The Union Government should cow down before the canard spread by political parties across the country
The ongoing squabble among Kerala’s politicians, on what they described as impending breakdown of the State's cooperative sector, owing to demonetisation, is meant only to cloud some stark realities relating to another so-far undisclosed scam . The points they put forth in this regard are nothing, but arguments predicated on, no worthy premises.
The economic blitzkrieg of the Narendra Modi Government, is showered accolades on, by the middle class, labourers, decent earners, and several experts including Gita Gopinath, Harvard Economist, and Kerala Chief Minister's Economic Advisor, notwithstanding, the Kerala politicians, irrespective of the left-Right difference, are making hara-kiri, and cry for life like frogs trapped in a snake's throat.
The scene of their nimble antics, and gyrations and their frantically painful cry to save what they unlawfully amassed, and clandestinely kept is amusing to the public, which is confident of the Modi-trap, that no bandicoot can escape from.
The picture is beyond imagination, when it is said that of the total number of cooperative banks India over, Kerala has only two per cent, and that this two per cent of banks, hold 56 per cent of the total deposits in cooperative banks all over India.
Almost all media in Kerala, zero in on the amount of deposits, as a staggering Rs62,000 crore to Rs70,000 crore, and Rs1.2 lakh crore, according to the latest Government revelation, and none knows what more is there, without an accurate stock taking.
And, this excludes the deposits of about 20 State cooperative banks, and 300 urban banks, in the State. The district cooperative banks, and the innumerable service cooperative banks, accept deposits, and give loans at an exorbitantly high interest rate, when compared to the scheduled, and the nationalised banks, an instance of squeezing the poor borrowers to favour the rich depositors.
Even, they have neglected to rope in National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development's four per cent interest subsidy, due to the farmers, lest they should come under a national scanner.
Appallingly, the loan interest rates are about 14 per cent to 16 per cent, plus the compound interest, that noose the debtor into the death trap. By the time, the loan is cleared, the amount extracted from the debtor, would be double of the loan amount, all to give exorbitant interest to the depositors.
Who are these depositors, having such large amounts as not to be revealed, before any competent authority, like Reserve Bank of India, or the Department of Income Tax, and what prevents them and the banks concerned, from revealing itIJ Definitely, something smacks foul. Otherwise, what is the reason for this reluctance, if the money is hard-earned, and its source genuineIJ
Interestingly, reports were afloat, that thegoonda wings of certain political parties forcefully prevented the IT Department officials, from perusing the accounts of some district cooperative banks. Goonda raj, in the democratic raj or muscle power versus Government power — this is the standard pattern in God's Own Country, Kerala, and a notorious instance of federating unit, defying the Union Government.
Don't they know even the ConstitutionIJ Understandably, they may not, with many of them lacking even general knowledge. A former Kerala minister is reported to have said, “He won laurels for Kerala”, when having come to hear about the demise of boxer Muhamad Ali!
Besides, cooperative banks, totally incompetent in work, compared to other banks, have staff on them, appointed by politicians, who by crook or hook, become presidents, and members of their governing boards.
Exorbitantly palm-greased, they select staff as they like, turning it a private affair, with no role, for any national agency, like Banking Service Recruitment Board (BSRB). If involved, the BSRB, would have recruited ones, with more potential stuff of the kind, one sees in nationalised banks where the customers are not required to waste precious time for transactions.
It is an unholy nexus of corruption, and nepotism for swindling, and parking illegal, and ill-gotten money, the lion's share of which may belong to politicians, who now object to it being, inspected and assessed.
It is not unnatural, that gate-crashing into their bastions of corruption, by RBI or IT department raises their hackles. Hence, their call for hartals, and raising storm in the tea cup, citing the cases of the country's poor farmers, who by no means, are affected by demonetisation.
But, we are a democratic nation, and we want transparency. We don't want a Swiss Bank, inside our country. In a nation like ours, the brute force of money, Artha, supplanting the forces of righteousness, Dharma must not be allowed, and whatever that runs in contrast to the natural order of things, must have their cancerous growth arrested.
The Union Government needs not be cowed down, before the canard unleashed, by the political parties, that it is out to destroy the cooperative sector. It should not step back from its chosen path of righteousness, because our nation does not need the cooperation of negative forces.
(The writer teaches history at Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha, Kerala)