A politician immediately after winning the elections is surrounded by the people of self-interest. A winning corrupt politician prepares a list of earning sources and engages a few people to realise that money. Once, I got a call from a local politician, who just won the elections. My friend told me that they are interested to learn about the environmental challenges in their constituency. I was happy to know that at least there are some good politicians who wanted to work for the cause of environment. So, I went to their home. On the way, could see many flexi-prints/large size prints on plastic sheets, with more than life-size images projecting them as leaders. These flexi-prints create a hype about the person, otherwise, they are mere ordinary beings - wearing the same baniyan, lungi or chaddis when they sleep - they dress to create a hype of so-called great leaders. During the discussions, I could understand that they are interested in blackmailing the polluting industries and get some money by threatening to close them.
Once I was in a remote corner of Assam. The owner of a Tea estate got the phone call as we were discussing. He saw the number displayed on the phone, and was silent for some time and did not lift the phone. There was a kind of stiffness in his body and fear in his eyes. I asked him what is the matter? He started explaining how the political system is exploiting the business communities. He is having some tea estates in Darjeeling too. The local separatist leader was known to him since years, he was calling him brother and become very close to him. Only in the recent past, he has become a supreme leader in his party. The government in the state has changed, the new chief minister was very strict on the separatist movement. She approached the central government to take action against the separatist leader and he is absconding presently. Now there are two political parties which are demanding money from him in the name of party funds. The frequent local hartals and bandhs by the separatists has caused labour shortages and the production of tea has come down. Apart from that, all the call records of the estate owner were being tapped by the government. The absconding leader has doubts about his lenience with the government and he is also threatening him. He is in a fix now.
He was commenting about the separatist leader once he was calling him brother and now threatening him. A sorry state of the situation, where a business person has to feed a corrupt political system and also lose the business for not able to continue to cooperate with them.
I saw a leader he was wearing a white colour shirt well ironed with the crease. The shirt was made stiff with starch. On the forehead, there was some vibuthi (auspicious ash). All these things make a person appear like a person with the highest integrity and commitment. We also see such a mimicking in some businesses, say a sales boy in a jewellery shop, they make us believe that they are not charging anything and selling the gold without any profit. They also say that money does not come easily. Majority of their prospective clients are the most corrupt. Life partners wearing the jewellery purchased from the corrupt money, look like wearing skulls and bones of the dead people.
Many times the officials dummy companies which are registered in the name of their partner, earn more income than themselves. Actually, they are converting the black money generated by them into white money by internally transferring into the names of their partner, but the profits are not from actually doing the business.
While doing the studies on biochar application, I came across a few people who facilitate the poly-houses for agriculture. The ploy-house construction itself is a costly affair. I questioned, the person doing the business of ploy-houses installation. Is it really that the people are making so much money through the play-houses in agriculture? The answer was ‘NO.’ Again the majority of these ploy-houses are highly subsidized by the governments. I came to know that politicians, jewellery shop owners and some other businessmen are installing them on a large scale in the agriculture fields that they bought very cheap from the ‘dying’ farmers. The main reason is to covert the black money into white, as agriculture income is not taxed in India. They claim unbelievable profits from doing agriculture. Claim that they cultivate exotic or very high-value crops in the poly-houses with record yields. First of all, their agriculture produce will never address the food security of the masses. The agriculture scientists might be surprised, as in their lifetime, they have never heard or seen such profits from agriculture. Nor they have ever produced with all the facilities in their universities, but they keep they mouth shut, make us believe that a corrupt person is more knowledgeable and experienced in agriculture than themselves or the most experienced farmer.
An agriculture scientist may not be convinced about the hyped profits, but the income tax department people are very much convinced with the statistics and projections made by the chartered accountants for their clients. Sometimes the Chartered Accountants and Lawyers give such great advice’s and educate their corrupt clients on how to not get caught for having black-money. Good, sometimes media also believes and writes in bold letters, without many enquiries that a farmer could earn so much record income from agriculture.
