Posted on 13th November, 2024 (GMT 11:57 hrs)
ABSTRACT
This blog post from OBMA critiques the BJP’s alleged “Gujarat-centric” favouritism, discussing the state’s influence in judicial and economic matters, especially in cases like the DHFL scam involving prominent Gujaratis in positions of judicial authority. It points to instances of Gujarat singlehandedly predominating the list of superrich Wilful Defaulters, Gujarati Companies donating astronomical figures through the opaque electoral bonds, tax benefits specific to Gujarat’s Hindu Undivided Families (HUF) system, and recent investment redirections that seems to prioritize Gujarat at the expense of other states. The post argues that these practices uses politically filtered terminologies such as “Gujarat Model” and “Gujarat Pride” to favour Gujarat’s elites, thereby aligning with BJP’s broader Hindutva and crony corporatist agendas, raising concerns over equitable and inclusive governance in India.
Introduction
While exploring the internet for seeking information on the hearings, proceedings, and arguments related to the ongoing DHFL Scam cases at the Supreme Court of India, we came to discover an intriguing, nearly peculiar pattern. Although it may not be entirely “peculiar,” it allows us to draw certain limited, premise-supported generalizations (rather than hasty oversimplifications) about a specific aspect of the operations of the current ruling party in India, the BJP.
This blog post of ours constitutes a somewhat unexpected turning point. The regular readers of our blog posts, reports, articles and paper-letters would never have expected something like the following from the likes of us!
Hence, before going into the subject-matter, there needs to be A NOTE OF CAUTION, I.E., A DISCLAIMER OF SORTS:
The paragraphs composed below in no way promote parochialism or narrow-minded chauvinism in any form. OBMA always stands for the partyless democracy that is free from all discriminatory considerations involving the imposed identities of economic class, national borders, statist formations, religious affiliations, caste, race/colour, creed, ethnicity, gender and so on.
Instead, the text below challenges and criticizes the stance of the present oligarchical regime headed by the BJP in actively aiding a form of biased, discriminatory, parochial or regionalist considerations1, potentially bordering on secessionist, separatist and/or communalist sentiments, if the said stance is carried to its (il)logical conclusions.
We are claiming nothing separately or hypothetically here, but simply (re-)producing where all the available evidence points its fingers at. It could be read in relation to the language module-driven “Mahagujarat Movement” in the late 1950s serving as the cue to Gujarat’s claim to sovereignty and establishing itself as a centre of politico-theocratic power, the homeland to Hindutva governmentality.
Why are we suddenly mentioning these things? All this shall become clear to our readers soon as they navigate through the various portions of this “curious” OBMA article!
The Gujarat Files and The Gujarat Factor?!
In our last post⤡, we talked about SGI Tushar Mehta in relation to his “typical” case histories and in connection with his involvement in the hearings on the DHFL scam by defensively representing Mr. Ajay Piramal and the RBI-appointed CoC for DHFL. In fact, Mr. Mehta, EVEN BEFORE BECOMING THE SGI, was and is evidently aligned with Sangh ideology as well as the political manifesto of the BJP.
The same goes for Justice Bela Trivedi⤡, who, as we already discussed, aligns herself again and again with the BJP’s ideological underpinning in deciding politically charged or sensitive judicial matters. She is also hearing the cases related to the DHFL Scam at the Supreme Court of India.
Now, the thing is: SGI Tushar Mehta hails from Jamnagar in Gujarat.
Again, Justice Bela Trivedi also was born in Patan, North Gujarat.
Both, with quite well-known pro-government stances, have been placed to take a part in deciding the DHFL matter, which is a financial scam or scandal that allegedly resulted from the BJP government’s2 crony operations by means of terror-funding channels.3
The thing is, this is what the BJP does. It continues to do so time and again through its installed agencies, bureaucratic-administrative agents by deriding the autonomy of all the key institutions of a hitherto functioning democracy, howsoever in poor shape. This is done by the BJP by keeping puppets and parrots in the media, in the judiciary, in the Election Commission, in the Governors’ posts, in the role of University VCs and so on. This is the way the BJP preserves its hegemonic role to dominate over the Indian milieu by shifting from one shrewd tactic to another, while the common citizens lurk in the want of information, the want of basic rights and the want of justice as such.
