Parts 1-5 of this series can be accessed here. This is the concluding part.
How a Cabal thwarted every new idea that could benefit India
There is a loosely formed Cabal, an exclusive club that oversees every aspect of India that could grow to size and significance. This mostly opaque group silently watches every growing business and assesses whether it would pose a threat to their deep-rooted interests built on expropriation and exploitation. If there is a challenge to this well-entrenched order, then the cabal would begin exploring ways to curtail its growth or if possible cut it off at the roots itself. I could have called them the New East India Company but Cabal is simpler and easier to remember.
The amount of influence exerted by this Cabal has to be seen to be believed. If the Modi government is seen as not being able to deliver on anti-corruption, look no further than the influence of the Cabal. It can guarantee outcomes for the most part (2G verdict was an aberration), and ensure that their narrative becomes the truth. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How is it that only a few group companies tend to get into every sector that matters? (Telecommunications, Infrastructure building, Refining, Finance etc.)
- What happens when an upstart tries to breach the walls they put up and start challenging the status quo?
- Most of the group companies were running up losses yet Banks (at least during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) era) were always willing to lend more. Why did this happen?
Cabal Controls Babudom
It is alleged that as soon as an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer rises to the level of Joint Secretary/ Additional Secretary, he/ she is cultivated and marked. Small nudges in policy to favor a certain group, curbs on the other – you get the idea. There are exceptions to this rule and it is these exceptions on whom the nation depends on, for justice. With luck, hard work and connections, some rise to the level of Secretary, which is one of the highest posts in that department. For the most part, the manoeuvring is done through a set of politicians, who will magically get the same ministry, regardless of their intellect or ability. If any of you have watched The Accidental PM, you will know how Mr. P Chidambaram (PC) gets the Finance Portfolio, practically snatching it from the presumptive Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. On sending the VVIP corrupt to jail, recollect what Dr. Subramanian Swamy said, way back in 2016 –
My next project is to expose 27 bureaucrats who are in various Ministries and loyal to TDK. They were handpicked and positioned by PC.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 19, 2016
The logical question that follows is how many of the 27 mentioned above were moved out or fired? You can do this math by going through the posts of PGurus since 2016 and mention it as comments to this post. After a couple of years, Dr. Swamy honed in on the Gang of Four[1], pointing them to Modi and the nation, saying that unless these four are unseated, Chidambaram (and by extension the corrupt gang of UPA) will not see Tihar jail. As it turned out, only two of the Gang got evicted (and one appears to have already been rehabilitated) and the other two are still firmly ensconced. And the Chidambaram family roams free.
Unless PM dismantles the Gang of Four, our actions on corruption will fail.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 25, 2018
Evil genius had a nice money making system going until…
The money train devised around the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was making enormous profits for a favoured few. Since the Bombay Stock Exchange and regional exchanges had been vanquished, NSE was the only entity left standing. Until the Financial Technologies India Limited (FTIL) group stormed the financial markets with a series of exchanges, each handily beating the equivalent offerings from the NSE. Chidambaram had tried other means to thwart FTIL but Jignesh Shah was on a mission and wanted to have a full-fledged stock exchange to rival the NSE and this is what got PC’s goat. In a set of carefully orchestrated moves, a crisis was manufactured in the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) and used to decimate Shah. Once this was accomplished, the cabal managed to restore status quo.
