In the land of scams

I returned from India last week. And the first thing I did was to take a bath. Rarely have I felt so totally unclean for India seems to have become a land of scams. A new more dishonest method of looting public monies or hoodwinking the public seems to be found almost every day. And the tragedy is that the rate and depth and extent of these robberies only seem to be increasing by the day.

Here is a short list of the scams over the past 20 years. And remember that the major scam till then was the Bofors arms purchase where the loss was only estimated at Rs 64 crores.

1992 -Harshad Mehta securities scam Rs 5,000 cr




1995 -Preferential allotment scam Rs 5,000 cr; 
Yugoslav Dinar scam Rs 400 cr; 
Meghalaya Forest scam Rs 300 cr



1996: -Fertiliser import scam Rs 1,300 cr
; Urea scam Rs 133 cr; 
Bihar fodder scam Rs 950 cr



1997 -Sukh Ram telecom scam Rs 1,500 cr
; SNC Lavalin power project scam Rs 374 cr
; Bihar land scandal Rs 400 cr
; C.R. Bhansali stock scam Rs 1,200 cr



1998 -Teak plantation swindle Rs 8,000 cr



2001 -UTI scam Rs 4,800 cr; 
Dinesh Dalmia stock scam Rs 595 cr
; Ketan Parekh securities scam Rs 1,250 cr



2005 -IPO-Demat scam Rs 146 cr; 
Bihar flood relief scam Rs 17 cr
; Scorpene submarine scam Rs 18,978 cr



2006 -Punjab's City Centre project scam Rs 1,500 cr; 
Taj Corridor scam Rs 175 cr



2008 -Pune billionaire Hassan Ali Khan tax default Rs 50,000 cr
; The Satyam scam Rs 10,000 cr
; Army ration pilferage scam Rs 5,000 cr
; The 2-G spectrum swindle Rs 60,000 cr; 
State Bank of Saurashtra scam Rs 95 cr; 
Illegal monies in Swiss banks, as estimated in 2008 Rs 71,00,000 cr



2009: -The Jharkhand medical equipment scam Rs 130 cr
; Rice export scam Rs 2,500 cr; 
Orissa mine scam Rs 7,000 cr; 
Madhu Koda mining scam Rs 4,000 cr.

The scams have not only increased in amounts – the 2 G spectrum scam has been estimated to be as much as Rs 120,000 crores. They have increased in the geographical coverage. In the early days, the scams were mainly focused in Delhi and Bombay. But now there is almost no part of the country unaffected by scoundrels. The other distressing part of these developments is that almost no part of the Indian society is left untouched. Consider this

The last Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, KBG Balakrishnan is under investigation.

The last Chief of Army staff is accused of land grab and some senior officers are being court-martialled.

The most upright of Indian businessmen- Ratan Tata- is accused of manipulating spectrum allocation through the notorious Radia tapes.

The world famous India entrepreneur and the doyen of Indian expatriates – Rajat Gupta- is accused of insider trading by the U.S SEC.

A minister – A Raja- in the cabinet of the most honest of prime ministers, is said to have plundered almost Rs 120,000 crores of the nations monies right under his nose.

An IAS couple is found to have assets worth Rs 40 crores.

And the crowning blow- the Chief Vigilance Officer for the country, Thomas- is accused of corruption which renders him unfit and is so removed from his post from the President of the country.

If all this reminds you of the days of the “robber barons” in the U.S in the early twentieth century, you would not be far wrong. Our modern day robber barons are just as venal and amoral and unmindful of the public interest. Here is a partial list of these U.S robber barons:

▪ John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur)—New York City

▪ Andrew Carnegie (steel)—Pittsburgh and New York

▪ Jay Cooke (finance)—Philadelphia

▪ Charles Crocker (railroads)—California

▪ James Buchanan Duke (tobacco)— Durham, North Carolina

▪ Jay Gould (railroads)--New York

▪ Edward Henry Harriman (railroads)—New York

▪ J. P. Morgan (banking, finance, industrial consolidation)—New York City

▪ John D. Rockefeller (oil), Standard Oil--New York

▪ Charles M. Schwab (steel) Carnegie Steel, United States Steel Corporation, Bethlehem Steel - Pittsburgh and New York

▪ Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)--New York

A major role in limiting the power of these robber barons was played by the muckrakers. A muckraker seeks to expose corruption of businesses or government to the public. The term originates from writers of the Progressive movement in America who wanted to expose corruption and scandals in government and business. Muckrakers often wrote about the wretchedness of urban life and poverty, and against the established institutions of society, such as big business. And yes, they too were often accused of being socialists or communists or in the pay of foreign governments.

Nevertheless muckrakers were a significant part of reform in the United States in the 20th and 21st Centuries because of the freedom of the press provided for by the First Amendment of the Constitution. They played a significant role in the social justice movements for reform, and the campaigns to clean up cities and states, by constantly reporting and publicizing the dark corners of American society in a sensationalist way. During this time period, these journalists, through their research and constant exposure of the wrongdoing by officials in American public life, gave fuel to protests that led to investigations and later on reform of not only Corporate America but the American Government. The Muckrakers’ journalistic efforts helped reform and regulate Wall Street and aspects of big businesses.

Our society too seems headed to what Rudyard Kipling spoke of in “ The Jungle Book”, a society which is governed by the law of the jungle with its operating ethos being "every man for himself," "anything goes," "might makes right," "survival of the strongest", "survival of the fittest", "kill or be killed", "dog eat dog" and "eat or be eaten" almost a replication of the days of the robber barons in the US. The real question is will the muckrakers in India rise to the occasion and expose these corruptions and fuel protests leading to real reform?