Why are we saying these things, at all, in the first place? What are we trying to imply here? In fact, though we began writing this article by briefly referring to the DHFL scam, we will not be restricting or directing ourselves solely to its discussion alone, and make an altogether pertinent claim regarding the political character of the BJP itself.
What we are positing, and not merely implying, is the following:
Over the years, the BJP has again and again favoured, prioritized, made partisan considerations in favour of its home-state, Gujarat.
We have come up with the above thesis not only due to our presently ongoing investigations about the DHFL Scam at the corridors of the apex court, but because of another observation. We have seen some of our “lefty” friends often use the term, “Gujucentrism” in the course of their informal conversations to denote the contemporary condition of the Indian political and economic scenario. We, on the other hand, hitherto condemned them for making such parochial statements with respect to a given region, where the “Double Engine Sarkaar” is running with its full force of Hindutvavadi doctrine that equally affects other parts of the supposed Indian nation-state. In connection with the assertion of this omnipresence of Hindutva, we had intuitively anticipated such “centrism” and branded it merely as a religious fundamentalism. However, this initial stance was challenged when we went through certain data, information and evidence that proved why those friends of ours were in fact walking along the right direction, politically speaking. Yes, it is not merely religious fundamentalism that the BJP breeds at the extreme possible manner, the same appears to be coupled with a regional favouritism that prioritizes the state of Gujarat, leaving the rest of the states somewhat at the mercy of the Gujarat-centric mode of thinking.
We will move one by one in considering this issue by bringing together all that information we encountered as much as possible within the bounds of this article.
Wilful Defaulters and Gujarat
Let us note this phenomenon first through a few statistical data regarding the superrich wilful defaulters from India, with Gujarati wilful defaulters somehow topping the list.
Could they have achieved the same level of success with such relative ease without receiving direct or indirect support from the wealthiest political party, the BJP, both during its time as the Gujarat state government and subsequently as the central government (or, as it stands now, both: a double engine sarkaar)? We are inclined to believe they could not have.
’11 Gujarati Firms Wilfully Defaulted’ VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 19th July, 2020 ©TOI)
15% of India’s 5,600 wilful defaulters are from Gujarat VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 22nd March, 2018 ©DNA India)
Wilful defaulters from Gujarat owe Rs 8,500 crore to banks, make for 15 pc of total chunk VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 21st July, 2016 ©India TV News)
Gujarati Tycoons Lead the List of India’s Biggest Tax Defaulters VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 31st March, 2015 ©Coastal Digest)
With regard to the last URL mentioned on the case of Gujarati tax defaulters, we have to note a few more relevant things. Gujarat falls under the Mitaksara mode of property inheritance and coparcenary rights. Thereby, native Gujarati families follow the Mitakshara Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) system, which allows them certain significant tax benefits.
This consequently indicates the absence of a “true” (?!) Uniform Civil Code for the people in the geo-political area of the construct of “Indian” nation state, who are broadly and often forcibly categorized as “Hindus” despite having significant internal divisions, conflicts and contradictions. For example, Dayabhaga families (Bengal and Assam) do not receive the same advantages as Mitaksara families in Gujarat (and elsewhere) do. These disparities highlight the lack of any kind of unitary cohesion within this so-called “Hindu society.” With such internal uncontradictory contradictions, it is paradoxical enough for the BJP to advocate for a Uniform Civil Code solely for Hindus.
UNIFORM CIVIL CODE FOR THE HINDUS? REALLY SO? VIEW HERE ⤡
HUF: The legal hack to double tax benefits and lower your tax outgo VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 1st March, 2024 ©Business Standard)
In this context, it is crucial to recognize the significant income tax revenue loss attributed to the existence of such Mitaksara Hindu Undivided Families (HUF) in India. Numerous reports and committees, such as the Taxation Enquiry Commission (1953-54) and the Wanchoo Committee (1971), have underscored how the preferential tax treatment afforded to HUFs enables families to minimize their tax liabilities through income splitting. Furthermore, the 2018 Law Commission report emphasized that this arrangement facilitates tax avoidance and advocated for its subsequent abolition. HUFs, particularly those of the Mitaksara Hindu community from Gujarat, are recognized as distinct legal entities, enabling them to file taxes independently and significantly benefit from additional exemptions, such as an extra ₹2.5 lakh under current regulations. They also have the ability to invest and access various tax-saving advantages under the Income Tax Act that are unavailable to other taxpayers. This framework raises concerns about potential revenue loss for the government, particularly since non-Hindu families do not have any access to these benefits.
