All that the BJP leader L K Advani had perhaps intended to do — when he took up the issue of Indian black wealth stashed away in Swiss and other secret shelters — was to put the Congress party on the back foot at the time of the elections. But he would never have imagined that the Congress would go so far back as to hit its own wicket.
This is how the play opened. L K Advani told the media: the Swiss ambassador to India has himself admitted that lots of Indian black money gets secretly lodged in Swiss banks
; estimates of Indian black money abroad vary from $500 billion to $1400 billion; forced by the economic crisis, the West, that is Germany, France, US and UK, which had winked at the illicit monies in the past, have begun a crusade against Swiss banks and other secret tax shelters to flush out the money; India must join the Western effort to bring back the Indian black wealth from abroad. With elections round the corner, Advani did turn the issue into a political one. He charged that the Congress was not keen to get back the Indian monies lodged abroad. He cited two instances to support the charge. First, despite his writing to the Dr Manmohan Singh in April last year to ask for the names of Indians reportedly mentioned in the secret record of LGT bank — which the German authorities had offered to open free of cost to give to all who asked for it — the government would not press for the Indian names from Germany. Second, he said that in the G20 preparatory meet in Berlin where Germany and France had called for blacklisting of Swiss and other tax havens, the Indian representatives at that meeting never opened their mouth on the issue.
Advani rounded off asking the prime minister to take up the issue of Indian monies stashed away in secret Swiss banks and in other tax havens at the G20 meet at London slated for April 2, 2009. Yet, at the London meet, Dr Manmohan Singh would not utter a word. Had he just said that India would join the G20 efforts, the Advani googly would have gone for a six. But, the Congress party went on the back-foot and hit its own wicket instead. But, why did the Congress hit its own wicket instead of a six? Read on.
“Why this now, at the time of the elections?” asked the Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari, not knowing that Advani had written to the prime minister long before, in April 2008 itself, on the LGT bank issue. Then entered Abhishek Singhvi, the more articulate spokesman of the party. He asked what did Advani do when NDA was in power. Obviously he has not even read Advani’s statement. Advani has only questioned why the Manmohan government is not acting now [in March 2008] in tandem with the West which has begun crusading against secret banking. Only now the West has turned against secret bank funds. So the question why did the BJP, or even the Congress, not act in the past does not arise. More. Singhvi said that “G20 is not the forum for the issue” of Indian black wealth in Swiss banks. Obviously, running between courtrooms and newsrooms, he had no time to follow the media abroad which were full of news about how the main agenda of G20 was about secret banking. He was all at sea. With the first two failing, entered Jairam Ramesh, the campaign manager of the party.
Like Sehwag deploying offence for defence, he wrote a harsh letter to L K Advani saying, “to tell bluntly — Mr Advani, you are lying”. Advani, he charged, was lying on his maths about the estimate of the Indian black wealth at between $500 billion and $1400 billion. These numbers, he said, were drawn from questionable Internet sources! All his shouts meant only this: “Mr Advani, the loot from India is not as big as you make it out to be”. But, when the Swiss Ambassador himself has admitted that ‘lot’ of Indian black wealth was flowing into Swiss banks, where is the need to quarrel over how big the loot from India is — as big as Advani says or as small as Jairam Ramesh thinks? The question is where does the Congress stand on the issue of bringing the hoarded Indian wealth from abroad. The three who shout at Advani are deafeningly silent on that.
The Congress campaign manager cites a well-known economist Bibek Debroy who has questioned Advani’s estimate of Indian black wealth at a minimum of $500 billion. Debroy, usually an agile and meticulous analyst, has erred in this case. He has looked at the wrong version of the right report and reached incorrect conclusions. Both Advani and Debroy have relied on the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) study that has estimated the global black wealth stashed away in tax havens including India’s. There are two versions of the GFI study — one a layman’s version and the other, the economists’ version. Debroy, an economist, seems to have relied on the layman’s version. And L K Advani, not an economist, has relied on the economists’ version. The economists’ version of the GFI study (at pages 29 and 30 supported by charts, specifically chart 18) estimates, in specific numbers the amount of black wealth stashed away from India between 2002-06 at $137.5 billion. If, in five years, the amount could be $137.5 billion (Rs 6.88 lakh crore), the Advani estimate of $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) to $1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore) for six decades since 1947 is not wide off the mark. Bibek Debroy who seems to have looked at only the layman’s version of the GFI study, appears to have missed the specific estimate of the annual loot from India at $27.3 billion which only the economists’ version of the GFI report mentions. This is the cause of the dispute on maths. But even otherwise all maths of monies held in secrecy can only be estimates. There can be nothing final about it.
That lots of Indian black wealth is lodged in secret Swiss banks and elsewhere is undisputed. The dispute is no more about the loot from India. But only about how big that loot is. The Congress masks the undisputed fact of the loot by questioning the maths of it. Obviously the party seems frightened about the Indian black wealth abroad becoming an issue once again after 1987 when the Bofors bribe scam broke out. The Congress spokesmen do not seem to be defending their party. They are actually exposing their leader whose connections with her Italian friend Quattrocchi who got bribes from Bofors out of the defence budget of India are well known. They seem to confirm the cynical ones who ask: “Do we expect those who assisted Quattrocchi to run away with the money caught stolen from India to bring back the Indian black wealth from Swiss banks?” Understand why the Congress chose to hit its own wicket instead of hitting the Advani googly for a six?.
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