Corruption Festers in India, But No Outrage in Modi Raj

Like Trump’s hollow “Make America Great Again” rallying chant, the two most beguiling slogans coined by our Vishwaguru – “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” and “Na Khaunga Na Khaane Doonga” – are today a standing rebuke and indictment of all that the “non-biological being” and his camp followers have wrought in our land over the last decade.

What is one to make of a regime that has fostered the most heinous form of societal corruption – hate, division and discrimination; that is nurturing even children to be messengers for Hindu exclusivity and tribalism – the latest outrage the officially-sponsored recitation of the RSS anthem instead of the national anthem at the recent inauguration of the Ernakulam-Bangalore Vande Bharat train?

We have travelled a long way from the days of relative innocence when financial misdemeanours and corruption by individuals were the problem. Today all-pervasive systemic corruption – economic, social, racial, institutional, judicial, environmental and electoral – poses a monstrous existential threat to the nation and its ideals of justice, liberty, fraternity and equality, which now lie in tatters. This regime has craftily exploited the fault lines in our society to wrest complete control and power to do as it pleases, how it conducted elections in Bihar the latest example.

Also read: Police Stop March of 300 Opposition MPs Against Bihar SIR, Detain Lawmakers

Where does one even begin to chronicle the avalanche of misconduct and corruption in every sphere of public functioning in the last decade? It would require weighty volumes to unravel, a job best left to a commission à la the Shah Commission (1977-79) that inquired into the corruption, abuse of power and other excesses during the Emergency. My limited purpose here is to give a whiff of the stench of corruption in our midst, spreading without the nation missing a heartbeat.

Take India’s purchase of Russian crude oil. Consequent on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and precipitate fall in its crude prices due to sanctions, India ramped up Russian oil imports from 0.2% to 35-40% of its total imports. This resulted in huge savings of up to US $17 billion through discounted purchases. But the price paid for cocking a snook at international disapprobation was US President Donald Trump slapping an extra 25% tariff on Indian exports, seriously crippling our textiles, gems, carpets and pharmaceutical exports and rendering thousands of workers unemployed.

While the experts have been debating the pros and cons of buying Russian oil, what’s been lost sight of is that Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Russian Rosneft-operated Nayara Energy have been the preponderant beneficiaries of a policy that has done nothing to improve the lot of the common man but ended up seriously damaging exporters, who are left holding the can while Ambani and gang buy discounted Russian crude, which is then processed, not for domestic consumption but for re-export to Europe.

To put it plainly, the decision to import Russian crude oil has richly benefitted oligarchs but it has seriously damaged the interests of exporters and tens of thousands of workers who’ve lost their jobs. A textbook example of an oligarchic kleptocracy at work – but there’s no outrage.

Also read: 'Mukesh Ambani-Owned Reliance Industries Biggest Beneficiary From Russian Oil Imports': Report

In 2023, the Hindenburg Research report said that the Adani Group was involved in massive fraud, stock manipulation and accounting irregularities. Curiously, despite its role as a regulator getting challenged in the Hindenburg report itself, SEBI was entrusted with investigating the irregularities and recently cleared the Adani group of any wrong-doing – classic banana republic administration of justice!

In 2024, the US Department of Justice charged Gautam Adani and some of his associates with a multi-billion-dollar fraud and bribery scheme, alleging they lied to investors and paid more than US $250 million in bribes to win solar energy contracts in India. According to the latest court filings, Indian authorities have been dragging their feet on delivering the summons to Adani Group executives. So low is the credibility of the Adanis that American and European banks even considered backing off from extending new credit to the group.

It is in this context that the Washington Post’s exposé a few days back, regarding government-induced investments by LIC in the Adani Group, should have enraged all citizens for the sheer audacity of the political-corporate nexus it alleges.

The Post article alleged that in May, the Union Finance Ministry “drafted and pushed through a proposal to steer roughly [US] $3.9 billion in investments to Adani’s businesses from the LIC”. The bare-faced attempt to misuse citizens’ hard-earned savings to bail out a conglomerate of Adani’s size should have raised a storm of protests but it is already yesterday’s news.

