The mysterious deaths of the talented actor, Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR) and his one-time manager Disha Salian have created frenzy in the media space and in political circles. There are some who dismiss it as TRP sensationalism when the country is facing a COVID and economic crises. They do have a very valid point. The Lutyens group and their Bollywood cronies have derided it as the media trial of a helpless Rhea Chakraborty and her decent, middle-class family. A veritable witch-hunt.! A chorus of other reasonable people question why an actor’s apparent suicide is deflecting attention from a 23% drop in GDP and the tense confrontation with China at the LAC. Pause. The palpable panic which has gripped the Maharashtra coalition government tells a different story. B-town after the usual sarcasm from the usual suspects has gone deathly silent. That the Mumbai police is being played by their political masters is becoming more obvious by the day. What a fall from grace for the professional Bombay force of the Julio Ribeiro days.

There is something rotten in the state of Mumbai. The cover-up of SSR’s death has inadvertently opened up a can of worms.  A smelly, filthy, ugly can of worms. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe is haunting the powers that be- politicos, cops, Bollywood, drug cartels and the larger Mafia. The investigation has become an expose not only of possible homicides or abetted suicide but of a huge drug ring, hawala racket, narco-terrorism and even a deliberate undermining of our nation’s security and interests. The ‘Janata’ following the case for 3 months are keeping their fingers crossed.

It is my hope and prayer that this Trimurti effort be entrusted to the best professionals and be given a free hand.  Let the facts come out. Let the truth prevail. Let this not be an elaborate ploy just to get the BJP party back in power in the State. If the Aghadi Sarkar comes down be sure that the politicians will again show their true colours- cling on to whatever power or position they can. President’s rule for a couple of years will be the right decision. The BJP should not forget that this can of worms has taken a multi-dimensional life of its own.

I have long been convinced that political parties have a secret pact of their own. They may spew vitriol at each other in public but there is a tacit understanding in private. Whichever party is in power will not go after the big fish in the opposition ranks. There is a mutual protection agreement amongst the political elite. Please do not get misled by the occasional case of a Jayalalitha or Lalu Yadav spending some time in comfortable confinement.

The investigative dossiers may be there, so also the proofs. But nobody goes the whole hog. Mr Chidambaram spends sometime in the cooler on alleged corruption charges. Remember that he had sent the present Home Minister to jail when he was the Home Minister…?! This money laundering case too will linger on and the public will forget. Most intriguing was the ₹ 15,000 crore bogus stamp papers Telgi scam. His narco-tests were suddenly shown on some TV channels, whispering the name of a political strongman. The head of a national level party just sending a not so veiled message to a political opponent.?!!!

It must be emphasized that in all fairness such issues should not be kept simmering indefinitely. If there be no conclusive evidence, the government of the day ( the BJP led govt now) should give it a closure. It should not be raked up again for a hit job during the next election season.

Independent India’s first official scam was the Jeep scam. Krishna Menon, High Commissioner to UK, bypassed protocol in 1948 and ordered around 2,000 refurbished jeeps from a little known foreign company for our military use. A substantial amount of the then ₹ 80 lakhs deal was paid upfront. Only 155 jeeps were delivered but did not pass the Defence Ministry tests. Pandit Nehru’s patronage ensured that even the judicial inquiry was dropped in 1955. In Jan 1956, Mr Menon became a member of the Union Cabinet ending with his glory days as Defence Minister in the disastrous Indo-China war of 1962.

1957- The Mundhra scam. The Calcutta industrialist was given ₹ 1.26 crores from the LIC to bail out his six troubled companies, without the approval of the LIC investment board. Further, Mr Mundhra had just had a forged shares episode in 1956. Government pressure prevailed. Till one Mr Feroze Gandhi, MP, raised the issue in the Lok Sabha.  A one man inquiry committee in MC Chagla was appointed and he submitted his report in only 24 days (he was later one of India’s best External Affairs Ministers).  TT Krishnamachari had to resign as the Finance Minister and Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment.  Feroze Gandhi had hit a home run. He was the son-in-law of PM Nehru. Their rift continued to grow.

The Nagarvala case of 1971 gets curioser and curioser. He called up Mr Malhotra, Manager, SBI, in presumably Mrs Gandhi’s voice asking for Rs 60 lakhs for a mission of national importance. He got the money!! and disappeared for all of a day. On 22^nd May he was picked up at the airport. On the 26^th May 1971 after a day’s trial and a confession he was sentenced to 4 years in jail. He died a few months later. So did the police officer assigned to the matter- in a road accident! Was Nagarvala an ex-RAW agent and a fraudster or simply a courier with things going awry? As the Mitrokhin papers have revealed India had been infiltrated by the KGB by this time. Ministers, bureaucrats, journalists, professors did their bidding. Or were these secret funds for a geo-political purpose?

