Power of Shadow Economy In India...

UThe poll rhetoric of bringing back all the black money into India within a period of 100 days turned into a long forgotten promise. Only after the Supreme Court rapped Centre for being lethargic, did the NDA government disclose a few names couple of days back. However, after receiving flak for creating a protective umbrella for the rest, the NDA government handed over the entire list containing 600 odd names to the Supreme Court today morning. 

So, will this bring an end to the black money trail and rescue India of the cancer that it has been breeding? 

To be quite honest, I reckon this entire exercise of naming and blaming is merely done for public appeasement. The very thought of tracing black money and punishing the guilty is like searching for Rapunzels in real world.

The logic is straightforward. This saga of bringing back the black money is on since ages. So, it is wishful to believe that account holders have not moved their money by now and are waiting for the government to act. As a matter of fact, an article in FirstPost succinctly highlights how the Indian National money with Swiss banks has vanished over periods. In 2006, Indian money in Swiss accounts stood at Rs 414 bn. It came down to Rs 140 bn in 2013. In fact, Swiss banks themselves have been asking their suspect account holders to move their money for safety purposes. 

It is like a local police station giving the robbers an advanced notice to raid them a week in advance. How stupid it can get to?

As such, this entire exercise of creating a list to trace the money is futile. If either the NDA or the UPA government was indeed serious of punishing the black money culprits, they would have not indulged in this public tamasha. Instead, they would have directly taken action back doors and left no time for culprits to act or react. 

Did Obama made the matter public as to when he was going to execute Osama? Matters of national and security affairs are never made public. They are executed back doors. And the reason execution will never happen in India is because no political party is crystal clean. Execution may embarrass all parties. Hence, the best strategy is to indulge in blame game and fool the public. And the best way to do it is name small bullion traders and Timblo's of the world (read unknown faces). 

Do you think the list shall contain names of top politicians and corporates? Certainly not! Naming is just done to calm our nerves. There is no benefit to aam aadmi here as there is limited possibility of that money getting traced and used for national development. Perhaps, the only beneficiaries could be TV anchors and controversy-hungry journalists since money matters attract maximum eyeballs in Indian drawing rooms. 

The point I am trying to make is that one should not live in false expectations of more transparency and clean economy post this move. It may take uncanny political will to prove us wrong.

On a lighter note, I am still wondering about the sanity and intelligence of those 627+ account holders. If I were them, I would have shut down the shops and escaped long back ;-)

See you until next time..