The government is not supposed to play favourites in the market. For this alone, PC and his C-Company minions should be punished. Some of them went the extra mile (er, kilometre), as follows:
| Ramesh Abhishek and his abuse of regulatory powers | |
| THE CONTRACT IN QUESTION IS STILL TO BE PROVED ILLEGAL | Trading of a particular contract at NSEL that he took objection to and for which he stopped the functioning of the exchange on the charge that it is illegal is yet to be proved |
| MISSING OR LOSING MINUTES OF A VITAL MEETING | That the minutes of the meeting held, with all the stakeholders, on 4th August, 2013 immediately after the payment default where it seemed the problem was sorted out to the satisfaction of all the parties seems to be missing and not traceable |
| SUPPRESSION OF A VITAL EOW INVESTIGATION REPORT | Shri Rajvardhan Sinha, Additional Commissioner, Economic Offences Wing, Mumbai sent a detailed letter on market abuses by brokers was not acted upon but instead it was suppressed. Still not clear at whose behest and for what purpose. |
| NOT ADHERING TO A PRINCIPLE AS FOLLOWED FOR A RIVAL EXCHANGE OF NSEL | Government in 2008 granted exemption to NSpot, promoted by NCDEX, a subsidiary of National Stock Exchange, and insulated NCDEX from all acts of the subsidiary by making both of these separate and independent. DCA on 8th August 2011, advised MOF, that this principle will be applicable for all spot exchanges. Yet Ramesh Abhishek flouted this principle while attacking FTIL for the payment problem at NSEL that was triggered by his rash action in the first place. |
| BREACHING THE REGULATORY BRIEF AND PROTOCOL | Without any valid evidence and going beyond his regulatory brief, he declared FTIL and its promoter “Not Fit and Proper” without a similar action on the key players such as brokers and defaulter and recommended merger of NSEL with FTIL which has become a vexatious issue as also unconstitutional. |
| MISLEADING THE MARKETS | The NSEL crisis being a creation by none other than himself, he misled the public, the agencies and the media on various aspects and did not solve a problem that was easily solvable. |
How can the government overlook such regulatory transgression by a senior IAS officer?
What about the Mainstream Media?
Media that discusses minutely about market developments – how come it let such severe lapses go without any scrutiny or discussion? Who instigated the witch hunt against FTIL and Shah following NSEL being declared not fit and proper? Now that the truth is emerging, will the same media eat back their vomit?
SEBI: All are equal before the law
With so much of evidence established in the last five years against brokers, how come the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) could think of such a lame action of declaring closed entities of the top five brokers as not fit and proper that does not in any manner affect their current business or future growth? What message is being sent when the same players in the same case are being treated differently? One gets hit with an iron fist and the others are being treated with kid gloves.
How come the principal accused are let off lightly whereas the exchange and its promoters were given severe punishment?
Commodities cartel does price-fixing of pulses
What did the market gain from the FMC action? Almost nothing. As can be seen from the recent exposure by Reuters of collusion between major commodity players such as Glencore, the Export Trading Group and Edelweiss in price rigging in pulses in 2016[2]. NSEL could have been a handy instrument in efficient price discovery process by wider participation of commodity players than being fixed by a few and select devoid of any transparency. The business that NSEL did in 2013 has not been reached by any other player even after five years speaks of how the hard work of the exchange was wantonly destroyed by a greedy bureaucrat eager to serve his masters for the sole purpose of self-interest.
India should watch out for such value destroyers! They should not be allowed to go scot free. It is important to subject them to the utmost form of punishment and penalty so that other officers will think twice before committing such dishonest and evil acts. Make any public office free from such marauding mandarins messing up the growth of markets in a callous manner. Will the government do it? Only time will tell.
References:
[1] Swamy accuses Hasmukh Adhia-led Gang of Four of trying to save Chidambaram by intimidating ED officer Rajeshwar Singh – Jun 28, 2018, PGurus.com
[2] Indian antitrust watchdog raids Glencore business, others over pulse prices – sources Mar 16, 2019, Reuters.com
His first book NDTV Frauds has been published and is an Amazon Bestseller.It ranked second among all eBooks that were self-published in 2017.
His second book, The Gist of GSTN which too is available on Amazon as an e-Book and as a paperback.
His third book, The Rise and Fall of AAP is also available in print version or as an e-Book on Amazon.
His fourth book, C-Company just released to rave reviews and can be bought as a print version or as an e-Book on Amazon.
