Implosion: India’s Tryst with Reality

by John Elliott

  The CAG said that a screening committee of officials that allotted coal blocks was responsible for the decisions, but the BJP blamed Singh and demanded his resignation.62The Congress fought back by arguing that states ruled by the BJP such as Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh had opposed competitive bidding. The coal ministry cancelled many of the allocations, but the controversy expanded. The CBI investigated the claims and began by registering charges against relatively small companies. In May 2013, there were allegations of a cover-up by the law minister (who had to resign), and by officials in the prime minister’s office, who were apparently trying to protect the prime minister’s reputation by influencing the drafting of CBI documents to be presented to the Supreme Court.63 In June 2013, Naveen Jindal, head of one of his family’s businesses and a Congress member of parliament, was accused, along with a former minister of state for coal, of fraud and corruption in the allocation of a coal licence for Jindal Steel & Power.

  This illustrated how, once investigations begin into a sector of Indian business, all sorts of potentially dubious and allegedly corrupt links emerge. Jindal, a Delhi socialite and polo player, was well connected with Congress leaders, so it was significant that the CBI felt free to investigate him. The CBI later filed a case suggesting that Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the respected Aditya Birla group, had met a top coal ministry official and wrongfully persuaded him, after seeing the prime minister, to allocate a coal block in Orissa that had been reserved for the public sector.64 This created a furore because Birla had been regarded as beyond reproach, and the lobbying he appeared to have been doing was normal business practice in any country. This led Manmohan Singh to break his customary silence and his office issued a statement saying he considered the allocation of the block to Birla as ‘entirely appropriate’.65

  The prime minister did indeed have a reasonably sound case, which he had spelt out in parliament in August 2012,66 but his words did not resonate for long in the furore and clamour generated by a parliamentary opposition bent on undermining the government and by an over-excited media. Singh’s line was that coal was urgently needed for power projects and the quickest way to mine it was to award licences and contracts on a select basis with favourable terms for private sector companies that would quickly generate electricity. As Singh said in parliament, the allocations were not regarded as ‘revenue-generating activity’ but a way of boosting electricity supplies – according to that argument, the CAG’s calculations of losses were wrongly based.

  There was, of course, nothing wrong with allocating licences, provided the policy was clear, and provided strict and fair rules and conditions were set and monitored so that they allowed no favouritism. Unfortunately, in India, corruption and discretionary powers are so deep-rooted that such arrangements are unlikely to be operated ethically and are understandably (and usually correctly) regarded with suspicion. In the 2G case, it was clear from the start that licences were being awarded to unqualified and undeserving companies and, in the coal case, the rules were so loosely drawn and administered that undeserving companies received projects. The responsibility for both cases rested with Manmohan Singh because on 2G he knew what Raja was doing and failed to stop it. On coal, he himself had been the coal minister and therefore presided over the malpractices and resisted moves to switch to competitive bidding. Coal blocks were allocated to undeserving companies and reputable companies were unwilling or unable to complete projects and generate power because of bureaucratic and other delays.

  Paid Media

  India’s media is often lauded as one of the most free in the world. It is not, however, really free because of widespread corruption which leads to distorted, biased stories and editorial lines. Journalists and editors are also richly rewarded by companies and politicians, and a considerable amount of what appears in the media is ‘planted’ by vested interests. In a British Journalism Review article in 2001,67 I wrote that, with some notable exceptions, editors and reporters were not so irreverent towards authority as their counterparts in many other countries, and they were far more flattered by the attention of people in important positions. This made them more vulnerable to accepting planted information favourable to their contacts, and to being persuaded not to run controversial stories. Many journalists welcomed favours offered by politicians and businessmen, often with ‘brown paper envelopes’ and other gifts. One company, which is known to be the most adept at managing political and public opinion, is widely believed to have journalists (as well as politicians and civil servants) on its payroll.

