Scarcity to Ash

More frequently than is comfortable we get a reminder from certain government agencies that the small-minded, moralistic, socialist state hasn8217;t died. Thus it was that Customs officials in Mumbai decided they had the perfect justification for sharing the limelight with and turning the investigative glare on Aishwarya Rai. The actor apparently deserved nothing less than serious interrogation at a dramatically forbidding venue over a sum of foreign exchange RBI babus would consider trivial. There was a time when hard currency even in thousands would send Indian officials into a tizzy. FERA, COFEPOSA and other stern laws would be deployed and 8216;offenders8217; would be hard pressed to answer why they violated the moral-economic code of the Indian state.

Surely, it is different now. Even without capital account convertibility, Indians travelling abroad can take handsome amounts of foreign currency with them, with no questions being asked. Credit cards offer foreign exchange spending options, often without limit for high-end users. And India8217;s foreign exchange reserves, at around 168 billion, should remind everyone that to act as if hard currency is a rationed, scarce item calling for eternal official vigilance is, to put it mildly, silly.

That means whatever it is that Customs thought the actor had to explain, a rational allocation of investigative resources would have demanded that the case not be given the profile as if a serious amount of national wealth was at stake. Of course, it could be that the Customs officials are wonderfully rational and they simply wanted to have a chat with Rai. Mumbai8217;s police commissioner has demonstrated, when he apparently explained multiculturalism to Brad Pitt, that law and order can become an opportunity to see celebrities up close. Our strong recommendation to both the commissioner and Customs officials is that when they seek the company of actors they should do what most of us do 8212; visit a movie theatre.