- Indian Parliament’s Special Session is convened to mark the shifting to new Parliament building - September 3, 2023
- Why did Rajat Sharma of India TV not declare that Adani owns more than 16% shares in his channel? - January 29, 2023
- Prannoy Roy to get Rs.605 crore from Adani as per Stock Exchange filing. Why is Income Tax not acting on Roys’ dues of over Rs.800 crore? - January 4, 2023
As Jignesh Shah points out here https://youtu.be/Hop-L0FQvD4 the intentional failure to take action by Ramesh Abhishek in a conspiracy to bring down NSEL to make way for National Stock Exchange. There is no doubt Ramesh Abhishek is extremely corrupt and knows when to switch sides. He was dubbed Lalu’s favourite in Bihar (https://tennews.in/ramesh-abhishek-lalus-ace-advisor-under-scanner/) for which he was rewarded, then went on to become a Yes-Man Chidambaram’s close associate and helped him launder money. Now he is in the inner circles of BJP and continues to abuse his authority to gain personal luxuries for him, his family including his co-brother L K Agrawal. He continues to use his position to threaten any opposing voices and puts the might of his resources behind destroying anyone who attempts to bring out his corrupt practices.
$ Legacies have to be passed on to the next generation.
What is surprising and shocking is like media who is who of corporate world have not uttered a single word till today about criminal conspiracy hatched by PC and his men in bureaucracy. What is more surprising is why so far our honest prime minister has not given very strict instructions to his ministers, handling finance, company affair and other related ministries to handle the entire NSEL matter purely on merit basis and why those corrupt bureaucrats are still holding key positions. Is there any political or other comulsion for not exposing and punishing PC and his gang for their misdeeds.
I think we sometimes over simplify the Governance. Any system that has been this way was carefully nurtured for decades and to dismantle that system would need careful and well thought out change management.
On going through many of what Modiji is doing, he seems to have got some plan in place to handle the Change carefully. In my opinion that is the reason he has left the prosecution to the prosecutors and focusing on core issue of improving Governance.
There also many babudom is trained in old ways for long hence they would have the remnants of the past.
More important is Judiciary and enforcement. This is totally corrupted and getting any thing done is next to impossible. It would take minimum of 10 years to digitise judicial processing and make them accountable.
Come to federal structure the regional parties do not even care Supreme Court verdict or central authorities are no more treated sacred.
So with so many variables that Modiji has taken over, what he has progressed is far more than what any others could do at this point.
He is a doer and hence so many are giving advise that itself is a good sign.
He has shown that he has no self interest. That itself is a seed that he has sown in the mind of few new Babus and it would give result in some time.
Criticism and impatience is not going to help but would create more confusion in people’s Mind. When Rama was ruling that time also people had issues and same thing would be the case when any one rules.
Coming back the key issue is change management. For a large country of our size and variety, it is not simple job.
Modiji has many challenges to take care. Within party, outside party, within country, outside country, in economy, in security both internal and external, corruption in every strata of the society. Inimical press and so on.
No one would start the fight against corruption with so many odds against him.
Please be mindful of all those variables and start popularising whatever achiements he has done in 5 years.
13 crore Mudra loan
6 crore toilet
7 crore gas connections
50 crore people health scheme
1.5 crore houses
24×7 power supply
3 crore home getting power for the first time
12 crore farmers receiving 2000 RS
3 crore farmers getting soil health card
30 crore jandhan account
1.2 lakh crore saves per year due to DBT
Removing 6 crore ration cards and false beneficiary
Roads development
Waterways
Airways, etc
Please research on all these and write positive stories. These are important at this point of election not negatives. They could be written post election
People like you are easy to fool.Corruption systematically stripping down nations wealth keeping people poor .You live in good surroundings and think millions of Indians are doing the same.It is obvious to anyone that this country has serious wealth distortion.When you give power to a supposedly do gooder and then the first act he does is appoint a guy like that as FM,you know nothing much will ever change.Events in the last 4 years have proved me right.Keep living in your foolish world.
Sir beautiful reply 10 THUMBS UP to you. SALUTE YOU. Establishment or Cabal is fighting back and has huge international resources. A person MODI is risking his life fighting such huge challenges. He should be supported by every Indian, as Italian Cabal will be much much much worse than even conquistadors and Nazis
When Top IAS, IPS, IRS Bureaucrats, Top Netas on both BJP and UPA side fall for enticements, there is nothing one can do to free the country from the grips of the Cunning Corrupt Cabal.