  I also told this story: ‘When I was first in India for the Financial Times in the 1980s, S.P. Hinduja, the elder of the infamous Hinduja brothers, failed to persuade me to ghost-write articles for him, hinting at fat fees. When I returned in 1995, he and his brothers tried, again unsuccessfully, to get me to ghost-write a book on governments that they had dealt with around the world. Together with other journalists, I was later given a small TV set after a press conference [held in Mumbai’s Taj Hotel where I was staying] by the Hindujas’ cable TV company. I returned the set so fast [once I had got back to my room and saw what I had been given] that I forgot to note down what model it was, so could not put a value on the implied bribe.’68

  Such cameos are not in themselves very dramatic; but they illustrate one aspect of the sharp decline that has taken place in the standards of Indian journalism. The quality of the media has worsened, and the opportunity for companies to influence it has increased, with the growth of what is called ‘paid news’ where politicians and businessmen pay for favourable coverage. It surfaced as a scandal in 2008–09, with many reports of politicians paying for favourable stories in a general election, with newspapers and TV stations taking the initiative and offering such coverage in return for substantial payments.

  This was especially prevalent with Hindi-language local and regional newspapers and television channels.69 The chief minister of Haryana even admitted it. ‘When I noticed the leading paper of my state printing baseless reports on its front page day after day, I called them up and offered money to print the right picture. The paper in question apologized. They even returned the money taken from my rival to publish news items against me,’ said Hooda.70 The Bennett Coleman group started paid news in its titles that include the Times of India, and was followed by others including the Hindustan Times and the Bhaskar group, India’s largest local-language newspaper publisher. This was taken a stage further with a system called Private Treaties, where Bennett Coleman accepts smallish equity stakes in companies in lieu of payment for its advertisements. It allegedly gives those companies favourable editorial coverage, though it denies the allegation.

  The lines of ethics and professional standards have therefore become blurred in the media, as they have throughout India’s public life with the spread of extortion, fraud and other forms of corruption. There is considerable public discussion about how this should be changed, but little sign of much significant happening.

  Revolution 2020

  The young are being influenced and harmed by this corrupt world around them in the same way that generations of children in conflict zones such as Kabul or Kashmir grow up assuming that bombs and stone throwing are a normal way of life. Nowhere is this better described than in a novel, Revolution 2020,71 written by Chetan Bhagat, a bestselling author and popular youth icon in his late thirties, whose stories about ambitious young Indians in places like call centres and technology institutes sell 500,000 copies a year.72

  In Revolution 2020, subtitled Love, Corruption, Ambition, Bhagat exposes rampant corruption, not in the more obvious crony capitalist centres of Delhi and Mumbai, nor in the activities of chief ministers like Mayawati and Yadav, but in the politics and businesses of smaller cities and towns. His story is about India’s tertiary education system that turns out under-educated youth who are ill-equipped for careers. It is also about corruption in provincial politics and local land deals. Gopal, the main character, comes from a poor family in
Varanasi, the sacred Hindu city on the River Ganga. He adores his childhood friend, the beautiful Aarti, whose family is better off, but he has a rival in their more self-confident middle-class friend, Raghav. Gopal sets out on a path followed by millions of India’s youth, traipsing round ill-qualified cramming schools and phoney colleges. He fails his degree exams while Raghav succeeds with his studies and makes Aarti his girlfriend. Eventually, Gopal falls into the clutches of a local politician who persuades him to build and run a college (even though he has no degree) on family land that he has unexpectedly inherited. That draws him into a life of deception and corruption with the politician whom Raghav, by now a campaigning journalist, seeks to expose.

  The novel graphically illustrates how India is wasting its demographic dividend with about half of its population below the age of 25. Instead of equipping the youth for jobs that would contribute both to their future and India’s development, an inadequate education system is turning out many potential failures who find it easier, as Gopal does, to fall in with the corruption they see around them.

  Corruption is a deeper and more dangerous problem in India than it is in many other countries. It is not just a case of people in power taking bribes, or even creaming off government funds. The foundations of democracy and social stability are being eaten away, and the effectiveness of institutions, already weakened by jugaad, are further destroyed.

