[WSMDiscuss] SILENCE OF THE POWERFUL - Why the Corporate Czars are Silent over increasing attacks on Social Fabric and rising Communalism

[Subhash Gatade]

SILENCE OF THE POWERFUL
Why the Corporate Czars are Silent over increasing attacks on Social Fabric
and rising Communalism
- subhash gatade
[image: image.png]

Celebrity actors and players share an interesting commonality in this part
of South Asia.

Their moral compass normally veers towards the ‘righteousness’ of the rich,
powerful and the influential.

Lynching of innocent people on the streets for their faith, social and
governmental hounding of lovers belonging to different communities, call
for genocide of religious minorities from public forums and similar hate
filled acts, nothing normally impinges on their conscience.

Corporate elites are qualitatively no different.

Occasionally, there are feeble voices of disagreements also.

What Kiran Mazumdar Shaw – founder of India’s largest biopharmaceutical
company Biocon – did was exactly this only. She expressed her indignation
about growing religious divide in the country and underlined how it would
be detrimental to India’s global leadership in ITBT ( Information
Technology and Bio Technology)

Definitely her statement which was couched in ‘economic terms’ was very
mild, but it did not stop attacks by right-wing trolls.

The immediate trigger for her decision to speak out might have been the
denial of permission to non-Hindu traders to carry on business around
temples but the issue was simmering since quite some time.

There were many voices of support as well but none from the community of
corporates expressed solidarity with her.

Speak No Evil, See No Evil

This silence by the powerful has nothing exceptional about it.

Would it be apt to say that their dictum for these times has become ‘Speak
No Evil, See No Evil and Hear No Evil’

Perhaps Rahul Bajaj’s last public appearance can be seen as a classic
example wherein he had asked few tough questions to Amit Shah about mass
lynching, glorification of Gandhi’s assassins or the atmosphere of fear in
the industry, which was followed by complete silence from Indian Corporate
world’s Who’s Who – who had gathered there – as if what the late Bajaj was
talking was tale from another planet. (
https://thewire.in/government/rahul-bajaj-amit-shah-dissent-pragya-thakur)

Forget larger constitutional issues or social problems, this docility /
passivity of these corporate leaders extends to their own personal matters
as well.

It was only last year that a magazine close to the ruling establishment
made wild allegations against a blue chip company like Infosys and called
it ‘anti national’ or accused it  of helping ‘naxals, tukde tukde gang’
etc. The mere fact that the Income Tax portal, which the leading blue chip
company was managing for the government, faced technical problems for few
months, was reason enough for the RSS affiliate to unleash at attack on
Infosys.. (
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/infosys-with-anti-national-forces-ally-of-tukde-tukde-gang-rss-linked-journal-7489281/
)

Around same time Tatas and many leading business houses (
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/piyush-goyal-faces-heat-for-criticism-of-businesses-including-tata-11628934780425.html)
were branded as not doing enough for national interests, in a public
meeting addressed by Piyush Goyal, a close confidant of Modi-Shah.

What happened later was an eye-opener, despite the fact that the charges
were baseless and unfounded (-do-) it did not even provoke both the
Companies to counter this malafide campaign or send a letter of disapproval
to the concerned persons.

With no complaint from the ‘aggrieved party’ the matter just ended at that.
.

‘Hum Do, Hamare Do’

One plausible explanation could be that the silence of these corporate
elites is grounded in the carrot and stick policy of the ruling
dispensation.

Providing special favours to groups ready to fall in line or unleashing the
might of  various investigation agencies – right from Income Tax, ED to the
CBI – against the recalcitrant groups is a known secret at least with this
regime.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to recall how the GMR group – which was once
number one in the airport operator group – which managed the highly
profitable Mumbai airport as well and was reluctant to hand it over to the
Adanis ,was persuaded to do so.

One knows every big corporate group has skeletons in its cupboard and a
vindictive government knows very well how to discipline such groups.

It was an apt description by Rahul Gandhi, ex-President of the Congress
who openly said in parliament how the Modi-Shah dispensation is a ‘Hum Do –
Hamare Do’ govt ; alluding to the big two Corporate houses in the country
who have made it really big in recent years..

The metamorphosis of the Adani group from a non-descript entity in early
years of 2000 to a global player is  lesson worth studying.

How Adani progressed in around two decades is a separate story.

