CHAPTER 7

7.

THE IDEA OF THE GOOD

The Tata Iron and Steel Company on 16 August 2004 announced that that it had signed definitive agreements with Nat Steel Ltd, Singapore, to acquire all of NatSteel’s steel business for $486.4 (1313 crore). In this connection Mr. B.Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel, said that the acquisition was for the globalization of Tata Steel. With this transaction; Tata Steel increased its manufacturing footprint to seven new countries in Asia. On the same day, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) got the ownership and the management control of the German specialty polyester manufacturer Trevira, following European Commission’s approval.

Trevira had a capacity of 1.3 lakh tones annually of polyester yarn and with this the combined polyester yarn capacity of Reliance increased to 18 lakh tones.

The amount paid by the RIL was not given. These acquisitions confirmed the conclusion that the industrialists in India wanted to buy assets all over the world through simple manipulations of the Indian financial institutions.

On 17 August 2004, the letter Nos. 31 to 37 was sent the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) with a covering letter.

In the August 23, 2004 issue of the “Businessworld”, Mr. Mr.Ranjit Shastri, Director of PSi’s strategic Consulting and Private Equities Activities, said that the biggest threat to the progress and integration of Afghanistan was its local warlords. Perhaps, keeping this writer in mind, he deplored that in India the incumbents did not use the sward to maintain their position but used the pen to argue against foreign investments.

In the same issue, a Mr. Subroto Bagchi said that enemy was within, and it was going to be more difficult to engage. Obviously, he considered this writer as the enemy of the nation.

In the August 29 issue of the “Business Today” published as “Business today” a Mr. Ashish Gupta said that the public sector banks were under the constant watch of the CVC, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and Parliament. The message was that none others need to bother about corruption.

On 21 August 2004, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Congress President, in an AICC session at Delhi, described Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, as a man of great learning, administrative experience and impeccable reputation. On the next day, she requested the party men not to waste their time praising her.

          Inaugurating the JRD Tata Centenary Celebration organized by the Assocham on 24 August 2004, the Prime Minister promised to end the tyranny of “inspector raj”(investigation agencies). He said that the first hundred days were painful days and were wasted. Further, he said that the common people would have to be associated with the government. Curiously, Mr. Ratan Tata was not present in the meeting.

     On 27 August 2004, inaugurating a two-day biennial conference of State Anticorruption Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Prime Minister said, “There must be a code of ethics for all individuals in public life. However, the investigation agencies should not adopt investigative procedures that kill management initiative and stunt individual enterprise and risk-taking. Management is an art - and not science - requiring individual initiative, creativity and willingness in the larger interest of the enterprise. Therefore, it is not possible for the government to depend purely on individual ethics or morality or public opinion to deal with the malaise of corruption.

      There has been a spurt in economic offences such as financial frauds, bank and stock market scams and money laundering and cyber crimes. A strong link has developed between economic offences, and the anti-social and terrorist organizations. In these circumstances, the criminals could hide anywhere in the world.

The aim of economic reform is to make the government less intrusive and discretionary and more transparent. Many of those reforms have an added beneficial effect of ending the hypocrisy that had come to characterize some of the industrial policies where one said one thing on paper and allowed another in reality. Rational politics, transparent procedures, simple rules are having the positive externality of reducing the scope of corruption.

The investigation officers must know that in public life one is living with a world of great uncertainty and as such honest mistakes could be made. Hence you must distinguish between “honest mistakes”, and “willful defiance” of the rule of law”.

His speech showed that a feeble investigation was going on based on the letters. Further, his words, “one said one thing on paper and allowed another in reality” are the characteristics features of his rule.

Now Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Petroleum Minister, said that “a responsive government” had to give priority to holding the price line when inflation is creeping and hence the petroleum prices would not be increased immediately.

Now, the system released money from the banks to buy the shares of TCS. Many such manipulations began to happen secretly and in bad faith. Therefore,  the letter No.38 was sent to His Excellency the President of India. The letter criticized the system for releasing money for buying the shares of the TCS at an inflated price. The letter follows.

From

V.SABARIMUTHU

Thattankonam,

 Vellicode,

Mulagumoodu 629167

To

Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

His Excellency the President of India

Presidential Palace

New Delhi

Your Excellency

                Kindly consider the reasons why the Prime Minister of India and the Finance Minister of India are expropriating 1000 million people.

1.       Several letters have been sent to the President of India to annul some false, wicked and unconstitutional doctrines of the Supreme Court.

     However, the Supreme Court is not ready to rectify the error.

    Though heterogeneity in the constitution of the benches would foil unity of judges to some extent, the reason for the problem, it seems, is not caste or religion but defective education.

 Plato, 2300 years ago, said that the root of human trouble is defective education and the cure for those troubles is education that is not defective. His view appeared as an abstract one. However, it required 37 letters for this writer to realize his foresight.

