Subrata Roy’s good son act: the shamelessness of India Inc

In that classic Deewar, Vijay scoffs at Ravi’s ideals saying, “Aaj mere paas building hain, property hain, bank balance hain, bangla hain, gadi hain, paisa hai…….tumhare paas kya hain?” (Today I have buildings, property, bank balance, bungalow, car, lots of money… what do you have?” Ravi replies “Mere paas ma hain! (I have mother)”. And silences him. But Deewar is so 1975. In 2014, Subrata Roy has demonstrated what Deewar’s writers Salim-Javed could not imagine. You can be both Vijay and Ravi at the same time. A police officer told the media that the Sahara supremo had told the Supreme Court through his lawyer that his 92-year-old mother, “the guiding light of his life” was ailing. In his application Roy told the Supreme Court he had not appeared in court because “the very idea of not being able to see my mother alive again made me extremely sad and restless. Faced with such extraordinary circumstance, I left for Lucknow to be with my mother.” Upping the emotional heartstring tugging, he hoped the court would grant him an extension because the Almighty might not grant his mother any. The police officer said that Roy had claimed he could not answer the summons of the law because like a good son he “ would be by his mother’s bedside holding her hand.” Except when the police went calling at the mutli-speciality hospital where his mother was being treated, Roy was neither there nor in his bungalow. Subrata Roy ke paas ma hain. Lekin ma ke paas Subrata Roy nahin hain. [caption id=“attachment_1412575” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Subrata Roy Sahara. AFP.[/caption] Roy is now in police custody but not before demonstrating the super shamelessness of the super rich. It comes as no news to us that the Indian oligarch thinks of himself as being above the law. The law is out there to ensnare petty aam aadmis and occasionally a politician. But for the captains of our industry it’s just nuisance to be got around. Like red tape. But it is one thing to be the brazen baddie ala Sanjay Dutt who uses his wife’s illness to be on seemingly endless parole. But at least Dutt is keeping a low profile. It is quite another to simultaneously pull out the good-son card and take out full-page newspaper ads about his mother’s diabetes mellitus and left ventricular dysfunction signed by a Padmashree awardee doctor and then go AWOL. That requires a special kind of brazenness. Roy might be its most egregious manifestation but it’s a disease hardly unique to him. Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines nosedived spectacularly. Its fall might have caused untold grief to thousands of its employees. Not only has Mallya not really paid any price for it, the Good Times king apparently paid Rs 4 crore for Air Supply, an imported stallion. That’s of course chump change compared to the Rs 14 crore Mallya dished out to buy Yuvraj Singh for his Bangalore Royal Challengers. Times of India reports that in the same period his UB group company reported a loss of Rs 14 lakh. Industrial magnates like Mallya and Roy not only bend the law to their will. But they also demonstrate that most un-Indian trait – a blithe disregard for appearances. Roy’s use of his ailing mother is just the latest example of that. In India these days it’s fashionable to be up in arms against politicians. God knows there is plenty to be up in arms about there. But at least we are offered the opportunity to kick out our politicians every few years. But India Inc. gets a free pass again and again. In fact, India Inc is happy to have the public’s ire directed at the political class because that helps them evade scrutiny. After an FIR was filed against Mukesh Ambani, Veerappa Moily and Murli Deora, alarmed industry representatives warned against a “political witchhunt”. In its Times View, TOI concurred in an opinion which deserves to be replicated in toto: Targeting businessmen for alleged ‘cronyism’ is misguided. We must recognize that the dharma of the businessman is to maximize returns for his shareholders and he will use all means the system makes available to him to do so. If businessmen feel the only way to advance their business is by indulging in cronyism, they will do so. Attacking them for this is hitting the wrong target. Those who must be held to account are the politicians and bureaucrats who create such a culture of cronyism in the first place. It is they who are duty-bound to serve the public interest and when they fail to do so, they must be punished. It is this attitude that has allowed our industrial magnates to both amass huge wealth while simultaneously nursing a victim complex. Today many are up in arms about politicians and corruption as well Hindutva and free speech after the pulping of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus. But it’s our tycoons who are the real sacred cows when it comes to freedom of expression though lathi-wielding thugs from Sri Ram Sene get most of the press. As Saritha Rai writes in Forbes “Authors wishing to publish true-life biographies on Indian businessmen might as well pack up and put away their manuscripts. Not a single honest account of an Indian entrepreneur’s passage has ever reached the book shelves.” IT billionaire Shiv Nadar’s biography has been abandoned by Penguin at Nadar’s behest. The Polyester Prince about Dhirubhai Ambani by Hamish McDonald has been banned in India. A legal notice by aviation minister Praful Patel scuttled a book about the fall of Air India. And a biography of Subrata Roy himself was stayed by the High Court and Tamal Bandyopadhyay, the journalist writing it, was sued for Rs 200 crore for “ lowering the reputation of Sahara and its founder.” Did Roy do Sahara’s reputation proud by using his mother as a stay-out-of-jail card? Let’s leave aside the financial crisis afflicting Roy’s business empire and the excellent reasons why that should be the subject of responsible business journalism. There is something deeply sick about using a sick mother to evade the law by the man who heads an entity he sanctimoniously calls the Sahara India Pariwar. Meanwhile in another part of the country we hear the story of another ailing mother and another son. Lieutenant Manoranjan Kumar was doing his duty in the high seas even though his mother Rukmani Devi was ailing. Kumar died in the INS Sindhuratna after helping to evacuate his trapped comrades. The family has not told Rukmani Devi as yet. On the other hand, Subrata Roy, even as he surrendered to police could not help invoking his mother’s name one more time for some emotional blackmail. “They are bullying and indulging in character assassination of a son who is trying to perform his emotional duty towards his ailing mother. God forbid, if any untoward thing happens with my mother, in my absence, I shall never forget in my life those people” he said. Subrata Roy does not just bring shame to good businessmen in India. He also brings shame to good sons.