Under this regime’s watch, our flawed once-vibrant democracy has mutated into an oligarchic kleptocracy controlled by a cabal of elites, actively facilitated by this regime to usurp the resources that belong to all. In the name of “strategic disinvestment”, the regime has been unbundling precious state enterprises to the private sector – ports, airports, Air India, Shipping Corporation of India, BEML, State Electricity Boards, et al.

Also read: As Major Foreign Banks Hesitated, Modi Govt Oversaw Plan to Steer Billions from LIC to Adani: Report

Under the guise of “monetising non-core assets”, government land is being bartered away for a song. The latest outrage is the 25-year lease of 1020 acres of land in Bhagalpur at the rate of one rupee per year to the Adani Group for a power plant.

Then there’s the recent Cobrapost forensic investigation, aptly titled “Lootwallahs: How Indian Business is Robbing Indians”, that dissects the Rs 28,874 crore heist pulled off by Reliance ADA Group companies owned by Anil Ambani. But who cares?

The corporate-owned media and its lapdogs have been complicit in bolstering the crony capitalist-government nexus. Not the mainstream media, but the All India Bank Employees Association recently brought to light the stunning fact that Mukesh Ambani’s wealth has increased from Rs 1.50 lakh crores in 2014 to Rs 9.50 lakh crores in 2024 and Gautam Adani’s wealth has grown from Rs 57,000 crores in 2014 to Rs 9.30 lakh crores in 2024. This obscene wealth increase has been juxtaposed with India’s Hunger Index rank, which has slipped from 55 in 2014 to an abysmal 102 in 2025.

The Oxfam report of 2023 titled “Survival of the Richest: The India Story” shows how wealth and caste privilege have shaped power and exacerbated inequality. Modi has been trumpeting the fact that India is poised to become the third largest economy in the world while avoiding the more pertinent statistic that the top 10% own more than 80% of the nation’s wealth and India is ranked 144th out of 196 nations in GDP per capita at US $2878.

Corruption on an unimaginable scale stalks the land, but it has been normalised by sleight of hand of those controlling the wheels of power over the years. At the heart of this gigantic subterfuge is the intimidatory environment of “shock and awe” that has virtually terrorised individuals and institutions to toe the government line. It’s an ecosystem where loyalty to the ruling dispensation is all that matters and not impartiality and probity.

This has had a terrible effect on the fight against corruption. In such an environment, the organisations specially assigned to combat corruption have been defanged and reduced to mere ciphers. Take the calculated diminution of the Lokpal, which was conceived as an all-powerful ombudsman but now functions as a malleable advocate of the government. The only major verdict of national import passed since its setting up in 2019 is the cock-eyed order dismissing complaints against former SEBI chairperson, Madhabi Buch, as “unjustified and solely politically motivated”.

Also read: Narendra Modi's Mammoth Bank Heist Over the Last 10 Years

Most disturbing is the government’s systematic undermining of the RTI law by not filling posts, encouraging government outfits to refuse to divulge information and the recently passed DPDP Act that threatens to completely destroy the powers of the RTI in the name of protecting “privacy” and “personal information”.

Meanwhile, a pliable media, obsequious institutions stacked with loyalists and millions of blind bhakts swearing fealty to the king have amplified the public image and personal integrity of Modi to the extent that it has even muted criticism of corruption in his government. I nearly burst a blood vessel when Modi compared his connection with Adani to the Mahatma’s friendship with G.D. Birla!

We are today a morally depraved society whose governing class has forgotten ordinary humanity. What we are witnessing is the desecration of the Mahatma’s idea of India – unchecked financial corruption, institutional breakdown, elitist concerns, a partisan witch-hunt of the regime’s opponents and, worst of all, the policy of hate and division bolstered by lynching, bulldozers and allegations of love jihad.

But there is no outrage! Romain Rolland believed that France fell to Germany in World War II because “there was corruption without indignation”! What further price will we pay for our indifference?

The writer is a former civil servant. The views expressed are personal.

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