The Holy Cow Defaulters
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 25th Mar. 2016
Party politics is ensuring that each party makes utmost attempt to salvage the reputation of its "Holy cow defaulters". The result is that the "know all media geniuses" not even knowing the extent of problem i.e. exact quantum of money in question, but only guesstimates. What we also 'not know' is the principle reason attributed to the quantum/bucket of defaults i.e. how much money is be attributed to each principle reason and the number of entities/persons involved underneath. Glib talkers in commercial news media would still manage to weave a story for public consumption even without data to back up claim and there seems to be no issues of breach of commercial news discipline on this count (It only get breached when some public news item is requested to be put up, where the media house needs to authenticate everything in line with policy).
Doubt if the apex court has manage to get such a segregated data and if anyone in commercial media has remote idea of the contents. True that economic headwinds of the kind being seen presently, does cause financial turmoil, but should our reporters in commercial news media not try to ensure that the stated reason has some validity and not part of the habit system of the borrower. A cursory look at past track record of the entity as well as status of other group entities at high level has potential to give enough information and if it has been asked for and taken to consideration.
The point being will allow public to make good judgement, about the extent of involvement of Netas and the party in the election season. With principle political parties focussed on socio-cultural issues which people are better able to manage by themselves anyways, rather than economic or business issues, we have a peculiar situation. The political focus on these sundry issues sets a case for the businesses, especially the politically connected venturesome ones, whereby they feel that it is their right as well as duty to help bureaucrats design suitable policies and get the same promulgated for public services to be run somehow and especially in line with their views about running the same. Partly its fear that if they are not engaged with the government in such manner than someone else may walk away with the cake putting them at a disadvantage. It may have been started by a few select coterie, however spread steadily.
Competitive degeneration psyche like "Agar hum nahin karenge to koi aur bazi mar lega", "Kisi ko toh ye baith ke bureaucrats ko samjhana hi parega", "ye sirf information/knowledge pass karne ki baat hai, par thoda motivation bhi saath main chaahiye toh kya project haath se jaane dein", "Mil mila ke hi kaam hote hain, larne se koi fayda nahin", etc. may have led to growth of this phenomenon.
The "Chalta hai" attitude of even the most learned public/bureaucrats/Netas as well as thinking that this is ''a necessary evil'' may have allowed the phenomenon to grow beyond proportion to the extent of making deep in roads into our society. So much so that today, small amount is bakshish is seen as necessary need for facilitation of business rather than corruption and this article might be seen backward middle-class rant or "Janam Samjha Karo" with the ''know all patrakars'' ever ready to fall for the bait and issue advertisements to glamourize self/channels/papers.
Such a situation leads to business class being under political policy heat sometimes not their own making and feel cornered. This leads them to consider defaults with the bank loans as a measure to "safeguard" their personal interests and continuously lobby with the government for suitable debt recast as well as policy measures. For the netas, this situation has been actually quite beneficial rather, since they could actually sell this as their art of being quite adept in running of the affairs of the government to ordinary public as well as maintain a hold on the bureaucrats, and improved capacity to make noise and win elections. While the role of money power has not declined, but there is now an increased pressure to be ''seen'' to be interested in ordinary public and their affairs.
No wonder the governments that are failing to cope up with the pressures are increasingly being seen to be "sent out" by people although the habit of the political Netas refuse to die down as it is now deeply ingrained and protecting business interest of select businesses is a key feature rather than overall growth in economic activity by a larger chunk of people. It is an irony that most vernacular newspaper considered to be servicing the middle-classes remain oblivious to these issues most of the time with some exception around elections. A testimony to this fact is low coverage given to bank default issues, where most monies have been lost from sundry bank branches where middle class may have parked their monies.
It is the branches which may have been involved with the loan appraisal and collateral monitoring processes and so not wash away hands from loan having approved by higher authorities. The coverage of this issue may have been limited to some holi dahan kind of news or statements of some individuals with grievances in order to canvass sympathy, coverage of neta's statement so that their propaganda can be publicized rather than serious coverage on propriety or method to such defaults etc. Let's see if the concerned Netas have idea of deposit to credit ratios for their districts/state and the number of projects that are returned for not being worthy, quantum of defaults as well as action on defaulters etc. since the employment generation has become a key issue for each of them and such situation requires new projects coming up. Let's see if the parties and Netas want to come out better looking on such issues in this and coming election season.