SOURCES:
Uniform Civil Code: Why it can impact Hindu Undivided Family’s tax benefits VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 18th July, 2023 ©Optimize IAS)
Explained: How a Uniform Civil Code will impact succession and tax laws VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 29th June, 2023 ©India Today)
It is now time to explore the other aspects of the BJP government’s “Gujarat-centric” framework of functioning, so to say.
All Investments Redirected to Gujarat
There is also a stark tendency or one-way focus by the present political regime to transfer or redirect all investments, industries or projects to the state of Gujarat in particular, almost in an exclusive manner that eludes fair practice in achieving some sort of nationally integrated and coordinated “economic balance”:
This recent report by News Minute⤡ goes on to comprehensively make the following key claim:
The Modi government is accused of favoring Gujarat by directing investments meant for other states. Allegations include using incentives like capital subsidies, import duty reductions, and government orders to attract companies. High-profile projects, such as Micron’s semiconductor facility, were reportedly swayed to Gujarat over states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Maharashtra, creating concerns about federal balance and economic favoritism.
The Mundra Musings
It is not long since the reports of sizeable narcotics being seized from Mr. Gautam Adani (A Gujarati, yet again, and BJP’s favourite)’s Mundra Port, Gujarat, were heard widely by the citizens of India, sparking significant concern about the extent of alleged corporate-aided drug trafficking in the region.
Heroin Seizures at Adani’s Mundra Remain a Source of Worry for Indian Authorities VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 3rd August, 2022 ©The Wire)
India’s highest-ever drug bust: 3,300 kg narcotics seized off Gujarat coast VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 28th February, 2024 ©Business Standard)
The Adani Group decided to withdraw from the Tajpur port project in West Bengal because it was deemed “economically unviable” and chose to focus on ports in Gujarat instead. The existing Dhamra and Paradip ports could already manage the expected traffic, making Tajpur less profitable. Other issues included Bengal’s weak industrial environment, difficulties in land acquisition, and “political interference.” Adani was also deterred by political accusations from Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not address, prompting their exit from the project.
Explained: Why Adani Group Decided To Walk Away From The Proposed Tajpur Port Project In West Bengal VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 23rd November, 2023 ©India Infrahub)
Lending large government lands for Adani’s projects like SEZ and ports has been done this way by the BJP government in Gujarat:
Adani Group got land at cheapest rates in Modi’s Gujarat VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 26th April, 2014 ©Business Standard)
Was PM Modi lobbying for an Adani port in Greece? VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 27th August, 2023 ©National Herald)
However,
108 Hectares of Land Allotted to Adani Ports to be Retrieved For Cattle Grazing: Gujarat Govt to HC VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 9th July, 2024 ©The Wire)
Electoral Bonds and Gujarat
And again, in the Electoral Bonds case, we have seen that Gujarat-based corporations, led by Torrent Group with contributions of ₹184 crore, are major electoral bond purchasers, with other significant donors including Welspun, Intas, and Zydus. These companies’ historical alignment with the BJP has fueled concerns about corporate influence on political funding. Following the Supreme Court’s push for bond transparency, critics have again and again argued that despite the scheme’s intent to reduce black money, it had inadvertently supported opaque political contributions. The controversy highlights calls for more disclosure and accountability in political donations, leading to the Supreme Court deeming the Electoral Bonds to be “unconstitutional” without initiating criminal proceedings against those parties, the BJP topping the list, that took such bribes from (un)known corporate “friends”!
