Like Trump's hollow "Make America Great Again" rallying chant, the two most beguiling slogans coined by our Vishwaguru – "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas" and "Na Khaunga Na Khaane Doonga" – are today a standing rebuke and indictment of all that the 'non-biological being' and his camp followers have wrought in our benighted land over the last decade.

What is one to make of a regime that has fostered the most heinous form of societal corruption – hate, division and discrimination; that is nurturing even children to be messengers for promoting Hindu exclusivity and tribalism – the latest outrage, the officially sponsored recitation of the RSS anthem instead of the national anthem at the recent inauguration of the Ernakulam-Bangalore Vande Bharat train?

We have travelled a long way from the days of relative innocence when financial misdemeanours and corruption by individuals were the problem. Today, all-pervasive systemic corruption – economic, social, racial, institutional, judicial, environmental and electoral – poses a monstrous existential threat to the nation and its ideals of justice, liberty, fraternity and equality, which now lie in tatters. This regime has craftily exploited the fault lines in our society to wrest complete control and power to do as it pleases, the elections in Bihar being the latest example! And it is up to no good!

Where does one even begin to chronicle the unending avalanche of criminal misconduct and corruption in every sphere of public functioning in the last decade? To know the true magnitude of the evil the nation has had to contend with would require weighty volumes to unravel, a job best left to a Commission a la the Shah Commission (1977-79), which inquired into corruption, abuse of power, and other excesses during the Emergency. My limited purpose here is to give a whiff of the humungous stench of corruption in our midst.

Scams are happening in broad daylight without the nation missing a heartbeat! Take the case of India's purchase of Russian crude oil. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the precipitous fall in crude prices due to sanctions, India ramped up Russian oil imports from 0.2 per cent of total imports to 35-40 per cent, resulting in $17 billion in savings through discounted purchases. But the price paid for cocking a snook at international disapprobation was Trump slapping an extra 25% tariff on Indian exports, seriously crippling our textiles, gems, carpets and pharmaceutical exports and collaterally rendering thousands of workers unemployed.

While the experts have been debating the pros and cons of buying Russian oil what's been lost sight of is the fact that Ambani's Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy (which is in the sights of the Adani group for takeover), have been the preponderant beneficiaries of a policy that has done nothing to improve the lot of the common man but seriously damaged exporters who are left holding the bag while Ambani and gang fatten on the discounted Russian crude which is then processed, not for domestic consumption but for re-export to Europe.

To put it plainly, the decision to import Russian crude oil has richly benefited the oligarchs but seriously damaged the interests of exporters and tens of thousands of workers who've lost their jobs. A textbook example of an oligarchic kleptocracy at work! But there is no outrage!

The Adani companies have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2023, the Hindenburg Research report substantively proved that the Adani Group was guilty of massive fraud, stock manipulation and serious accounting irregularities. Curiously, despite its dubious role in the scam, SEBI was entrusted with investigating the irregularities and recently cleared the Adani group of any wrongdoing – classic banana republic administration of justice!

In 2024, the US Department of Justice charged Gautam Adani and some of his associates with a multi-billion-dollar fraud and bribery scheme, alleging they lied to investors and paid more than $250 million in bribes to win solar-energy contracts in India. According to the latest court filings, Indian authorities are accused of complicity for dragging their feet and failing to deliver the summons to Adani Group executives. So low is the credibility of the Adanis today that US and European banks are backing off from extending new credit to the Group, which is under a cloud for its dodgy dealings.

It is in this context that the Washington Post exposé a few days back regarding government-induced investments by LIC in the Adani Group should have set the country on fire for the sheer criminal audacity of the political-corporate nexus. It is alleged that in May, the Finance ministry had "drafted and pushed through a proposal to steer roughly $3.9 billion in investments to Adani's businesses from the LIC." The bare-faced misuse of the common citizens' hard-earned savings to bail out Modi's crony should have raised a storm of protests, but it is already yesterday's news.

In this regime's watch, our flawed but once vibrant democracy has mutated into an oligarchic kleptocracy controlled by a cabal of elites actively facilitated by this regime to usurp the holdings that belong to the common weal. The entire system has been rigged in favour of the oligarchs. In the name of "strategic disinvestment," the regime has been unbundling precious State enterprises to the private sector – ports, airports, Air India, Shipping Corporation of India, BEML, State Electricity Boards, et al.

Under the guise of "monetising non-core assets", government land is being bartered away for a song. The latest outrage is the 33-year lease of 1050 acres of land in Bhagalpur at the rate of ?1 per year to the Adani group for a power plant. Then there's the recent Cobrapost forensic investigation, aptly titled "LOOTWALLAHS: HOW INDIAN BUSINESS IS ROBBING INDIANS," that dissects the ?28,874 crore heist pulled off by Reliance ADA Group companies owned by Anil Ambani. But who cares?

The corporate-owned media and its lapdogs have been complicit in bolstering the crony capitalist-government nexus. Not the mainstream media but the All India Bank Employees Association recently brought to light the stunning fact that Mukesh Ambani's wealth has increased from 1.50 lakh crores in 2014 to ?9.50 lakh crores in 2024, and Gautam Adani's wealth has grown from ?57,000 crores in 2014 to ?9.30 lakh crores in 2024. This obscene wealth increase has been juxtaposed with India's Hunger Index rank, which has slipped from 55 in 2014 to an abysmal 102 in 2025.

The Oxfam report of 2023 titled "Survival of the Richest: the India Story" shows how wealth and caste privilege have shaped power and exacerbated inequality. Modi has been deceiving his people by trumpeting that India is poised to become the third-largest economy in the world, while avoiding the more pertinent statistic that the top 10 per cent own more than 80 per cent of the nation's wealth. India is ranked 144th out of 196 nations in GDP per capita at $2,878.

Corruption on an unimaginable scale stalks the land, but it has been normalised by the sleight of hand of Modi and gang over the years. At the heart of this gigantic subterfuge is the intimidatory environment of "shock and awe" that has virtually terrorised individuals and institutions to toe the government line. It's an ecosystem where loyalty to the ruling dispensation matters more than impartiality and probity.

This has had a terrible effect on the fight against corruption. In such an environment, the organisations specially assigned to combat corruption have been defanged and reduced to mere cyphers. Take the calculated diminution of the Lokpal, which was conceived as an all-powerful ombudsman but now functions as a malleable advocate of this government. The only major verdict of national import passed since its setup in 2019 is the cock-eyed order dismissing complaints against former SEBI chairperson, Madhabi Buch, as "unjustified and solely politically motivated."

Most disturbing is the government's systematic undermining of the RTI law by failing to fill posts, encouraging government outfits to refuse to divulge information, and the recently passed DPDP Act, which threatens to completely destroy the powers of the RTI in the name of protecting "privacy" and "personal information."

Meanwhile, a pliable media, obsequious institutions stacked with loyalists, and millions of blind bhakts swearing fealty to the king have amplified Modi's public image and personal integrity to the extent that it has even muted criticism of corruption in his government. I nearly burst a blood vessel when a bhakt recently compared Modi's connection with Adani to the Mahatma's friendship with GD Birla! We are today a morally depraved society whose governing class has forgotten ordinary humanity.

What we witness today is the desecration of the Mahatma's idea of India - unchecked financial corruption, institutional breakdown, elitist concerns, a savage partisan witch-hunt of the regime's opponents, and worst of all, the policy of hate and division bolstered by love jihad, lynching and bulldozers!

But there is no outrage! Romain Rolland believed that France fell to Germany in World War II because "there was corruption without indignation!" What further price will we pay for our indifference?