Like the brand line of the cigarette company which his family owns, Lalit Modi likes living life king size. Just before the 2010 IPL, I had gone to interview him at the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons hotel in Mumbai which he had converted into an office cum residence because his home had ‘burnt down’. As I waited for him, in the adjoining room I spotted a stream of high profile visitors filing in: IPL franchise owners, business leaders, actors, politicians, board officials, the rich, famous and powerful had gathered. When Modi finally arrived, he was quick to remark with typical swagger : “All my friends you see, all my friends!” Five years later, the many friends have become, well, “frenemies”, but as the Lalit leaks controversy swirls, what is apparent is that the original IPL — the Indian Political League — is alive and kicking.
Cricket’s IPL is owned by the BCCI: Indian sports richest body whose membership cuts across political party lines. Little surprise then that despite a stinging parliament report in 2010-11 into the board’s finances, the income tax and enforcement directorate investigation has gathered dust. Lalit Modi was a bit of a gatecrasher into this incestuous world, a buccaneer-entrepreneur with an eye on the main chance. He broke the BCCI club rules when he created the IPL almost as a personal fiefdom and in attempting to become larger than life, paid a heavy price.
Like cricket’s IPL, it’s political avatar too is a cosy club of the movers and shakers, only their power base goes well beyond the cricket fields. Many of our top netas are all members of this elite group that is secular and non-partisan in its interests. This well-networked gathering works on strict rules of power and patronage, wherein you are expected to protect and promote each other, look after relatives and distribute largesse to cronies. In a crisis, this club (or “tribe”) quickly unites, subverts the legal machinery and ensures a code of silence is maintained. “Lalit leaks” has broken this code, thereby creating a rare disruption in the political league.
For example, Mr Modi has happily revealed that Sushma Swaraj’s family are personal friends and the external affairs minister’s husband Swaraj Kaushal would provide legal help for free. Which is perhaps why the minister didn’t even think of an obvious conflict of interest while bypassing protocol and speaking directly to British lawmakers to have an impounded passport revoked. Mr Modi has also not hidden his long standing friendship with Vasundhara Raje, which is perhaps why the Rajasthan chief minister was happy to stand witness for his British residency claims. Mr Modi has also reminded us that the likes of Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, Rajiv Shukla have all tried to help him, if only to prove that his friends aren’t just restricted to the saffron camp.
Indeed, Mr Modi’s case only shows how almost the entire political class at some stage or the other has been compromised by its club motto of ‘one for all and all for one’. The Congress, for example, may now direct it’s ammunition against the BJP, but the fact is that for almost four years between 2010 and 2014, the UPA government did precious little to pursue a case of deportation of Mr Modi from Britain. Even the two letters sent by then finance minister Mr Chidambaram to his British counterpart in 2013 can hardly take away from the reality that for the rest of the UPA’s ruling arrangement, Mr Modi was hardly seen as an absconder who must face the law.
The Narendra Modi government, of course, has gone a step further in keeping the case on the back burner. The very fact that the government did not appeal against the High Court verdict granting Mr Modi his passport last August confirms the lack of keenness to pursue the matter. Now, if the Enforcement Directorate is threatening to send a red corner notice, it appears like an after-thought, occasioned more by a desire to appease prime time media outrage rather than a serious intent to ensure that the law is supreme. Indeed, the role of the ED and Income Tax– often seen as a handmaiden to settle scores with rivals or ‘protect’ disproportionate assets of club members — is highly questionable : either it doesn’t have a strong enough case against Mr Modi or else has chosen to keep it deliberately weak.
A good example of the privileges of being an IPL ‘club’ member are the parallels in the cases of Robert Vadra and Dushyant Singh, one a son in law of the Congress president, the other the MP son of the Rajasthan chief minister. Both seem to have made windfall profits from a business model which is primarily based on proximity to power and not any tangible investments. Before the Haryana elections last year, the BJP had vowed to ‘expose’ Vadra; once in power, the investigation appears to have made little progress. Similarly, the Congress in Rajasthan rode to power in 2008 by promising to unearth the Vasundhara-Dushyant-Modi nexus. However, once in office, the Ashok Gehlot government made scant headway, perhaps because by then fingers were also being pointed at the chief minister’s son.
Interestingly, the prime minister’s supporters claim that Narendra Modi is the quintessential ‘outsider’ who wants to break the IPL’s stranglehold on power. Which is why the revelations of the ‘other’ Modi are now a test case: if he is indeed the anti- establishment hero, then why is the otherwise garrulous prime minister conspicuously silent on the fallout of Lalit leaks? Or, as a former Gujarat cricket association president (now held by his key aide Amit Shah), is he too a privileged member of the exclusive club?
Post-script: While interviewing Lalit Modi in Montenegro, I was given a peep into his charmed circle. Without revealing names, one can only say that if in 2010 his powerful friends were mainly ‘desi’, now his network has gone truly global!
(The writer is a senior journalist and author. Email: Rajdeepsardesai52@gmail.com)