The US prosecutors have indicted billionaire Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, among six others, for their alleged role in a 265-million-dollar bribery case to secure lucrative solar power supply contracts in India. Earlier in January 2023, the US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research published a scathing report accusing the Adani Group of financial misconduct and stock manipulation. Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani were issued arrest warrants by a New York District Court on the basis of charges levelled by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The charges are: "the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors." And that the "Defendants (Gautam and Sagar Adani) had been personally and intimately involved in paying or promising bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars to secure undue influence with Indian state government officials and procure contracts between Indian State governments and SECI that benefitted Adani Green," most of the bribe – Rs. 1,750 crore – was paid for contracts in Andhra Pradesh.

The money was paid after Gautam Adani met in August 2021 with the then Chief Minister of Andra Pradesh, Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was an ally of the Modi government. They allegedly promised Rs. 2029 crore in bribes to officials, following which Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu signed the Power Supply Agreements with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) between July 2021 and February 2022.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, held a press conference on November 21 2024. His blistering attack on Modi:

It is now pretty clear and established in America that Adani has broken both American law and Indian law. He has been indicted in the United States. And I am wondering why Adani is still running around as a free man in this country. Chief Ministers have been arrested…many, many people have been arrested… Rs. 2000 crore scam, multiple others probably, he is scot free … no investigation. We have been raising this issue. We have been vindicated. The Prime Minister is protecting Adani. The Prime Minister is involved in corruption with Adani. It is clearly indicated. He is not alone. There is a network, the people who hijacked India. Adani has hijacked India. India is under his grip. Prime Minister's credibility is destroyed. We are going to expose the people connected to the network. I guarantee you this structure is going to collapse. The whole country knows that Adani and Modi are one.

Adani is safe because of Narendra Modi. Wherever the Prime Minister goes, he gets business for Adani. The truth will come out; we are not going to leave. Modi is corrupt. Adani is his bagman. This is proven. He has taken Indian assets through corruption and is part of a political-financial-bureaucratic network. SEBI Chief Madhabi Puri Buch, who is corrupt, protects Adani's stock prices; she should be removed immediately, and a probe should be launched against her. India's future is damaged. Political, finance, stock market and Adani nexus are dangerous… it is hazardous to the security of the country. Investigating agencies who arrested Chief Ministers in no time should do their job, arrest Adani and interrogate him.

This scandal is the result of a corrupt crony capitalism. The Modi government is shielding Adani. The winter session of Parliament started on November 25. The opposition's demand for a debate on the bribery charges against Adani was outrightly rejected by the Presiding Officers; any reference to Adani is simply not allowed to go on record. The government is not interested in instituting any inquiry into the Modani scam. The two sitting chief ministers of Jharkhand and Delhi - Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal - were arrested and jailed on trumped-up charges by the ED and the CBI. Hundreds of people were arrested and put in jail on trifle charges. And here is a billionaire, indicted by a court in America, who brought disrepute to India and discredit to corporate governance.

The government pretends as if nothing has happened. As the Editorial in The Hindu, November 23, 2024, says, "It will be a matter of everlasting shame if there is no domestic investigation by Indian agencies into allegations by the US Department of Justice that billionaire businessman Gautam Adani and his associates offered bribes to officials."

Why do the entire government and the ruling party come out to defend Adani? He is a business tycoon; can't he defend himself? He is protected because the government is afraid that any inquiry into his nefarious criminal business deals would lead to Modi, exposing the nexus between him and Adani that defrauded the nation. But the truth has its own way of surfacing. Following the indictment of Adani by the American court, Kenya has cancelled Adani's Airport and Power projects, and many countries – US, Australia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Israel, France, Switzerland and others – have initiated a probe into the charges of bribe and fraud against Adani; either cancelled or planning to cancel his projects. Yet the Modi government claims all this is false and refuses to allow any debate on Adani in Parliament. What is the Parliament meant for if such serious national issues are not debated?

The Modi model of development, of promoting crony capitalism, has only benefited the corporate oligarchy close to the establishment, leading to a concentration of wealth in the hands of few to the detriment of the common good, in gross violation of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution.

On November 6, The Indian Express carried a piece, A New Deal for Indian Business, by Rahul Gandhi. It was translated into many regional languages and published in newspapers across the country. He offers a new, promising alternative vision of development for India that is long overdue. Some excerpts from his article are produced for what they are worth:

India was silenced by the East India Company. We didn't lose our freedom to another nation; we lost it to a monopolistic corporation that ran a coercive apparatus. The original East India Company wound up over 150 years ago, but the raw fear then generated is back. A new breed of monopolists has taken its place. They have amassed colossal wealth, even as India has become far more unequal and unfair to everybody else. Our institutions no longer belong to our people. They do the bidding of monopolists. Lakhs of businesses have been decimated, and India is unable to generate jobs for her youth… I know that hundreds of India's brilliant and dynamic business leaders are scared of the monopolists. Are you one of them? Scared to talk on the phone? Afraid of the monopolists colluding with the state to counter your sector and crush you? Scared of IT, CBI or ED raids forcing you to sell your business to them? Scared of them starving you of capital when you need it the most? Terrified of them changing the rules of the game midway to ambush you?

You know that describing these oligarchic groups as businesses is misleading. When you compete with them, you are not competing with a company; you are fighting the machinery of the Indian state. Their core competence is not products, consumers or ideas. It is their ability to control India's governing institutions and regulators … and in surveillance. Unlike you, these groups decide what Indians read and watch. They influence how Indians think and what they speak. Today, market forces do not determine success; power relations do.

My politics has always been about protecting the weak and voiceless. I draw my inspiration from Gandhiji's words about defending the last voiceless person in the line. This conviction made me support MGNREGA, the Right to Food and the Land Acquisition Bill. And so, my politics will aim to provide you with what you have been denied – fairness and freedom to operate. The government cannot be allowed to support one business at the expense of all others, much less support benami equations in the business system. Government agencies are not weapons to be used to attack and intimidate businesses. This country is for all of us. Our banks should overcome their fascination for the top 100 well-connected borrowers with their attendant NPAs and be made to discover the profit pools in lending and supporting the play-fair businesses. I believe a new deal for progressive Indian business is an idea whose time has come.

This is eye-opening for all of us. It is essential to recognise that political democracy cannot survive without economic and social equality. The ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution remain pious promises. If not addressed, the glaring social and economic inequality will put political democracy in peril.