A millionaire, a spiritual leader and a poor farmer

It turned out to be an interesting week for the Indian government. We have mentioned how fickle the Indian government and the judiciary are in carrying out justice in an earlier article, highlighting how the same government will apply the same laws differently to its citizens depending on their social, economic clout. This week was an excellent week to witness the two extremes of Indian governance – from letting people fo scot free to suppressing them with an iron fist.

A millionaire

Vijay Mallaya, a millionaire tycoon hit the media headlines and social media. He owns several sports teams and has launched Kingfisher Airlines which later became insolvent and shut down. He has loaned enormous amount of money from several Indian banks, around US$ 1 Billion from 17 Indian banks. While he has wilfully defaulted on these huge loans, it was noted by the Attorney General that Mallya’s foreign assets were far in excess to loans taken by him. These 17 banks petitioned the Supreme Court of India to stop Mallya from leaving the country. There was also a money laundering case against him, but Mallya managed to leave the country to his country home in the UK.

Mallya has backed the BJP and was elected to the Rajya Sabha, which has given him some political clout with the ruling BJP. There were claims in social media that BJP aided him in fleeing the country as the hashtag #BJPhelpedMallyaFlee was trending on Twitter.

It was also shared by users in Twitter that the CBI also worked as government henchmen in helping Mallya instead of upholding the law.

It seems immigration even informed CBI about Mallya leaving. Who is CBI working for?

This cartoon shows very well Mallya’s priceless asset that might have helped him in fleeing and absconding.

A spiritual leader

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation. He is currently organizing a massive cultural event in the banks of the Yamuna. The Yamuna river area is an ecologically sensitive area and due to this India’s environment watchdog fined him around US$750,00 (50m Rupees). He issued a statement saying he will not pay a penny and is prepared to go to jail.


What an example to the country’s citizens!…this is probably the “art of living” the guruji is preaching about. Twitter responded furiously with the hastag #SriSriInsultsIndia. He later agreed to pay a fraction of the original amount, around US$37,000 (25 Lakh Rupees). Here are a few posts.

Here is one highlighting the point that even the Indian army was used for this event.

It was also pointed out that this is the man who tweeted that Rupee will rise to Rs. 40 per dollar if Modi became the Prime Minister (The reality is it has fallen to around Rs. 67 per dollar).

Now we know who was backing these two and helped them evade the law. It was interesting to see tweets putting these two side by side with ‘art of living vs art of leaving’.

Added to that list is the ‘art of lying’ without which none of these would have happened.

A poor farmer

Clearly this man has no government backing, even though he is the one the government is supposed to be serving. A common citizen whose tax dollars fund the government who votes to elect the leaders who are supposed to serve him. He missed two installments in a loan to the amount around $US 1,200(Rs. 80,000) which he borrowed to buy a tractor. He was literally beaten, dragged off his tractor and carried to the police station.

Twitter users were quick to make comparisons between the US$1 billion load and the US$1,200 loan and the different treatments these two received.

For a common man not knowing the ‘art of living’ in India or the ‘art of leaving’ the authorities, only a good trashing at the hands of the law enforcement awaits.

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Author: Jeff

Enjoy writing and reading. Working full-time and writing some on the side

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