The big news, while I was traveling in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu, is a Rohini Singh story in The Wire on the strange business dealings of Jay Shah, son of BJP president Amit Shah.
Shah Junior in his response called the article “false, derogatory and defamatory“; his lawyer had earlier responded to the website saying, essentially, that there was no wrongdoing. Shah has since filed a Rs 100 crore defamation case against the reporter and editors of the site — whenever the case is heard, I want a ringside seat.
I read the story while on the road; I also read an OpIndia takedown of the story and a follow-up on that site. Also worth your time is this breakdown, by a qualified financial analyst, of the business aspect of the story, and this thread by constitutional lawyer and author Gautam Bhatia on the merits — or lack thereof — of the defamation case.
Given my lack of domain knowledge, I’ll refrain from comment on the business aspect of the case. My gut feel for the story itself is that The Wire over-promised in the opening grafs and thus left itself open to criticism. This, however, is not the same as saying the story is not legitimate — even a lay reading suggests that there is sufficient meat there to warrant an official investigation.
A few related developments catch the eye. The first is that Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, whose bio has some points of interest, will represent Shah. A government lawyer representing a private citizen is not unheard of, but the speed with which permission was sought and obtained from the central government, and the way rules were stretched to make it possible, catch the eye.
Piyush Goyal, whose ministry gave Shah Junior the contentious loan in the first place and who, since the story broke, has been assiduously hosting press conferences to deny wrongdoing, was quick off the mark to say that Tushar Mehta defending Jay Shah is perfectly kosher; the eyebrow-raising moment comes when he says, emphasis mine, “Justice should be given to the young boy who has been wronged.” Keep those eyebrows raised: Mehta applied for, and received permission, two days before The Wire had even published its story.
Speaking of “young boys” being wronged, remember Robert Vadra? The poster boy of corruption, the focal point of the BJP’s 2014 election campaign? We have all the evidence required, the BJP said repeatedly during that campaign; we will have him in jail within 100 days, it promised.
First off the blocks to deliver on that promise was the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan, which filed a case of corruption and land-grabbing. From my archives, this related story is of some interest:
The Rajasthan Police have cleared the Robert Vadra-promoted Sky Light Hospitality of any wrongdoing, saying the company was a victim of “conspiracy” and “cheating” as grabbed government land was sold to it.
The police investigation in a case lodged by the Vasundhara Raje-led state government in 2014 found that 69.55 hectares of land was sold to the company promoted by Vadra and his mother on the basis of forged papers. Vadra is the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and has been accused by the BJP of land grab in Rajasthan and Haryana.
Deputy superintendent of police Ramavtar Soni told HT that as a bona fide purchaser Vadra was “certainly a victim of fraud” and he had been “cheated”.
Why is this relevant? Because ultimately, the Jay Shah story is going to boil down to politics. In 2014, the BJP had a clean slate. The elevation of Modi meant that the record of the Vajpayee/Advani regime was moot; the politics of the time, therefore, pitted the “clean” Modi government against the corrupt UPA in a visceral contest packaged as white versus black, with no room for nuance.
The “corruption” allegations have since begun to sound a bit lame, somewhat shopworn because there is no answer to a simple question: Why has the government, in power for more than three and a half years now, taken no action whatsoever against those it accused, despite controlling the agencies of investigation?
Couple that glaring inaction with the fact that instances of corruption have surfaced in various states run by the BJP. Note also that in its frenetic power-grab, the BJP has been fishing in some very murky political waters. As for example Narayan Rane, whose mere presence in any political formulation immediately cuts the ground out from under on the question of corruption. Vijay Mallya, who the BJP rescued from a descent into oblivion and sent to the Rajya Sabha. Or BS Yedyurappa, the BJP’s resident albatross, whom the party once got rid off only, more recently, to give him a Lazarus-like revival and a few thick coats of whitewash. Lo, no sooner had the BJP begun building its poll plans around BSY than he does it again: the Anti Corruption Bureau has just booked him, and fellow BJP leader Anant Kumar, in a bribery case that touches “the top leadership” of the party.
Last time, the Congress had to take it on the chin when the BJP accused it of institutionalized corruption. Now the BJP has gifted the political opposition with a sufficiency of sticks to beat it with, and the opposition has been quick off the blocks to latch onto its opportunity.
Speaking of corruption and sticks, the government has stepped up its defense of demonetization and the GST, even as it rolls back some of the provisions of the tax code (of this, more another day). What intrigues me about the rollback is not the “Let them eat Khakra” populism aimed at a state due to go to polls before the year is out, but the relaxation of rules regarding the purchase of gold.
PAN or other forms of identity are not needed for the purchase of gold and jewelry in excess of Rs 50,000, the government says. I have brought in an early Diwali, says Modi. For whom, he omits to add.
Coming from a government that is constantly talking of putting an end to corruption and black money, the move is a shocker. As the demonetization numbers clearly indicate, black money in bulk is not kept in cash — the preferred practice is to send it abroad to one of the tax havens, or to invest in real estate, or convert into gold. In fact, wholesale purchase of gold and jewels was reported in the immediate aftermath of demonetization by IT officials themselves. So for the government to claim it is against black money and simultaneously to say you no longer need to ID yourself when purchasing large amounts of gold, therefore, beats logic — unless the idea is to actively facilitate, not hinder, black money.
To hark back to the Jay Shah story for a moment, though, the strangest thing about the affair is the dog that did not bark. The electronic media, barring a couple of outlets, totally blacked out The Wire story and everything related. When Kapil Sibal of the Congress party held a press conference to demand an investigation, that was blacked out too — but the same channels cut, live, to Piyush Goyal’s presser. To add a coat of superfluous irony, The Republic channel around the same time debated whether UPA or NDA was ahead in the corruption stakes.
More irony: we learn that the PMO has ordered all ministries to get into propaganda overdrive, to rope in social media “influencers” and “independent experts” to say nice things about government schemes. And — read this slowly — to pay for such propaganda.
Interesting. The government’s cronies have already bought up sizeable chunks of the media and reduced them to megaphones for the ruling party. Now a government directive openly speaks of paying for propaganda (with, it needs mentioning, taxpayer funds). And yet it is the government and its mouthpieces that constantly denounce “paid media”. Mirroring, the social psychologists call this, where you accuse others of exactly what you know yourself to be guilty of. Rana Ayyub understates the case when she talks of how the media, today, is crawling where it is required to merely bend.
PS: Much else of interest, but I’ll leave this here and get back to regular updates from tomorrow.