      The new Prime Minister could have taken effective steps to annul such judgments.

 2.      When the Unit Trust of India (UTI) sought a loan of Re.2000 crore from the State Bank of India (SBI), this writer sent a letter to the Chief Justice of India to restrain the SBI from lending money to it.

     But for that letter, the banks- at the instance of the government- would have given money to it and all nationalized banks would have fallen into the “black hole” and met the fate of the Global Trust Bank. That letter actually saved the nation from a great crisis.

      Now, as soon as assuming power, the new Prime Minister wanted the LIC to invest Re.9000 crore into the Stock Market without any thought for the Constitution, 31 letters and the experience gained by the UTI.

       As if these were not sufficient, the Prime Minister – apparently- released more than Re. 30,000 crore through banks to buy the shares worth Re.5000 crore.

        The banks and the LIC were created not to gamble in the stock market like the UTI. Is it not expropriation? 

3.      The Union Cabinet under the NDA had barred the PSUs from importing anything exceeding Re. 5 crore. Later, High Court, Delhi permitted the BSNL to import cell phones worth Re. 5000 crore. This writer brought this to the notice of the President of India. The BSNL on 11 August 2004 disclosed its decision to buy GSM equipment orders worth about $862 million with Canada’s Nortel Networks Inc and Finland’s Nokia.

The Government might say that there is nothing wrong in buying and selling. However, did the Union Cabinet cancel the earlier decision? Did the BSNL buy the cell phones worth Re. 5,000 crore? Did the present Government take any decision in this regard?  All right thinking people would think that the people are being expropriated because nothing is known to anyone.

4.     This writer has been writing letters to prevent the flight of capital from the states and conversion of public money into private money.

The NDA government permitted the industrialists to take money for investments abroad. This was for expropriating Indians.

The letters now lead to a new realization that the industrialists want the FDI not for the progress of India but to sow public funds in foreign countries as private money. Their reasoning is that a country that invites the FDI must allow flight of capital as well. Is this theory not for expropriation?

5.      A Union Cabinet Minister has been knocked out. A Chief Minister also has resigned and is now in jail. This writer reported to the President of India that “The New Indian Express” and “The Hindu” on 26 October 2002 threatened to eliminate this writer. No action has been taken presumably because they are more important than the Union Ministers and Chief Ministers. Why do the law enforcing agencies retreat on seeing them? Is it a false complaint? All right thinking people would think that those who are inclined to expropriate alone would hesitate to take action against the expropriators. 

6.     The newspapers continue to point out the progress of China. China - just like England before 1947 - imports iron and iron ore worth Re. 10,000 crore from India and sells its finished products worth Re. 20,000 crore through normal and abnormal routes. Every Indian has a Chinese pen in his pocket and a “Made in China” bulb in front of his house. The Chinese makes the lock of his house too. As a result, a large number of industries in India have decomposed.

     In 1962, China subjugated India by force. Today it does the same through business.

      India needs large investments. Yet, the industrialists in India invest public funds in China although a large part of Indian Territory is still in its hands.

      Less than ten industrialists control the whole system in India. This is not so in China.

     Unlike the Chinese, Indians still die of starvation. The starving population in India is several times greater than the total population of many countries like Afghanistan, Australia.

     Unlike India, China is neither ready to sell their ships nor ready to sell their airliners. China would not have attained the present position if it had permitted expropriation as in India at all although there also must be some expropriating groups.

7.     Further, even the President of the Newspapers Society of India refuses to publish these letters. The Delhi edition of the TIME magazine too apparently ignores these letters. It is said that in Greek even the horses and asses were gorged with freedom. Are the people not entitled to know this? The media including the DD are executing press freedom.    

8. The Finance Minister - opening his budget speech on 8 July 2004 - talked about the mandate of the people.

The truth apparently is that that the mandate remains pledged to the industrialists.

Did the Congress President ask the Government to privatize airports or direct the Prime Minister to release Re. 9000 crore from the LIC to the Stock Market?

Did the Congress President tell the Government to sell the shares of the NTPC without devising a scheme for reserving them to the people of various States? 

Did the Congress President force the Prime Minister to release more than Re. 30,000 crore from the Public Sector Banks to buy shares of the TCS?

Did the Congress President want the Prime Minister to convert the money collected through public issues into private money abroad?

Does the Congress President stand in the way of giving answers to the questions in letter No.32?

These are simply preposterous questions.

The truth is that the Prime Minister expropriates 1000 million people as if he has a mandate for the same.

9.     This is letter No.38. Letters from 31 to 37 were sent to the CVC on 17-8-2004. The earlier letters were sent to the CVC on 22-8-2004. Yet, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister were single minded in their decision to buy the shares of the TCS. It is unlawful and unconstitutional. It is clear that the evil latently exists everywhere. 

