WRITING in the Economic Times magazine ( October 21-27) Harish Nambiar, a former journalist and now a writer, mentions how crony capitalism continues in Mumbai “even as real estate prices scaled new highs”. “Land” according to Nambiar is “at a premium and Maharashtra’s penchant for protests, made acquisition by the state difficult, unless the paterfamilias of the regime were kept happy and often pleased, at the end of a closed deal.”
Nambiar mentions that Nashik, an important hub for both industry and agriculture is now the fiefdom of a former Shiv Sena—now turned—Pawar man and “Navi Mumbai, the twin city built to decongest Mumbai is the family backyard of another former Sena leader-turned Congressman, Ganesh Naik”. And, adds Nambiar: “This groundswell of familial loyalities and filial exchange of favours often undercut the State’s (Maharashtra’s) many far-reaching and pioneering policies and legislations.” When Arun Gujarati, a former Maharashtra Urban Development Minister of State was asked by a journalist why he, as a Minister, could not rein in the State’s mafia through tight regulations, he is quoted as saying: “Half of all civic bodies in Maharashtra are controlled by contractors, builders or their proxies. This makes enforcing any building code difficult throughout the State.”
Now taken what Dilip Padgaonkar has to say on the subject of cronyism. Writing in The Times of India ( October 20) Padgaonkar has made the point of how cronyism is making progress difficult, and often more so. His reference is to what Arvind Kejriwal has been doing in exposing corruption. As Padgaonkar sees it, what Kejriwal has done “is to expose the consensus that exists among politicians behind the scene.”
Says Padgaonkar: “Setting their differences aside, victors and vanquished in elections make sure that the spoils are shared in some measure, if not equitably, among themselves. Such an ‘understanding’ gives political competition an altogether different twist. It demonstates that behind the din and fury of polemics, there is a corporate interest of the entire political class that enables it to make common cause in moments of dire need.” And development be blowed. What is important is how the politico-business and trading class makes its billions. Call it ‘crony capitalism’ if one likes.
“Cronyism” is defined as “improper appointments of friends and associates to positions of power and authority.” It also means favours done to relatives, friends and associates for making personal gains. And here is another example noted by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, writing in The Times of India (October 14 ). Writes Aiyar: “Arvind Kejriwal deserves kudos for exposing how Robert Vadra, one-time scrap-dealer and husband of Priyanka Gandhi, has become rich. Convenient loans from public sector banks, clearance from the Haryana Government and advances from DLF helped him convert a few lakhs of equity capital in unknown companies into hundreds of crores….Everybody knows this is just the tip of the iceberg….” How come an unknown and total newcomer to the business world has made crores in the short span of five years when, as one media put it, the Tatas took 100 years to become billionaires, Ambani took 50 years whereas Robert Vadra took less than 10 years to become the fastest multi-billionaire? And the same journal provided the answer. “All newspapers” it said, “are scared to discuss the story of Robert Vadra because of severe threat from Sonia Gandhi and Congress Government.”
Vadra is reported to have stakes in malls in premier locations of India, stakes in DLF, IPL and DLF itself, owns many Hilton hotels and a 20 per cent ownership in Unitech, biggest beneficiary ownership of 2G scam.” Such is his power as the son-in-law that, according to the same journal, “the bureau of Civil Aviation Security has created a record of sorts by according special privilege to Robert Vadra which entails him to walk in and out of any Indian airports without being subject to any security check”. Is that the privilege one gains from being a son-in-law when “only the President of India, Vice-President and a handful of other top dignitaries are accorded this rare distinction?”
Now take what Alok Ray, a former professor of Economics, IIM. Calcutta has to say in Business Line (October 19). What he says is worse than cronyism. Calling the reactions of the government to the Vadra Scam as ‘bizarre’, Ray damns it for trying to argue “that Vadra is a private individual and his dealings with a private firm DLF cannot be the subject of scrutiny”. But then he also says that DLF is a public limited company answerable to shareholders and SEBI for misdeeds. In his column Ray notes that “Central funds are often distributed through Trusts or NGOs run by Ministers’ relatives in the constituency of the Minister and “the Minister reaps the political benefit during elections as a saviour”. If this is not cronyism of some kind, what is? Or should we call it patronisation? Whether it is cronyism or patronisation, the fact remains that the party benefits from what he received.
The Free Press Journal in an editorial (October 8 ) noted that “even if DLF was determined to bestow overnight riches on the Congress President’s son-in-law, it could not have gone about it in a more brazen manner.” Just as damning was the reference to a bank extending to Vadra “an interest-free unsecured loan of Rs 65 crore”. How can an “interest-free loan” be given to anyone by a public body, or even, for that matter, by a private organisation, unless it expects something more substantial in return? It defies imagination. What is just as intriguing is land supposed to be used for public purpose was used for private construction. It is not just “cronyism” that politicians indulge in when in power. It is known for a fact that some have allowed their ‘cronies’, whether consciously or otherwise, to indulge in antinational activities such as mining precious ore for sale to foreign countries. It should be a crime to sell highly precious mineral ores, for example, to China.
Ores, as Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh might have said, do not grow on trees. Once they are mined, they are lost for ever. To sell such items to foreign countries should be considered a crime worthy of punishment. And yet it is no secret that two Reddy Brothers were doing just that in the past and no questions asked.
As Business Line once put it “no one can deny that illegal mining had to be stopped for what it represented: an unlawful appropriation of public resources for private gain using political power for the purpose.” Was Yediyurappa then indulging in cronyism at the cost of national development? Or take the case of the Lavasa Scam. According to the media, the former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar who was earlier Irrigation Minister and chairman of the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation, misused his official power awarding 348 acres (14. hectares) of land at throwaway prices to the Lake City Corporation which was re-named Lavasa Corporation, 20.18 per cent share of which was held by Sharad Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule and her husband Sadanand Sule. The Sule’s shares were sold in 2006. In July 2008 Axis Bank valued their share at Rs 10,000 crore. But in a 2009 election affidavit Mrs Sule put the value of her property, including those bought earlier, at a mere Rs 15 crore.
A former IPS officer and a lawyer, Yogesh Pratap Singh charged National Congress Party President Sharad Pawar and his family with corruption in this controversial Lavasa Housing Project. As he put it, “It defies imagination as to how prime land could be awarded on a one-to-one basis through an internal reference, without any public auction, in fragrant disregard of Supreme Court norms.” This is cronyism, plain and simple. A scam does not occur by incident. It is deliberately planned. Cronyism is the defining factor. Much the same can be said about the Adarsh Scam and the Ispat Steel Scam. It is hard to imagine that apartments in a building specially meant for families of those soldiers killed in the Kargil encounter would be made available to total outsiders, without any sense of guilt, on the part of government servants. A beautiful concept came thus to be vulgarised with cronyism at the highest levels in operation.
The trouble in India is that politics today is “family oriented” with a few top families manipulating politics as in the case of Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, Janardhan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, that makes cronyism inevitable. There is no easy way to extinguish cronyism which is now practically a way of life to prosper in India, expecially at the highest level. Ask bureaucrats, ask top industrialists to learn how administration functions. Cronyism, they will all agree, is the name of the game.
(The writer is a former editor of Illustrated Weekly, Chairman, Prasar Bharati and senior columnist).
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