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बैंक ऐसा दोस्त जैसा? IDBI की बिक्री और जनता का मुनाफ़ा?

एक बैंक है IDBI। उसका नारा है— "बैंक ऐसा दोस्त जैसा।" आपका दोस्त जैसा बैंक बिक गया है। गनीमत है कि उसके हाथों नहीं बिका जिसका फोटो दिखाकर राहुल गांधी प्रधानमंत्री का दोस्त बताते हैं। बात यह है कि खुद को दोस्त जैसा बैंक कहने वाले IDBI के कर्मचारियों को इस समय बहुत से दोस्तों की ज़रूरत है, जो उनकी व्यथा को सुन सकें, समझ सकें, और बैंक को बिकने से बचा सकें।

IDBI के हज़ारों कर्मचारी 2 और 3 नवंबर को हड़ताल करने जा रहे हैं। सवाल सीधा है — 30,000 करोड़ से अधिक का मुनाफ़ा पिछले छह साल में कमाने वाले बैंक को क्यों निजी हाथों में बेचा गया? वह भी विदेशी हाथों में? सरकार की समाचार एजेंसी PIB ने अपनी प्रेस रिलीज़ में क्यों कहा कि बैंक घाटे में चल रहा था और सरकार की मदद की ज़रूरत पड़ रही थी? सरकार ने 2010 से 2020 के बीच 25,000 करोड़ रुपए इसमें डाले हैं। किस लिए डाले? इसलिए कि एक दिन बैंक मुनाफ़े में आएगा। 2020 से पहले के घाटे बताए जा रहे हैं, लेकिन 2020 के बाद के मुनाफ़े पर ज़ोर क्यों नहीं दिया जा रहा?

एक सफल बैंक की बिक्री का सवाल

जिस बैंक ने वित्त वर्ष 2026 में 9,513 करोड़ का मुनाफ़ा कमाया और 2025 की तुलना में 27 प्रतिशत की वृद्धि दर्ज की, उसे कनाडा के Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited के हाथों क्यों बेचा गया? बैंकों के खरीदने और बेचने के खेल बहुत बड़े होते हैं। पर्दे के पीछे तक पहुँचना आसान नहीं। लेकिन यह घटना इतनी भी मामूली नहीं कि चुप्पी पसर जाए।

हमेशा की तरह बिज़नेस अख़बारों में ढोल नगाड़े बजने लगे हैं कि IDBI को बेचने का फ़ैसला बहुत सही है। इससे ये फ़ायदा होगा, वो फ़ायदा होगा, और डील फेयर है। सरकार की संपत्ति जब भी बेची जाती है, बिज़नेस अख़बारों की खुशी का ठिकाना नहीं रहता। खबरें चलने लगी हैं कि इससे बात नहीं बनेगी, और भी बैंक बेचे जाएँगे। मोदी सरकार सरकारी बैंकों में विदेशी निवेशकों की हिस्सेदारी 20% से बढ़ाकर 49% करने पर विचार कर रही है।

बिक्री का गणित और टूटा वादा

सरकार ने कहा कि भारत के वित्तीय सेवा सेक्टर में इससे बड़ा विदेशी निवेश, यानी डिस-इन्वेस्टमेंट, पहले कभी नहीं हुआ। सरकार ने 52,878 करोड़ रुपए में IDBI बैंक बेच दिया। रिज़र्व बैंक की मंज़ूरी बाकी है — मिल ही जाएगी। जो 60 प्रतिशत हिस्सा बेचा गया है, उससे 52,878 करोड़ रुपए आएँगे, और वह सरकार और LIC के बीच बंट जाएँगे। करीब 61 प्रतिशत हिस्सा बेचने के बाद सरकार की हिस्सेदारी 15 प्रतिशत रह जाती है। वह भी उसे ओपन मार्केट में बेच सकती है और माइनॉरिटी शेयरहोल्डर बन जाएगी।

