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By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

Bribery Storm

Updated: Nov 25, 2024

Gautam Adani, the magnate who arguably symbolizes the economic ascendancy of the ‘new’ India, now finds himself entangled in a web of allegations after U.S. prosecutors indicted him, his nephew Sagar Adani, and six associates in an alleged $250 million bribery scheme. The charges are concerned with fraud, international complicity and the misuse of power to secure lucrative solar energy contracts.


The indictment, issued by the Eastern District of New York, accuses the defendants of bribing Indian officials to facilitate the purchase of solar power from the state-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). The alleged scheme sought to transform undelivered energy deals into a $2 billion post-tax profit over two decades. But the fallout has been swift: a $600 million bond offering cancelled, share prices of Adani companies plunging by nearly 20%, and a renewed debate over the intersection of business and politics in India.


SECI’s inability to find buyers for its power contracts reflects the inefficiencies of India’s energy sector, where opaque processes and political interference are commonplace. When SECI failed to secure agreements with state electricity companies, bribes became the supposed lubricant to move deals forward. This is not merely an Adani problem - it is symptomatic of a system that often rewards those with the deepest pockets and the most powerful connections. While a thorough probe is needed, the timing of the U.S. indictment is curious. It coincides with mounting global scrutiny of India’s corporate governance, particularly following the Hindenburg Research report earlier this year, which had accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation.


The biggest opposition party, the Congress, is always eager to connect the dots between the embattled tycoon and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, wasted no time painting the scandal as proof of a deeper collusion between PM Modi and his billionaire ally. But this narrative glosses over uncomfortable truths. The bribery allegations date back to 2021-2022, a period when several implicated states were under Congress or allied rule. From Chhattisgarh to Tamil Nadu, governments of varying political hues engaged with the Adani Group, benefiting from the infrastructure investments it promised. If the bribes indeed flowed, they implicate not just Adani but also a political ecosystem spanning the ideological spectrum.


There is also the matter of the U.S.’s motivations. The indictment’s timing raises questions about the West’s broader agenda concerning India. Critics argue that such cases are part of a pattern — whether through NGOs, think tanks, or legal actions — to undermine India’s rising global stature. The narratives, whether about alleged electoral interference, human rights, or now corruption, serve to project India’s success as precarious and undeserved. This case highlights the dual standards at play. While the indictment demands accountability from Adani and his associates, it must not distract from the systemic failures that allowed such corruption to take root.

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