Opinion Lessons from a sticky wicket
One of the worst legacies from our bad old socialist days is the income tax raid....
One of the worst legacies from our bad old socialist days is the income tax raid. In those dark times of yore,the raid was used mostly as a weapon against political opponents and businessmen who dared to contribute to the wrong party. That it remains a powerful weapon we saw last week,when income tax sleuths swept into Lalit Modis offices the day after he dared to take on a minister in the Government of India. If the raid was not meant as an act of intimidation,it could have been done quietly. It was done after informing every TV channel in Mumbai and that indicates that someone in Delhi wanted to show Lalit Modi that they could fix him.
It was a repellent spectacle. Political bullying at its most blatant and proof that we must abolish income tax raids. Officials who work in the Income Tax Department are usually more corrupt than the people they raid. And,there is no civilised country in the world that would allow the violation of fundamental rights that an income tax raid involves. Having been witness to a raid or two,what I found particularly repugnant was that the victims were treated as guilty till proven innocent. Raids belong in totalitarian societies,not in free countries. If the Income Tax Department needs information,they can get it in more civilised ways.
The raid on Lalit Modi is especially contemptible since he is the man behind the magnificent success of the IPL. Instead of being raided,he should be honoured for giving India its first world-class tournament. But,because our politicians have become accustomed from decades of socialist controls to putting their sticky fingers into every pie,it was only a matter of time before they started trying to get a piece of the IPL action. First off the mark was Shashi Tharoor. Nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong with him putting a consortium together to get Kerala a team,if,among the consortium,had not been his fiancée.
The sweat equity of more than Rs 70 crore bequeathed generously to the mysterious beautician from Dubai would have been suspicious even if she had not been engaged to a minister in the Government of India. Lalit Modi did well to start asking questions. If he had remained silent,the country would not have discovered why our politicians are always so eager to link themselves to sporting events. There is not just money to be made but glamour and glory,and these are things that the Indian politician cannot resist.
The most interesting aspect of the public row between Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor,at least for me,is that it reflects wonderfully the vast and widening gap between private enterprise in India and the public sector. All Indias successes in the past 15 years,since economic liberalisation began,are in the private arena. Doordarshan continues to be as bad as ever,while private TV channels go from strength to strength. Public sector companies remain bottomless pits for taxpayers money,but Indian billionaires shine in the bazaars of the world. Indian hotels are now counted among the finest while government hotels languish. Jet Airways is in my view the best airline in the world,but whenever I use Air India,it reminds me of those awful days when the Government of India was our only service provider.
If all of shining India comes from the private sector,all that is bad about India comes from the failures of government. Our public services remain as bad as they have always been,whether it is in education,healthcare,poverty alleviation or sanitation. A recent UN report reveals that there are more cell phones in India than toilets. What more is there to say?
In my view,it is because our politicians have remained hopelessly backward that they look at the extraordinary success of the IPL and try to destroy it. They must not be allowed to. Shashi Tharoor is the villain of this story. He can say what he likes in his defense; it will not work for the simple reason that its hard to explain away such a large amount of sweat equity being given to an unknown woman from Dubai unless we remember that she could soon be a ministers wife.
It is a squalid tale and Tharoor would have done well to resign on day one. Meanwhile,there are lessons to learn from what happened. The first one is that income tax raids have no place in a democratic country like India. The second is that instead of hounding Lalit Modi,the Government of India should give him charge of the Commonwealth Games. He could save us from ignominy.
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