Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked fugitive economic offenders, of the likes of Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, to return to the country and stressed that his government is making all-out efforts in this direction. The PM has also claimed his government has pooled back some Rs 5 lakh crore of money the defaulters had taken away from banks when they scooted from the scene in recent years. The PM’s statement came at a symposium with the title, ‘Build Synergy for Seamless Credit Flow and Economic Growth’ and must be taken at its face value. Yet, the misgivings are very much there when it comes to saving Indian banks from bad loans, which were of the order of Rs 10 lakh crore five years ago. The problem has been addressed only in small part. Banks that fell on bad times due to such indulgences could not stand on their own and have been merged into new entities. In the long term, how the national economy will be impacted by such indulgences of big guns is anybody’s guess.
Notably, Prime Minister Modi keeps drawing flak from the Opposition for his failure to fulfil the promise he made during his 2014 general election campaign – that he would get back the money looted by those who defrauded the banks, went abroad and parked their money in tax havens. This, it turns out, was easier said than done. Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, as also many other businessmen have been fighting back the Centre’s attempts to get them back to India, and they have the luxury of using their huge financial assets to influence courts or turn the legal tide in favour of them through multiple means. The Indian investigating agencies, like the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI, have cut a sorry figure too in respect of their failed efforts to get such sharks back to India to face the law. The businessmen are, understandably, smarter than the officials and have a stronger will to outwit the establishment.
The Prime Minister stated that “we relied on policies and law as also diplomatic channels to get them back.” The proof of the pudding is in its eating. The results are more important than claims. The PM’s promise in 2014 was not only to get back the money funnelled abroad but also to put this money into the bank accounts of India’s poor. The credibility of politicians’ promises is always in doubt during election campaigns. But, those who lead the nation from the front would do well to desist from promising the moon.