Commerce Minister, Petroleum Minister and the HRD Minister would have supported the Prime Minister.

The former Prime Minister gave public money to an industrialist to buy the VSNL.

The Present Prime Minister gave the same money to the same person for buying companies all over the world.

 The former gave the money as loan. The latter gave the money in the name of buying some papers, the value of which is negligible or unknown. The latter Prime Minister did this presumably because the industrialists made him the Prime Minister of India. This is nothing but pinnacle of corruption.  It is equivalent to more than Re. 100,000 crore.

Now, unless otherwise prevented, the Prime Minister would permit the conversion of public money into private assets abroad.

10.The knowledge that any defeat for this Government today might lead to enslavement tomorrow would force the people to support this Government.

 However, the expropriated becoming the expropriators is very dangerous because people would think that the good does not exist and that there is no way to escape from their predicament. The Government is now “impelled to seek a good, that is, a good suited to the expropriators”.

       But Plato insists “a passionate longing for the good, will drive the best of Souls, in which Reason commands, to know and to identify themselves with the Reality behind all Realities, the Idea behind all Ideas, the Idea of the Good”. According to him, when Reason rules,  man is following the Idea of the Good.

Vellicode                                                                                  Yours faithfully,

27-8-2004.

                                                                                               (V.SABARIMUTHU)

           

         

The letter sent through email might have reached His Excellency the President of India while he was on his way to Madurai in Tamil Nadu. When he was asked to give his reaction to the view of the Prime Minister that there must be a code of conduct for everyone, the President said that this must occur in the inner mind of “the people”.

The President left for New Delhi at night.  It appeared that the President handed over the letter immediately after reaching Delhi. The Prime Minister cancelled all his public engagements on health grounds. Thus he cancelled his scheduled visit to Chennai on 28-8-2004.

There was a Coordination Committee meeting of the UPA on the next day.

Everything remained secret.

 However, Dr.M.Karunanidhi - in a message - said that the dubious campaign unleashed by the opposition would have no bearing on his credibility. He disclosed his belief that his integrity could never be eroded.

Mr. Arjun Singh, Human Resource Development Minister, on 31 August 2004 said that there were no two power centres at the centre.

On 2 September 2004, the Business Line said that Dr. Manmohan Singh had a baptism by fire. The paper added that his first 100 days were really hot. The reason given by the paper was that the Budget for 2004-2005 was passed for the first time without a discussion in the Parliament. Obviously, it was a trivial reason.

Further, the newspapers concocted a story by saying that the Prime Minister was hurt because his colleagues were knocking at the doors of the Congress President on all issues related to governance.

The paper disclosed that a coterie close to the Congress President was seeking to drive a wedge between the Congress President and the Prime Minister.

Describing the Congress President as the real power center in India, the paper requested the Congress President to give more elbow room to the man she had chosen to head the Government in the best interest of the farmers and the downtrodden.

The Prime Minister, in his first press conference on 4 September 2004 said that the people had rejected the NDA Government and given him a mandate. He added that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was a natural product of that mandate. He explained that there was no foundation to the insinuation that there were two power centres. He asserted that he would not be pressured into giving up his job half way on any account.

To a question that the greatest threat to Dr. Manmohan Singh was Manmohan himself, he predicted that his Government would last its full five years. The worry of the industrialists was that he should not relinquish power.

The reporters were very restrained; and they asked only one question regarding the so-called reform. To that question, the Prime Minister said that there were different perceptions regarding reforms and he had to take everything into account.

On the next day, in connection with the “Teachers Day” the Prime Minister said that the teachers were the builders of the Nation. He added that he himself was a teacher and he came to politics by accident. The President on the same day described teachers as walking encyclopedias.

On 7 September 2004, the Prime Minister directed the Defense Minister to bring the country’s watchdog organizations- Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) and Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) - in the Arms Procurement Board.

Actually, those who monitor purchasing should not take part in purchasing. Further, the Defense Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee disclosed that the Government was in the process of reconstituting these Procurement Boards in his ministry to make the process more transparent. It is clear that the 38 letters sent to the CVC had that much effect.

On 8 September 2004, Mr.Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group, said that his group would open a cancer hospital in West Bengal besides making major investments in West Bengal.

On the same day, Mr. R.K.Krishna Kumar, Vice Chairman of Tata Tea Limited, said that their aim was global acquisitions. Mr.Ratan Tata said that his group was looking at acquisitions of hotels and resorts at overseas locations.

On the same day, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the former Prime Minister of India, said that the political situation was changing fast. He attributed the reason to the “satyagraha” organized by his party for the withdrawal of the “false cases” against Miss Uma Bharathi.