On the late night hours of the 2^nd December 1984, the ghastly Bhopal Gas tragedy happened. Lethal gas leak from the Union Carbide plant. 20,000 died. Lakhs more developed severe health complications. On December 7^th 1984, their CEO Warren Anderson was quietly airlifted from Bhopal to Delhi at the orders of the CM.  Mr Rajiv Gandhi, the PM, allowed him a free pass to the USA. It is speculated that this was done as a quid-pro-quo for a US Presidential pardon for Adil Sharyar, a close friend of the Gandhis, who had a long prison sentence ahead. Finally in 1989 the Supreme Court ordered a $470 million compensation. One of the legal eagles consulted by Union Carbide – Mr Arun Jaitley.

In 1982, there had been the HDW submarine $300 million deal with the West German Company. Fat commissions and middle-men were involved. 6 people including the Secretary in the Defence Ministry and Mr GP Hinduja, industrialist in London were under the scanner. VP Singh later said that he resigned as Defence Minister in 1987 because of this corrupt arrangement. No money trail. No closure. No notable convictions.  Just political capital for VP Singh, Mr Clean, as he became the PM in 1989.

This was also the fall-out of the famous Bofors scandal in 1987 when a Swedish whistle-blower exposed the money sleaze in this ₹ 1,500 crs contract for 410 field howitzer guns. The middleman was Ottavio Quattrochi, an Italian citizen, said to be close to India’s first family. But again a lot of noise and confusion signifying nothing. The CBI botched up everything- delaying lodging the FIR, dragging their feet on the Interpol Red Corner notice, de-freezing Quatrocchi London bank account, shoddy extradition follow-ups…Sounds very familiar doesn’t it?

After the Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993, the then CM added one location to the 12 actually impacted by the blasts. He said that he did this to avoid a communal conflagration by fictitiously bringing in a minority dominated locality into the picture. His presence of mind was lauded by some in the media and also by the SriKrishna commission. The CM also repeatedly stated that the LTTE may be behind the blasts. But was this an attempt to deflect attention from Pakistan and Dawood Ibrahim. The Vohra Committee was appointed in July 1993 and gave its 100+ page findings by October 1993. Some in the know say that it contains explosive revelations of the nexus between senior Maharashtra politicians and babus and D company. The report has never seen the light of the day and the Home Ministry now says that it has been misplaced. Connect the dots. A sense of dejavu.  Almost 30 years later we are again talking about the same underworld links. If only the Vohra Committee report had been tabled and discussed responsibly and in the national interests.

The 26/11 attacks have been categorically tracked back to Pakistan and the ISI by the Indian intelligence agencies under the UPA regime and fully corroborated by the international intelligence community. But Digvijay Singh and Mahesh Bhatt presided at the launch of the book ‘26/11- A RSS Conspiracy” in December 2010. The former to please his political masters in Delhi as a loyal courtier and to counter the growing threat of the BJP. The latter’s son Rahul hobnobbed and moved around with David Coleman Headley, the ISI agent and mastermind for almost a year- a recce of all the spots where the terror attacks took place. A rattled and fragmented Indian government gave this B town scion a surprisingly easy pass. It did not matter that innocent foreigners and Indians, hotel staff and police had been brutally killed in a terror attack managed from Karachi. In 2020 also, these insidious elements and manipulators who have hollowed out India into a soft country, continue to thrive. If only it were not so disgraceful, it could have been shrugged off as ridiculous.

In 2009, Ramalinga Raju admitted to a ₹ 14,000 crore fraud. Falsifying accounts, inflating company revenues, raising false invoices, diverting money to real-estate. He was fined ₹ 5 crore and finally sentenced to 7 years in jail. In 2011 itself, he was on bail as the CBI had still failed to file a charge-sheet. He has done a total time of just 35 months and is now involved with his family’s successful health-care and agri businesses. Not even a slap on the wrist. The rich and the connected are above the law.

The Sahara scam of ₹ 24000 crore is well known in the public domain. With full political backing Subrata Roy was going great guns in 2011 with 3 crore ( mostly fictitious) investors. From 2008 he had been raising money without complying to the Regulatory framework. SEBI stepped in and stood its ground and finally the Supreme Court brought him to book in 2014. But Sahara Shree has been enjoying regular parole since 2016 . After all, he has had such close associations with several big time politicians.

Breaking news is that civil courts in Hyderabad and Patna have granted an injunction restraining Netflix from airing its new web series Bad Boy Billionaire from the 2^nd Sept 2020. Mr Raju and Mr Roy say that it is an invasion of privacy and tarnishes their good name. Holy Shit!!!

