India’s corrupt systems, which flourished further under the Modi government despite his 2014 promise of rooting out such practices, are now threatening the national economy in more serious ways. Outside the façade of peace and tranquility, the nation is bedeviled by huge anti-national activities in the forms of smuggling, drug trafficking and deeply embedded corruption. All these are handled by the establishment with kid-gloves. The arrest of the daughter of a Karnataka Director General of Police this week by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence is simply the tip of the iceberg. It demonstrates the rot within. Gold smuggling is taking place on a massive scale from Dubai, more aggressively in recent years with alleged support of top governmental entities and politicians. Cases relating to these are neither progressing nor are the guilty being punished.
The DGP’s daughter, Kannada actress Ranya Rao, was caught with over 14 kg of gold wrapped around her waist, after the DRI got suspicious about her frequent Dubai visits – 10 in the last three months; and four in 15 days. The ease with which she got away with the security establishment at the airport, unhindered in all her past return trips, is proof of the able support she got from them. Her arrest and jailing mean little. She would get bail soon and her father will be having sufficient clout to “save her” – if not the “senior politician” who was also a part of the racket. His name is held back by the authorities while the state Congress has demanded his immediate arrest. Notably, the cases relating to another epic smuggling unfolded in 2020 in Kerala, leading to the arrest of the top-most bureaucrat in chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office and his girlfriend. These investigations are dragging on. Both the accused are out on bail and enjoying their lives. This case too involved seizure of Dubai gold worth over Rs 14 crore, sent through diplomatic channels. The entire system is steam-rolled by corrupt officials with wholesale involvement of senior politicians.
Add to this a report this week that the Railway Board has cancelled all pending departmental selections on Group C posts, following detection of irregularities and corruption in the process. Some 26 railway employees from Uttar Pradesh have been arrested in relation to the leaking of question papers of an inter-departmental test. Curiously, even in cases where arrests by central agencies took place, the investigations have been tardy and are ultimately sabotaged. Errant officials returning to work from years of suspension, with full back wages and court’s clean chit, are making an ass out of the Indian judicial and administrative systems run by inept and corrupt hands. Narendra Modi as leader of the nation for the past 10 years “silently endured” all these and keeps playing the flute before his huge illiterate audiences. He has demonstrated his limitations. Rather, the corrupt systems has had the better of him.
