fair to say the system is compromised: from all pervasive messaging campaigns over social media, the doubts over electoral machines, and seemingly endless supplies of corporate-fuelled money for elections. Can we now truly say India’s elections are fair?”
(Vivek Menezes is a writer and co-founder of the Goa Arts and Literature Festival)