  Notes

  1. Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari, Corruption in India – the DNA and the RNA, p. 7, Konark Publishers, New Delhi, 2012, http://www.konarkpublishers.com/books/851

  2. Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari, ‘Corruption in India’, World Financial Review http://www.worldfinancialreview.com/?p=1575

  3. Bibek Debroy in email conversation with JE

  4. ‘Silence of the vultures’, Sunday Guardian, 18 May 2013 http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/silence-of-the-vultures

  5. In conversation with JE, December 2012

  6. Pavan K. Varma in conversation with JE – and quoted from Chanakya’s New Manifesto – To Resolve the Crisis within India, pp, 126-7, Aleph Book Company, Delhi, 2013, http://alephbookcompany.com/chanakyas-new-manifesto

  7. Namita Gokhale in conversation with JE, March 2013; she has examined the understanding of Hindu mythology and religion in two of her books In Search of Sita and The Book of Shiva http://namitagokhale.com/books.html

  8. JE article in December 1999 for a private circulation publication in the UK.

  9. B.V. Kumar, The Darker Side of Black Money, Konark Publishers, Delhi, 2013 https://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/india-is-at-a-turning-point-that-might-go-wrong/

  10. ‘Rajya Sabha seats available for Rs 100 crore: Congress MP’, Zee TV News, 29 July 2013, http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/rajya-sabha-seats-available-for-rs-100-crore-congress-mp_865209.html

  11. Lecture at the British Council, Delhi, 16 March 2013, attended by JE – also reported at http://www.firstpost.com/india/polls-biggest-source-of-corruption-former-cec-quraishi-794605.html

  12. Full Details of Pending Criminal Cases of MPs (Lok Sabha 2009 Election), http://adrindia.org/research-and-reports/lok-sabha/2009/full-details-pending-criminal-cases-mps-lok-sabha-2009-election

  13. National Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Research, http://adrindia.org

  14. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, ‘Quid Pro Quo: Builders, Politicians, and Election Finance in India’, Working Paper 276, December 2011, http://casi.sas.upenn.edu/system/files/Quid+Pro+Quo+-+DK.pdf , Center for Global Development, 1800 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036 www.cgdev.org

  15. Conversations with JE, non-attributable

  16. ‘Mayawati obsessed with grooming, fashion: WikiLeaks’, India Today, 6 September 2011, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mayawati-wikileaks-bsp/1/150243.html

  17. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/these-elephants-are-not-for-riding/

  18. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/india-shows-what-it-can-do-with-a-winning-formula

  19. ‘Maya memorials: Lokayukta indicts 199 for graft’, Indian Express, 21 May 2013, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/maya-memorials-lokayukta-indicts-199-for-graft/1118340/

  20. ‘Mayawati memorials caused huge losses of royalty, says probe’, The Times of India, 22 May 2013, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-22/lucknow/39445008_1_several-mining-leaseholders-memorials-large-scale-illegal-mining

  21. Told non-attributably to JE

  22. Amitabha Pande, ‘The power to say yes’, Indian Express, 2 November 2012, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-power-to-say-yes; former secretary to the government who handled army procurement in the 1990s and describes himself as ‘an iconoclastic former IAS officer who never fitted into the mould’, Pande runs his blog at http://notesfromasubversivebureaucrat.blogspot.in/

  23. In conversation with JE; Surendra Rao, formerly a senior business executive, director general of NCAER, and first chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission

  24. ‘Fodder scam: Lalu preparing for worst as verdict looms?’, Mail Today, 9 May 2012, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/fodder-scam-lalu-yadav-rabri-devi-bihar-rjd-leader/1/188050.html

  25. ‘Blow for Lalu in fodder scam trial’, Business Standard, 14 August 2013, http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/fodder-scam-lalu-s-plea-rejected-sc-for-quick-end-to-trial-113081300997_1. html

  26. ‘Sons Lite – Lalu Prasad has inducted his sons into the party,’ Business Standard, 25 May 2013, http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/sons-lite-113052401029_1.html

  27. ‘Lalu Yadav jailed for five years as India finally gets tough on graft’, Reuters, 3 October 2013, http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/india-lalu-yadav-jailed-fodder-idINDEE99206O20131003

  28. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/rahul-gandhi-stops-a-small-compromise-on-lalu-yadav-but-does-he-have-the-stamina-to-be-a-leader/

