NEW DELHI – A key failure of the Narendra Modi government has been itsinability – or unwillingness – to break the vice-like grip the deep statehas over Indian policy-making and public discourse. The deep state is noleviathan monster. Rather it’s an intricate network of politicians,bureaucrats, former judges, retired armed forces officers, senior lawyers,journalists, activists and power brokers.
For decades, this tight circle controlled India’s political, economic andsocial narrative. Corruption and nepotism bound them together. Many weresubverted by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and toedthe aman ki asha line. Maoists were lionised. Police officers who foughtinsurgencies and terrorism were prosecuted.
When the Sonia Gandhi remotely-led UPA government was in office, thispowerful and incestuous cabal was in its element. Its members dominatedSonia’s National Advisory Council (NAC). Journalists meanwhile, fell underthe spell of public relations operators like Niira Radia.
Those were the go-go years of 2004-08. The global economy was on steroids.Foreign investors were pouring into India. The stock market boomed. Thethen finance minister P Chidambaram was the toast of the town. Iinterviewed him in his spacious North Block office in September 2004. Forthe best part of an hour, Chidambaram’s eyes rarely left the televisionscreen placed on the wall to his right, flashing the latest stock prices.
As S Gurumurthy, speaking recently about the deep state said, keyappointments in the bureaucracy, judiciary and various institutions ofgovernance like the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Comptroller andAuditor General (CAG), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), EnforcementDirectorate (ED) and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) were made on thebasis of personal connections and loyalty, not merit.
Those appointees, still occupy positions of authority. Gurumurthy is aformer adviser to the late redoubtable Ramnath Goenka, founder of *TheIndian Express*. A chartered accountant, Gurumurthy has audited the balancesheets of India’s top companies. A single armed guard stands at theentrance to his office in Chennai where I interview him.
Much of the conversation is off-the record but I do ask him a question thatpuzzles many Indians: after nearly four years in power, why has theNarendra Modi government moved so slowly to indict, prosecute and jailobvious economic offenders across sectors – from real estate to televisionmedia.
*Glacial speed*
Gurumurthy answers with deliberate precision. He says the Modi governmentis moving carefully because of the deep state that still controls keylevers of power: politicians, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, media, NGOs.
Isn’t it extraordinary, I ask him, that a shrewd politician and hardtaskmaster like Modi hasn’t been able to cut this cabal down to size? Therest of our conversation was off-the-record. On three occasions herequested the tape recorder be switched off while he spoke.
Corruption lies at the heart of the problem. Virtually every defence dealduring UPA1 and UPA2 allegedly came with kickbacks in foreign tax havens.The money was round-tripped back to India in real estate companies andother businesses.
Corrupt politicians are the real owners of these companies fronted bybenami “businessmen”. Money was laundered by benami entrepreneurs, some ofwhom have been investigated for years at glacial speed. Even in the KartiChidambaram case, courts have been “compassionate”, to cite Gurumurthy,giving him leeway to travel abroad, agree to adjournments by Karti’s legalteam and delay court proceedings.
More worryingly is the surreptitious help the deep state, flush withill-gotten wealth of the past and loyal to old masters, receives fromwithin the Modi government. Most Modi cabinet ministers are sincere, honestand hardworking. But there are holdovers with loyalties to the past.
*New intent*
With one year to go for the next Lok Sabha election, what options does Modihave to cleanse the subverted ecosystem he inherited? He should focus onthe finance ministry where much power resides. Then he should turn hisattention to the defence ministry which is crucial to safeguarding India’snational security and upgrading a deeply eroded military. Defence ministerNirmala Sitharaman is honest and able but does she have untrammelledauthority?
Two recent episodes were disconcerting. First, the cloud over whether thedefence minister gave Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Muftipermission to file an FIR against Major Aditya Kumar following the Shopianincident. This has belatedly been clarified with the J&K government tellingthe Supreme Court on March 5 that Major Aditya was not included in the FIRas an accused. The apex court has stayed the investigation till April 24.
The second episode concerns the defence ministry’s mean-spirited decisionto go ahead with imposing a cap of Rs 10,000 a month on educational grantsto the children of armed forces martyrs. The maximum additional burdenremoving the cap would have imposed? Rs 3.20 crore. Despite representationsby armed forces officers that the cap would affect the morale of soldiersfacing Pakistan’s mortar shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) andterror attacks in J&K, the defence ministry has refused to remove the cap.
It is such lack of common sense and empathy in government decision-makingthat the deep state thrives on. To end its influence, Modi must take thebull by the horns. Karti Chidambaram’s arrest showed new intent andurgency. Much more remains to be done.
(Courtesy of *Mail Today*)