Gujarat Cos bought poll bonds worth Rs 561 Crore VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 24th March, 2024 ©TOI)
A Torrent of interest in Electoral Bonds from Gujarat VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 15th March, 2024 ©The New Indian Express)
Mr. Ajay Piramal’s “Gujarat” Connections
One may also quite easily unearth DHFL’s alleged adverse possessor Mr. Ajay Piramal’s “Gujarat” connections and the way that the DHFL was simply gifted to him out of a quid-pro-quo political wedlock in return to his services to the said party during the Flashnet Scam. Mr. Piramal is the secondary kin of BJP’s favoured business tycoon, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, who obviously belongs to a Gujarati mitaksara HUF household. In this way, the Gujarat factor could as well be filtered out like this from the whole DHFL saga as well!
The Gujarat Gambles
It is no wonder that the BJP and its associates bring forth the terminologies: “Gujarat Model”, “Gujarati Asmita” etc., over and over again in the course of speeches, reports, elections manifestoes and circulars:
Why the BJP brought ‘Gujarati asmita’ to assembly poll centrestage VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 10th November, 2022 ©India Today)
Yet, when one starts to talk about the efficacy of the so-called “Gujarat Model”, it appears to be more of a simulated propaganda, a series of lip-services, breeding on the politics of spectacle instead of being something substantially constructive to that end. This Model has stood the test of time to only prove itself to be a systemic failure at best.
The Gujarat “development” (?) model, with its extremely corporate-oriented policies, reveals significant collective shortcomings in job creation and social emancipation. While “industrial growth” has boomed (as per the present paradigm of parasitic, debt-ridden “developmentalism” of the WB-IMF-WTO), this supposed prosperity has yet to reach the ambit of the people that it otherwise promises to uplift. Many jobs are low-paying or informal, leaving educated youth and rural communities disillusioned. While corporate incentives have surged, yet public spending on health, education, and grassroots’ welfare remains sparse, widening socio-economic inequality, resulting into malnourishment etc., in the process. Additionally, with limited agricultural potential due to desert terrain, rural poverty endures, challenging the so-called “trickle-down” promises of this model. In essence, Gujarat’s model underscores the pitfalls of the narrative of “growth” (what even counts as high economic growth, given the present state of moribund neoliberal capitalism?) that prioritizes corporate profits over people as well as the environment, sparking crucial questions about its very functional efficacy. Moreover and rather more importantly, the state of Gujarat under this “model” has been a nightmare for the religious minorities belonging to the state, whereby the “Gujarat Factor” figures as nothing more than a religious extermination model, as was well exemplified in the Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up by Rana Ayyub⤡ with regard to the 2002 Gujarat Pogrom. Other major sources include IPS Sanjiv Bhatt’s justified accusations against the MoShah Gang’s role in manufacturing the pogrom as well as the 2023 BBC Documentary entitled “India: The Modi Question”⤡.
Gujarat Model? VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 20th November, 2017 ©Carnegie Endowment)
Why So Many Economists Are Disillusioned With the ‘Gujarat Model’ VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 29th November, 2017 ©The Wire)
The ‘Gujarat development model’ is proof that trickle-down economics is a fantasy VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 27th November, 2022 ©Scroll)
Gujarat model was development on steroids—Free land, large loans, nearly zero interest rates VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 14th January, 2023 ©The Print)
Why Did Modi’s Gujarat Fail In Poverty Alleviation, Despite India Emerging As New Hub For Industrialization? – Analysis VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 6th March, 2024 ©Eurasia Review)
One cannot ignore the fact that shortly before the “Namaste Trump” event in 2020 (a neo-imperialist truce between India and the USA that decisively brought the insidious seeds of the COVID-19 pLandemic in India), held in the Motera Stadium (Now Narendra Modi Stadium: the height of authoritarian narcissism!), Ahmedabad, Gujarat, authorities constructed a wall to conceal the slums along Trump’s route. This measure, part of a broader “beautification” (rather, a shameful attempt at foreclosure) effort, sparked controversy, with critics claiming it aimed to hide poverty (the “real” conditions of India) from view. The half-kilometer wall was positioned near the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, and workers were tasked with its completion before the event. The decision drew attention to the disconnect between governmental actions and the lived experiences of the city’s poorer residents.
