An intriguing silence on the electoral bonds has enveloped many news media outlets. Several eye-popping questions that rival any whodunnit have yet to be answered. Hopefully, the silence marks the calm before the storm, and newspapers will soon tell us the answers. Most of my doubts are triggered by the outstanding journalism of Poonam Agarwal on explainX. This is what good journalism does: make the audience ask questions and demand answers.
- SC Garg, the Economic Affairs Secretary when the Electoral Bonds were rolled out and later the finance secretary, has said on record that the “we” were not aware that the SBI was “clandestinely” recording the unique numbers of the bonds at the deposit and encashment stages. This admission/disclosure is nothing short of an earthquake that throws up several other questions. Yet, how many of you read it in how many newspapers?
- Is Garg saying that the largest bank in the country went rogue behind the government’s back? Can the finance ministry just wash its hands of?
- Or does his disclosure mean that the finance ministry was kept in the dark and some other government department with overriding powers and asked SBI to record the numbers? If so, would this mean the breakdown of the Cabinet System and the clearest indication yet of the operation of a deep state? Besides, if a section of the government told SBI to record the details, how does it make the business hotshots who swear by Modi look? Have the barons been taken for a royal ride and information was being collected on the suckers for future and perpetual blackmail?
- Only the SBI’s standard operating procedure (SOP) can shed light on whether someone empowered it to record these details without telling the finance ministry. But SBI has apparently cited third-party interest to keep the SOP under wraps. This is nonsense because we already know about the donors and recipients. Who is this third party? How can third-party confidentiality be cited for information already known? All that is being asked is the process through which the information was recorded.
- If someone or some group in SBI acted on its own and recorded the details on its own, the issue enters uncharted territory. Garg calls it unlawful, and the question does arise if the government had given this kind of autonomy to the SBI. We also cannot escape the question whether this individual or group is the biggest whistle-blower in the world after Snowden. Should the person/group be rewarded or punished?
- Garg makes some questionable claims. That the Bond Scheme actually did such a meticulous job that we should be thankful! He also says Jaitley should be congratulated. Garg conveniently glosses over the fact that these details would have remained unknown had not the Supreme Court come down hard. The role of the Teflon-coated bureaucrats who can justify and rationalise anything has not been examined. Garg sounds like a character out of “Yes, Prime Minister”. Smooth-talking, self-effacing and keen to blame SBI and defend his political bosses.
- This brings us to the role of Jaitley. Newspapers are strangely silent on this. He is no more but that does not mean that the role he played in the Bonds should not be put under the microscope. Two of his pet themes (which he would have wanted to be his legacy) now stand discredited: his crusade against pre-retirement decisions vulnerable to post-retirement inducements and the electoral bonds.
Besides, if he really did not know that SBI was secretly recording the details, isn’t this another instance of him being allegedly kept in the dark after demonetisation? What does it speak of his role in the Modi dispensation? What does it speak of journalists and editors who ate out of the hands of some ministers who projected themselves as those who knew it all?
A story is crying to be done. We can only wait and pray when newspapers will bless us with such a story.
- The SBI: Hero or Villain? No story yet on how the bank collated data in three days after seeking time till after the elections. No story on the drama behind the scenes, who took the decisions.
Imagine if such a thing had happened if a non-BJP government was in power. We know Gujral was sleeping when he was named PM, we know how many times Shivraj Patil changed clothes daily, we know what was served at UPA meetings but we don’t know about the biggest U-turn in India since independence by a behemoth bank!
(The author is a senior journalist; this is from his social media post)