Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent article equating oligarchies with the British East India Company has sparked off a debate that seemed predestined. Gandhi has spent the past few years targeting what he says is the partisanship of the Narendra Modi government towards industrial houses owned by Adani and Ambani, which have also cornered much of India’s new business contracts. He has unambiguously pointed towards episodes and occasions that indicated that state-backed institutions may have gone out of their way to protect their business interests.
Yet, the BJP could spin his attacks on Modi government’s alleged cronyism as his specific dislike towards businesses. The saffron party projected him as a dynast who could not bear flourishing business during the Modi regime. That a large part of his attacks on cronyism began during the farmers’ agitation against the controversial farm laws bolstered such a perception. A parallel bull run in the stock market led both institutional and retail investors to buy into the propaganda.
Ever since demonetisation, Gandhi has consistently spoken on economics matters. He built a case for a mixed economy, supported the idea of empowering MSMEs and creating an ecosystem where business ideas could be supported and infrastructure for those could be built in a planned manner. He devoted a large part of his canvassing during the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections to the commitment towards promoting and democratising business ecosystems in India, while critiquing the current model under the Modi regime that he believed has aided the concentration of capital in the hands of a few oligarchs through short-term and poorly-conceived economic policies.
Yet, Gandhi never really addressed the stereotype that the BJP made of him directly. His article is perhaps his first intervention aimed at countering the perception of him being anti-business.
Soon after his article was published, he asserted his points again in a video post on X, “I want to make something absolutely clear, I have been projected by my opponents in the BJP to be anti-business. I am not anti-business in the least, I am anti-monopoly, I am anti-creating oligopolies, I am anti-domination of business by one or two or five people.”
“I am pro-jobs, pro-business, pro-innovation, pro-competition. I am anti-monopoly,” Gandhi said.
He may have hit the nail on its head by drawing attention to the British East India Company’s exploitative business model. The timing, too, could not have been more correct, as his critique has also come in the midst of heated discussions among industrial groups on the issues raised by the damning Hindenburg Research report that linked the Adani group’s alleged stock manipulation and SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch’s conflict of interest in the case.
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Gandhi’s attacks on cronyism and encouragement of monopolistic capital addressed the concerns around growing inequalities and inequities until now, in what was aimed at building a political narrative for the larger electorate. But his article signals a renewed attack on the Modi regime in which his audience is India’s aspirational, upwardly-mobile classes.
He is hoping his critique may land in the ears of those who had to suffer huge losses in the stock markets after Union home minister Amit Shah encouraged them to keep investing days ahead of the elections, assuring them Modi was returning to power with over 400 seats. The post-election season for investors has been far from good. The NIFTY index dropped by over 6% in October; the Sensex fell 5.8% in the same month and has had its worst month since March 2020. India’s blue chip companies have reported a miss this quarter, pointing to a generic slowing down of the Indian economy. The markets may well be on a long correction path, given the large-scale exodus of FIIs from India to China.
Gandhi has unpacked the oligarchic trend for the ears of the diverse business landscape of India. “Their (oligarchic groups) core competence is not products, consumers or ideas, it is their ability to control India’s governing institutions and regulators — and, in surveillance. Unlike you, these groups decide what Indians read and watch, they influence how Indians think and what they speak. Today, market forces do not determine success, power relations do,” he said.
His article is also an appeal to corporate houses which believe in competitive markets. “Match-fixing monopoly vs fairplay business — time to choose freedom over fear,” read the carefully-worded headline of Gandhi’s article. It could just be a replay of what industrialist Rahul Bajaj in December 2019 had told the Union home minister Amit Shah at a private event.
“This atmosphere…it is certainly on our minds. Nobody will say…our industrialist friends will not say it. I will say that openly. An environment should be created. You are doing good work but if we criticise you there is no confidence that you will appreciate that. I may be wrong. But we all feel that…In UPA 2 we could criticise anyone…,” Bajaj had said about a pervasive fear of reprisals among business houses.
Whether Gandhi’s warning resonates with India’s corporate houses remains to be seen. Even if it does, would it spark off any pushback from them is a bigger question.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