A Wall Is Being Built in Ahmedabad to Block a Slum From Donald Trump’s View VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 13th February, 2020 ©The Wire)
Is not this “real” slum the “real”-ity of the failure of the Gujarat Model at best, which the BJP-led Government strived to conceal by engaging again in a naked form of “Will To Hide” (Erit Celare)? For how long could these realities be suppressed? Also note how Mr. Trump, following this event, accompanied by his fascist twin, Mr. Modi, signed an Arms/Defence deal on that very day, and consequently made a visit to the abode of non-violence in the selfsame city, viz., Gandhiji’s Sabarmati Ashram, which is now more of a museumized spectacle. This trajectory traversed by the Trump-Modi duo from upholding statist armament deal imbibing violence to the Ashram once belonging to the forgotten priest of Non-violence exposes a seemingly unresolvable paradox of contemporaneity!
Defense Ties and Spectacle Dominate Trump’s First Day in India VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 24th February, 2020 ©Asia Society)
Speaking in Conclusion,
(P)reserving Conclusions
In conclusion, we could remark that the above given data pertaining to superrich wilful defaulters, economic favouritism when it comes to redirecting chief investment-projects, regional affiliations of many electoral bonds donors etc., posit the extreme partisan consideration of the present ruling party of India in favour of a particular state, viz., Gujarat. Colloquially, this is the very phenomenon that is called as “Guju-centrism”, as we remarked previously. While the DHFL scam shows the clear connection with the BJP in perpetuating the financial scandal in the first place, the current proceedings of the DHFL scam at the apex Court/Supreme Court of India positions certain Gujarat-yielded players such as Bela Trivedi and Tushar Mehta, who have been seen in the past to be in the recurrent habit of tilting towards the BJP’s whims, policies and malicious intents. The same goes for Mr. Ajay Piramal, who is tied up through kinship connections to the politically favoured Gujarati family of the Ambanis.
Hence, the future of the DHFL cases appears to be facing a bleak outcome in so far as the distributive justice of the victims is concerned. It remains to be seen how far we, the representatives of the civil society organic intellectuals, could pressurize the present government as much as possible to take up its accountability in a pro-people, non-parochial manner that does not violate the egalitarian Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution. In proceeding with that, one must be mindful of the fact that the BJP’s politico-economic favouritism towards Gujarat as well as its Hindu-centric/Hindu fundamentalist agenda are only to cover its underlying market fundamentalist motives, motives that only know how to concentrate the country’s resources into the hands of the “chosen few” (PLEASE NOTE HERE THAT THE BJP’S MAJOR CRONY ALLIES: THE AMBANI FAMILY AS WELL AS GAUTAM ADANI, HAIL FROM GUJARAT AS WELL!), by aggressively negating the Preamble and the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian Constitution!
Endnotes
- We do feel the need for regionalism to be politically justified in most instances in retaining the federal character of India in preserving a particular region’s relative autonomy and self-determination without showing any support for the bull-dozed framework of centre-periphery relations, wherein the myth of the term “regionalism”⤡ (regional as opposed to the so-called “non-regional” categorization) is also technically exposed. However, this post STRATEGICALLY indicates something entirely distinctive when it comes to talk of BJP’s party-san “regionalism”. ↩︎
- The Government of India is no more identified with the said name, give the fallacious identification of the government with a particular party, and again, a particular party with a proper name. This is characteristic to all the totalitarian forms of governance. ↩︎
- As the readers of our site know well by now, the DHFL scam took place due to the BJP’s alleged involvement in the systemic “mess up” through the claimed terror-funding via the channel of Dawood Ibrahim, Iqbal Mirchi, RKW Developers (Dheeraj Realty), Chhota Shakeel and the DHFL. Hence, the fact that the DHFL was sent to the BJP’s ill-conceived IBC (2016) as a “test case” indicates that the present ruling party, by simply gifting the ongoing concern to its crony friend Mr. Ajay Piramal, attempted to “cover up” the facts about its dangerous tendencies in denigrating the Indian economy by means of constant privatization, where a selected few families of business tycoons shall be owning most of the country’s wealth in the claimed “trillion dollar economy”, whereas the country will steep to the most worrying ranks possible in poverty, hunger, unemployment, hyperinflation, happiness, nature conservation and so on. ↩︎
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 