Something interesting has happened soon after it became known that the Central Bureau of Investigation had named business magnate Kumar Mangalam Birla in its First Information Report on the coal block scam.
Corporate India has teamed up and protested in one voice against the probe agency's move and said that the Government is vitiating the investment climate and returning to the bad old days when profit was considered a dirty word. Rattled by the backlash, even Union Ministers such as Anand Sharma and Sachin Pilot have latched their concerns along with those of India Inc. The solidarity we have seen in support of KM Birla is something that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must ponder over — if he still has the ability or the desire.
Contrast the groundswell of goodwill from both the corporate world and the Union Ministers for the widely-respected industrialist, with the distancing of many Ministers from the Prime Minister after Congress vice president trashed an ordinance meant to protect convicted lawmakers. These Ministers, who were by Singh's side in supporting the ordinance, scooted in double quick time after Gandhi's explosive remarks, leaving the Prime Minister isolated and shamefaced. He had to go through the humiliation of presiding over a Cabinet meeting that decided to withdraw the ordinance. What else can we infer from these developments except that KM Birla enjoys far more credibility than the Prime Minister, and not just among his peers but also among the Union Council of MinistersIJ
The backing for KM Birla is all the more noteworthy given the growing perception that industry has been colluding with the Congress-led UPA Government to corner natural resources and other corporate benefits. The Supreme Court's scathing observations on the Niira Radia tapes adds to this belief. The court has spoken of a “deep-rooted malaise in the system” whereby sections of the Government work in connivance with vested interests in industry to swing deals. The Central Bureau of Investigation now has two months to look into the tapes and bare the devious linkages between industry and Government. Additionally, the entire 2G Spectrum episode has exposed the Indian corporate sector in bad light.
If, regardless of all this negativity about industry, KM Birla scores high on reputation, it is because he has, like a few others in corporate India, steered clear of the muck that has come to symbolise the nexus between Government and industry over the years. Since the decades gone by, he has scrupulously crafted an image for above-the board dealing. It may be that some corporates have benefitted from the irregular allocation of coal blocks. But nobody in industry and sections of the Government is willing to seriously believe that the Aditya Birla Group chief can be involved in manipulating deals.
While Ministers such as Anand Sharma and Sachin Pilot have expressed strong concern over dragging the respected industrialist in the coal pit, the moot point is: Under whose direction did the CBI name KM Birla in the FIRIJ The Government wants us to believe that the caged parrot is now free and is behaving independently. If that is so, then the parrot appears to have got carried away with its new-found freedom and is flying perhaps a bit too wayward. The reality is that the parrot is caged but pretending to be free. If it had been really free, it would not have named former Coal Secretary PC Parakh and left out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the FIR. It would have sought to make Parakh a prosecution witness because he had initially opposed the arbitrary allocation of coal blocks, but was made to fall in line.
If the caged parrot had found wings, it would not have let off Pawan Kumar Bansal in the railway recruitment irregularity by making him a prosecution witness when all fingers were pointing to him for the wrongdoing. Had the CBI acted on its own, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have sprung to the former bureaucrat's defence — after all, everything that Parakh did eventually had Singh's approval. If the probe agency had become unfettered, it would not have sought to close cases against both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, both of whom support the tottering Congress-led UPA regime from the outside. How do we then believe that the agency has single-handedly gathered the courage to name KM Birla for alleged wrongdoingIJ
A better way to understand the development is to ask the question: Who is hoping to gain from this game of naming an honest (going by his known track record) bureaucrat and a well-regarded industrial titanIJ The answer is the Prime Minister. The CBI, busy with harassing KM Birla and Parakh, can strut about claiming that it is speedily investigating the coal block allocation, and thereby deflect attention from Singh's accountability as both Prime Minister and Coal Minister. The problem is: It's not working out that way. The FIR has opened a can of worms and the Prime Minister has more than before become the target of attacks. From the perspective of credibility, the probe agency in its zeal appears to have got hold of the wrong people, though only the law can have the last word on that.
Meanwhile, for all its outward expression of concern, the UPA regime must be rather smug from within at corporate India's discomfiture. Since the past many months, leading lights of industry have been speaking out against the Government's mismanagement of the economy and policy paralysis. Ratan Tata, NR Narayana Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Mohandas Pai and several others have warned that investments were drying out or driving out, so much so that even Indian businessmen were investing abroad rather than in the country. The regularly plummeting growth figures have demonstrated the truth in corporate India's fear. What better way could there have been for the Congress-led regime to reshape the grim narrative than to sully the name of a reputed industrialist and remove focus from its failuresIJ The whole drama of the Government distancing itself from the probe agency's FIR is part of the former's attempt to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. The KM Birla case is a good occasion for the Congress to shine up its ‘pro-poor' image.
This also fits in with the gameplan of Congress leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, who are promoting the nonsense that while their party stands for the poor, the Bharatiya Janata Party supports industry and the rich. They forget that crony capitalism has flourished under the UPA regime like mushrooms in the rains.