The Saradha Chit Fund rip-off in Bengal has also hit the headlines. A Ponzi cum Pyramid scheme where more than ₹ 20000 crore has been siphoned off from mainly 1.7 million lower income investors lured by the promise of high returns. In 2014, the Supreme Court had to order a CBI investigation as nothing was moving at the State level. Two TMC MP’s and one State Minister have been arrested. Sudipto Sen, the MD, turned out to be a former Naxalite who had undergone a complete identity change. Recently, the high profile Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar has been grilled by the CBI for tampering with evidence to protect the accused and also some TMC politicians The West Bengal CM gallantly protected him from the Central investigators for as long as she could. Resonates with what is happening today in Maharashtra, what??

In 2002, a drunk Salman Khan is alleged to have killed one and injured 4 other pavement dwellers in a hit and run. Consider what happened afterwards. Singer and friend Kamaal Khan who was also in the vehicle catches the first flight back to London. But Ravindra Patil, the constable bodyguard sitting next to the star reports to the Bandra Police station that Salman was driving the vehicle in a drunken state. This police eye-witness, officially assigned, is repeatedly threatened and driven into hiding. He misses 5 hearings and the police issue a non-bailable warrant against their own. He is even thrown into jail. His testimony is dismissed as not reliable. The broken guy, without a job, dies in 2007, an alcoholic and TB patient. The powerful can get away with just about anything. The much-vaunted Mumbai police had started showing its true colours many years back.

The 2017 Unnao (UP) gang rape case starkly shows the criminalization of politics. At the centre, the BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, touted as the Bahubali in these parts.!! The 17 year old victim tried to immolate herself in front of the CM’s residence in April 2018. Thankfully, the media and the activists jumped into the fray.But the Supreme Court and the CBI had to step in for this hardened criminal to be sentenced for life behind bars in Dec 2019.In this shameful case, the father of the victim was wrongfully accused of being the perpetrator and died in judicial custody. In another sinister incident in July 2019 a truck rammed into a car causing serious injury to the victim and the death of two of her relatives.Eerily reminiscent of the movie-‘ Article 15’. Outrageously, the BJP continued to support the goon till the shit hit the ceiling.

Just 2 small rotten nuggets to add to this unpalatable fare being served. For the list is long and growing. The Harshad Mehta stock-market scam, Coalgate, Irrigation Ghotala (scam) , DHFL collapse, ICICI Bank-Videocon corrupt deals, the Nirav Modi super swindle…The $2 billion dollar diamond fraudster runs away from the country in Jan 2018 under the watch of the BJP led Centre. Taking the cue from the ‘King of Good Times.’ Vijay Mallya, an independent Rajya Sabha MP with friends across the political spectrum, coolly chatted with them on the 1^st March 2016. The next day, this defaulter of ₹ 9000 crore from 17 Indian banks flees to London. Have the authorities been napping at the wheel? Or well-wishers told him to move on? Take your pick.

A few days back we all celebrated Teacher’s day – the birthday of our second President Dr Radhakrishnan. His mentee for Doctorate, Jadunath Sinha filed a case against him in the Calcutta High court in 1929. For infringement of copyrights and plagiarism from his published and thesis material for the Professor’s books. The case was settled out of court three years later. Radhakrishnan was a close of friend of Mr Nehru and his left leanings endeared him further to the PM. Hence, Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Vice President and President of the Republic in 1962. The first Teacher’s day was commemorated that year. We should move it to the 15^th October every year as homage to Dr Abdul Kalam, our only great President.

Corruption, Inefficiency and Cabalism hurts the poor and the middle-class the most. 70+ years after independence we have to shed our feudal regard for politicians and bureaucrats. Not foolishly adulate some as modern day Chanakyas. We have to demand accountability. Performance. Delivery on promises. They are counting on our short public memory span. Divide and Rule still works for them. Manipulating and distracting is their modus operandi. And to paraphrase GB Shaw, “Politics is the first refuge of the scoundrel”. We have to stop joining them in kicking all these cans of worms off the roads and out of sight.

Use the power of genuine public activism and an effective social media to make things uncomfortable for these so-called leaders. Give them no place to hide. Persuade & Influence the Prime Minister to use his majority to push through these structural reforms before the end of 2021. Indeed, the NDA has been paying lip service for many years. (a) the police reform Act to make the force independent, autonomous and totally professional. Ditto for the Central Agencies.  (b) Make political financing transparent. (c) Keep criminals out of political positions.  (d) bring in one-third reservation for women at the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The States will have to follow suit. (e) Finally, strengthen and enable the judiciary that critical cases are fast-tracked over a few months. Justice has to be seen to be fair and impartial with nobody above the law. Justice has not only to be done but also seen to be done.