It was only last week that news came in that State Bank of India has
underwritten the entire debt requirement of 12,770 crore for the Navi
Mumbai International Airport project which is a Adani airport now.  (
https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/sbi-underwrites-the-entire-debt-of-12770-crore-of-adanis-navi-mumbai-airport/article65271859.ece
 )

Unpacking the ‘Corporat-Hindutva Alliance’ what  Professor Prabhat Patnaik
tell is worth emphasising According to him.”*’.[I]n a period in which
neo-liberal capitalism has lost its steam, the corporate-financial
oligarchy wants an ideological prop different from the one it had used
earlier, namely the promise of a high GDP growth and its potentially
beneficial effect for all. This no longer suffices when growth slackens.
Orienting state policy in favour of this oligarchy and yet preventing any
revolt from below requires a discourse shift, which Hindutva provides. This
is the basis of the formation of the corporate-Hindutva alliance which
currently rules the country*.’ (
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/decoding-the-corporate-hindutva-alliance/article29577507.ece
)

Biggest versus Strongest Democracy

Silence or docility of the Corporate elites in the biggest democracy in the
world can easily be contrasted with that belonging to the strongest
Democracy in the world namely USA.

We can recall how the Corporates there resisted Trump’s ‘White
Supremacist’   policies in their own ways. An example from the early years
of Trump Presidency would suffice.

Flush with victory and rearing to fulfil his agenda of immigration ban on
select Muslim majority countries, Trump suddenly announced this ban which
created havoc with thousands of people stranded at different airports.

Not to be silenced the Corporate groups there – and their number was not
insignificant – challenged this ‘unjust order’.

Right from Airbnb which offered free housing to people affected by the ban (
https://www.airbnb.com/weaccept?af=14383374&c=tw_us_gen_brand) to google
which created a crisis fund to support imm immigrant-rights organizations (
https://www.upworthy.com/15-companies-that-took-bold-stands-against-trumps-immigration-ban),
a section of the Corporates preferred to be heard – knowing very well the
price it involved.

What happened to Boeing was before them which had to face fall in share
prices because of a stand in favour of trade agreements (December 2016) –
which was contrary to what Trump envisaged. (-do-)

Can the difference be explained on the basis of the hollowing out of
institutions here – which were already not very strong – and the way the
ruling dispensation has ruthlessly used them to browbeat political
opponents or cover up all its acts of omission and commission?

One also needs to look at the difference of trajectories of similar
entities.

As opposed to advanced societies where [f]*reemarket thinking and
liberalism have gone hand in hand, economic interests are interlocked with
interest in the maintenance of cultural hierarchies and the Hindu
supremacies that the lynchings claim to defend*. ‘

(
https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/unlike-american-ceos-india-inc-under-bjp-is-becoming-timid-regressive/101992/
)

It is rather a sad commentary on the state of affairs here that the
Judiciary which offered a ray of hope to the deprived and the persecuted
has also not found itself up to the mark. The manner in which the electoral
bond issue is lying before it unaddressed since few years, the way it has
allowed overnight dissolution of a state and its being turned into union
territories etc could be said to be few of the pointers to the state of
affairs.

Remember despite its own limitations the American judiciary did give many a
sleepless nights to the machinations of Trump who wanted to tinker with it.

Faustian Bargain?

The fascination of the Corporate elites towards Modi extends much behind
the NDA days.

Perhaps it need to be reminded that in the early years of the second
decade, when Modi was CM of Gujarat and UPA was still leading a successful
government at the centre, many leading Corporate bosses had readily joined
these summits and even wished/ rather proclaimed that Modi will become a PM
of India.

Modi’s complete embrace of the Neoliberal model, his open invitation to
industrialists to come to Gujarat and a promise to be sensitive towards
their concerns, the industrial peace which had been achieved under his
regime ( thanks to the repression and coercion of trade union activities)
and the rise of a highly polarised society as a culmination of 2002 riots
under his watch, as opposed to UPA governments slow rediscovery and
retracing of welfare era policies, or its reluctance to giving free play to
market forces, including its enactment of the Land bill, which made it
difficult for the Corporates to get land, all had enhanced Modi’s
popularity among the Corporates.

Perhaps the last clinching thing was the benefits of a polarised society
available to the industrialists.

Strategists of capital can envisage very well that possibility of massive
protests on issues of hunger, basic survival etc – as a consequence of
these Neoliberal policies is always a live thing. People cannot always be
fed merely on slogans of a ‘New India’

And any such united struggle by the people can play havoc with the future
of the profit making machine inherited, furthered by the Corporate honchoos.

Neighbouring Sri Lanka – once considered a model of Neoliberal path – is
facing upheaval of sorts from its own people.

Whether one wants to admit it or not this is a faustian bargain of a
different kind where Corporates have been given free rein to make money and
Hindutva Supremacists forces / formation are busy spreading their ‘cultural
writ’ far and wide.

(https://countercurrents.org/2022/04/silence-of-the-powerful/)
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