Panama leaks, IPL & the rulers

Kill! Kill! Kill! the arena was full with the viewers and they were shouting, it was horrific scene. The gladiator was looking at almost a corpus – the other gladiator – who had lost the battle. Fate of this gladiator was in the hands of winner or the king. People were giving their verdict ‘to kill the losing gladiator’. What was wrong with these people who were enjoying such brutal and life taking game? I suddenly woke up and started thinking about this dream.

The arena has changed, shouts for kill is changed too and now instead of the queen asking us to “eat cake, if we do not have bread.” The politicians are serving us IPL and other trifling stuff to divert our attention.

No wonder there is widespread corruption, Panama Leaks seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Can we doubt of existence of 100s of other law firms in Panama or any other tax heaven? If there are ten more such law firms worldwide, what number we are looking at – in terms of corruption or black money? The problem is in most countries, let me take India as a case in point (as I live in India), there may be parallel everywhere though.

Secondly, heard about few of the World Cup T20 matches were fixed. Vijay Mallya haggling with banks after eating thousands of corers for settlement. On top of this haggling RBI governor stating – Releasing defaulter names can ‘chill business activity’. We are fighting with each other on who should or must win, who is in your or my dream team and here the whole economy is at the ransom of those who are so powerful and mighty and yet in so much debt (and defaulted on debt) that if their names are made public economy of country will be standstill! At the same time, it is beyond doubt that those who have defaulted have a lot of money stocked in tax heavens. Otherwise how come Dr Vijay Mallya say that he can pay 4000 Cr in coming days. Why didnt he pay this amount before KFA becoming defunct?

It is not just about one man. It is about those thousands who have stocked money and poor people of their country are dieing of hunger or more recently of thurst (In Maharashtra India) or are jobless. Once again quoting – Mr Rajan governor of Reserve Bank of India Panama Papers: Dangerous to question the legitimacy of wealth! Seriously! If people have legitimate wealth why would they hide it in tax heaven? Well, its likely that the answer will be – according to xyz legal framework created by (many of the corrupt politicians as the law maker) the then Govt it is legitimate to under Liberalized Remittance Scheme to put your money out of the country.

It is like 1. making rules for your own and close clouts convenience and 2. than hiding behind the same to make your ill gotten  money the garb of legitimacy.

In all these – we are trending on twitter about local teams matches as hashtags! Forget that, we are not even considering that people and their cattle are thrusty but we are enjoying the tamasha of IPL where a lot of water is going in drain. Again, what is the argument? Maharashtra Govt may lose crores of rupees if matches are moved out of state. What is the probability and assurance that Govt will use the revenue generated by IPL for 1. prevention that is providing water to drought hit areas and 2. correction that is taking steps so that in future we do not face drought like situation.

Governments (in effect rulers) earn most in the tragedies of citizen – be it flood in UP or earth quack in J&K or drought in Orisa or Maharashtra even floods! We’ll forget all the natural or man-made calamities and go back to our TV set or stadium and start shouting – six, or Kohli or slogan of a team. On parallel worldwide – for IPL in India, we’ve soccer in the Europe, NBA, NFL in USA and so on!

This time the shouts of KILL are changed that is it. This time rules don’t ask us to eat cake if there is no bread, they show us the revenue generated in Govt tax collection. But problem remains – Forget terrorist! who knows the french revolution this time may explode the whole world?

Image 1 source – http://famouswonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Depiction-of-Gladiator-games-by-Jean-Leon_Gerome_Pollice_Verso-400.jpg

Note – Author referred to RBI Governor’s statements, but believes the rot in the system is political & crony capitalistic.