  29. ‘Corruption – In India, Whistle-Blowers Pay with Their Lives’, Bloomberg Business Week, 20 October 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/in-india-whistleblowers-pay-with-their-lives-10202011.html

  30. ‘The Mother Of All Sweetheart Deals’, Outlook blogs, 18 March 2011, http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2457&eid=31

  31. ‘Haryana govt chargesheets Ashok Khemka for nixing Robert Vadra-DLF land deal’, The Times of India, 6 December 2013 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-06/india/44863011_1_robert-vadra-dlf-ashok-khemka-skylight-hospitality

  32. ‘Bansal defends his decision to resign, says he has done nothing wrong’, CNN-IBN, 12 May 2013 http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bansal-defends-his-decision-to-resign-says-he-has-done-nothing-wrong/391117-37-64.html

  33. ‘Railway bribery: More transcripts point to Pawan Bansal’s role’, CNN-IBN, 9 August 2013, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/railway-bribery-more-transcripts-point-to-pawan-bansals-role/413013-37-64.html

  34. Information given to JE, not attributable

  35. ‘Indolence in India’s Judiciary’, Global Corruption Report 2007, Transparency International, http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/pub/global_corruption_report_2007_corruption_and_judicial_ systems

  36. Letter to the Prime Minister of India on 7 April 2005, reproduced in South Asia Politics, vol. 5, no. 1 (2006)

  37. Conversation with JE, not attributable

  38. ‘A Brief History of Corruption in India’, an article by Dr William Gould, Senior Lecturer in Indian History, University of Leeds, on ‘The India Site’, http://www.theindiasite.com/a-brief-history-of-corruption-in-india/ . His book is Bureaucracy, Community and Influence: Society and the State in India, 1930-1960s, Routledge, London, 2011

  39. S.S. Gill, The Pathology of Corruption, pp 50-61, 63-69, HarperCollins Publishers India, Delhi, 1998-99

  40. Ibid., p. 65

  41. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/corruption-tamashas-and-gossip-flood-india-but-change-will-be-very-slow/

  42. ‘Neve
r attack family: Digvijaya Singh’s lesson on political ethics’, NDTV, 16 October 2012 http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/never-attack-family-digvijaya-singh-s-lesson-on-political-ethics-to-arvind-kejriwal-280101

  43. ‘The Son in Law also rises’, a gossip column account of Ranjan Bhattacharya’s life, Rediff.com, 25 July 1998, http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/jul/25abv.htm

  44. This magazine article shows the wheeler-dealing in the early-1990s’ opening up of telecommunications: ‘The Great Telecom Scam – The record Rs 3.66 crore seizure at Sukh Ram’s residence raises questions about Narasimha Rao’s credibility and his reforms regime’, 4 September 1996, http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?202038

  45. Sukh Ram was bailed in January 2012. This report traces the course of the cases: ‘1996 Telecom scam: HC orders ex-minister Sukhram to serve sentence’, 21 December 2011, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/1996-telecom-scam-hc-orders-exminister-sukhram-to-serve-sentence/890402/0

  46. ‘Chautala, son held guilty in teachers job scam’, The Hindu, 16 January 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/chautala-son-held-guilty-in-teachers-job-scam/article4312083.ece

  47. https://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/regional-party-ambitions-cloud-india%E2%80%99s-new-cabinet/ and https://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/india%E2%80%99s-cabinet-problems-show-it-needs-a-house-of-lords-for-ruffled-egos/

  48. http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/%E2%80%9Cbed-and-bhai%E2%80%9D-rules-india%E2%80%99s-aviation/

  49. Jitender Bhargava, The Descent of Air India, pp. 115, 157, Bloomsbury Publishing India, 2013, http://www.amazon.in/The-Descent-India-Jitender-Bhargava/dp/938295113X

  50. Ibid pp. 120, 151

  51. ‘Suresh Prabhu and Simple Simon’, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar’s ‘Swaminomics’ column includes a useful summary of the power sector’s losses and problems at the time, 25 August 2002, http://swaminomics.org/suresh-prabhu-and-simple-simon/