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Did a paper on Indian corruption for my Masters, over a decade ago, and I see that the situation hasn't changed that much. I focused on the corruption around the License Raj, and its aftermath. It obviously was a very narrow focus, which doesn't explain the wider problem in India. 
Its estimated that disloyal corrupt criminalized Indians have stashed away around $1,500 billion or $1,500,000,000,000 of the poverty stricken nations wealth in illegal accounts in Switzerland alone. Switzerland is not the only place you can stash your cash illegally.....there are numerous other tax-havens where banking laws are very lax........ Monaco, Liechtenstein, Channel Islands, Bermuda, Andorra, Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, relevant to India in terms of tax avoidance ...Mauritius, Seychelles, British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Macao, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates...............and of course London and "the City". So what amounts of money have the disloyal corrupt criminalized Indians stashed their cash in these other tax havens? $500 billion or $1,000,000,000,000?
The GDP of India by PPP is anything between $3,500 billion to $4,000 billion. The money illegally off shored represents anything between 50---70% of the GDP of India measured by PPP.
Bhara Big ney?
Astronomical sums. I don't think any other nation off shores as much of its own wealth as India, illegally. Phoolan Devi and the rest of India's 99% toil and slave, and less than 1 % of the country representing the elite loot the country..............is there a bigger crime and injustice in India? I DON'T THINK SO! What does this say about India's "ruling" elite?
Well obviously many of them are criminals, and corrupt who don't have much faith in the country.
Who are these disloyal corrupt criminalized Indians? Hey guess what you already know them. The Netas, the babus, and the captains of industry.......people in positions of power, responsibility, patronage, and rupees.
It all goes back to the British and the continuation of the British Raj system after "Independence" in 1947. Basically if you are going to rule a country, loot it ($1 trillion worth of Indian assets transferred to London 1757--1947), sermonize over it and treat it very badly (30 million Indians died under British rule)......then you need a lot of local criminalized chamars who don't have a problem with the British doing this to India, "No probs sahib we'll help you". Basically the decendents of these chamars, along with their colonial practices have continued with business as usual.
Baron Macaulay in 1835:
"We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population".
Now I know what he meant.
A very simple modern example is Zardari in Pakistan....its the most obvious and recent....the guys a felon who has done prison time for corruption, and has stashed away up to $2 billion of the impoverished nations wealth in foreign mainly Swiss accounts and in London. Washington arranges a "deal" with Washington's other criminalized puppet, Busharaf so that no charges are leveled against Zardari and Bhutto, which allows them to "share" power with Busharaf.....(be careful Nawaz Sharif!!!!) He is celebrated by Washington and London, and they help him into power in 2008, even though he has no real political experience, network, or any recognizable political base other than the support of some misguided Sindhi's......but London and Washington love and adore him, and eventually with the ISI's help enthrone him in the hope of controlling Pakistan even further for their particular geostrategic interests, after Busharaf.
The same applies to the Indian politicians and Bangladeshi politicians.
This is why India after 62 years of Independence still does not have good infrastructure, education, agriculture, industry, exports.....a nation of 1.2 billion exports a mere $175 billion.....thoo........Belgium with a population of 9 million exports $370 billion.....thooo..............Hong Kong with a population of 6 million exports $360 billion....thoo..........This is why India has 850 million people living on just 20 rupees a day, and 55 billionaires.......thoo, thoo, thoo.
A modern nation doesn't need a "Maharajah economy", where one guy monopolizes all the money, and doesn't use it, or spend it. A modern economy requires a big middle class with skills, making things, manufacturing things, buying things, with the nations wealth being more evenly shared, so that nobody, or very few have an interest in stashing the loot (their wealth isn't big enough for that), but they instead circulate and spend the money within the economy, and help and invest in it so that it grow's.
But you say oh look, India has great economic growth, 300 million middle class, and the famous trickle down and all that eventually.....................................I say when? When you have foreign educated, and backed criminals running the show can you have real meaningful economic growth that benefits everybody really, and not just statistically? Can I not judge for myself by looking at the dirt, filth, smell and poverty that exists in a lot of India to tell me that its really not working?.....Do I need a Ph.D in developmental economics to make such basic common sense deductions? Or do I need a Harvard educated NRI to tell me otherwise in CNN IBN, or NDTV?
Lets look at a more specific example of corruption, with the Arjun Tank project. It was first initiated in 1972.......and completed in 2008/9, finally being approved by the Indian army. Does "Shining India" require 36 years to produce or shall we say assemble a simple semi-indigenous tank? (most of its parts are foreign).............Tanks aren't that difficult to build, there are after all about 18 odd countries around the world manufacturing them. Tanks take 36 years to build if you have gross corruption in the relevant political bureaucratic elite which deal with this area......think of the issue from these criminals point of view......if India manufactures her own tanks then there is no opportunity for kick backs, and palm greasing from foreign prospective defense contractors, and the reason why India defers repeatedly in buying her basic defense equipment such as tanks, artillery, planes, warships and missiles from foreign sources. There are also allegations of deliberate sabotaging the Arjun tank project by elements within the project, along with politicians and babus...................unbelievable, toying with the security of the country like that, spending 2% on defense and appointing clowns to the defense portfolio who will not ask too many inquisitive questions.
Whats the harm? After all if our noble netas and babus making a bit of money on the side, with foreign money right, not Indian money, where is the harm? It of course relates to corruption and national security...............if you cannot manufacture your basic defense items how do begin to defend the nation reasonably...........foreign supplied equipment means foreign supplied spare parts for your vital defense equipment....which is a dangerous scenario to be in when you are fighting a real war against a real enemy. Put simply as things stand the Indian armed forces are not in any position to fight a comprehensive war (over months), with 40 odd ordnance factories to back them up in times of war.
But the wider issue is this. If you can't sort out such basic requirements as building a simple tank.....and it subsequently takes 36 years...........then how do rely on the same netas and babus to solve and address the BIG urgent national needs of India? If they make a big hash over such simple project, with the massive talent pool in India in the first place, what does that mean for India really?
Does India require a revolution at the top?
Does the colonial era elite schools need to be dismantled?
But I see that India will be celebrating and hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