याद कीजिए साल 2004। जब इस बैंक का स्टेटस बदला गया, तब के वित्त मंत्री जसवंत सिंह, जो BJP के नेता रहे, ने संसद के दोनों सदनों को आश्वासन दिया था कि किसी भी परिस्थिति में सरकार की IDBI में हिस्सेदारी 51 प्रतिशत बनी रहेगी। आज वही पार्टी सत्ता में है, और वही हिस्सेदारी 15 प्रतिशत पर ला दी गई है। वादे की यह गिरावट देखिए — 51 से 15 प्रतिशत तक।

घाटा जनता का, मुनाफ़ा निजी का — एक पुराना पैटर्न

द वायर में देविदास तुलजापुरकर ने लिखा है कि IDBI को बेचकर प्राइवेट सेक्टर को तोहफ़ा दिया जा रहा है। जब बैंक संकट में था तो जनता ने रिस्क लिया, अपने पैसे लगाए, और जब मुनाफ़े में आया तो प्राइवेट सेक्टर को घुसा दिया गया ताकि मुनाफ़े पर प्राइवेट सेक्टर का कंट्रोल हो जाए।

इस बैंक ने जनधन खाते खोले, जीवन ज्योति बीमा, सुरक्षा बीमा, अटल पेंशन योजना, मुद्रा लोन, स्ट्रीट वेंडर के लिए स्वा निधि, किसान सम्मान निधि के खाते खोले। लोगों के खातों में सीधे पैसे भेजे गए। यह सब IDBI बैंक कर रहा था — सरकार की योजनाओं को जनता के बीच ले जा रहा था। अब यह प्राइवेट हो जाएगा तो सरकार की योजनाओं का क्या होगा? गाँव-देहात के लोगों की मदद कौन करेगा?

यह कोई नई कहानी नहीं है। इस देश में जनता के पैसे से उन जगहों पर भी एयरपोर्ट बनाए गए जहाँ ट्रैफ़िक नहीं था। कुछ समय बाद उड़ानें बंद हो गईं, कम हो गईं। अब उन्हीं जगहों को प्राइवेट हाथों में दिया जा रहा है। एयरपोर्ट चलाने के लिए प्राइवेट कंपनी दौड़कर आ जाती है। उनसे यह क्यों नहीं कहा जाता कि जब आपको चलाना आता है तो बनाना भी आता होगा, तो आप ही अपने पैसे से एयरपोर्ट बना लीजिए? ऐसा क्यों नहीं किया जाता?

मुनाफ़े और घाटे का आँकड़ा — एक नज़र में

बैंक की स्थिति को समझने के लिए कुछ आँकड़ों पर नज़र डालिए। ये आँकड़े बताते हैं कि बैंक अब मुनाफ़े की राह पर है और बिक्री का फ़ैसला कितना विरोधाभासी है।

IDBI बैंक की वित्तीय स्थिति — एक तुलना

मापदंड	विवरण
वित्त वर्ष 2025 का मुनाफ़ा	7,515 करोड़ रुपए
वित्त वर्ष 2026 का मुनाफ़ा	9,513 करोड़ रुपए
वार्षिक वृद्धि दर	27 प्रतिशत
पिछले 6 वर्षों का कुल मुनाफ़ा	30,000 करोड़ रुपए से अधिक
कुल डिपॉज़िट	3.46 ट्रिलियन रुपए (12% वार्षिक वृद्धि)
कुल बिज़नेस (30 सितंबर तक)	6.26 ट्रिलियन रुपए से अधिक (18% वार्षिक वृद्धि)
बिक्री मूल्य (60% हिस्सा)	52,878 करोड़ रुपए
प्रति शेयर मूल्य	81 रुपए
एक साल पहले प्रति शेयर मूल्य	94.42 रुपए

ये आँकड़े क्या बता रहे हैं? सब कुछ बता रहे हैं कि बैंक ठीक से चल रहा है। इसे बेचने की ज़रूरत नहीं थी। लेकिन बैंक के बेचने का संबंध केवल उसके घाटे या मुनाफ़े से नहीं होता, उसके खराब और अच्छे प्रदर्शन से भी नहीं होता।

IDBI का इतिहास — जनता के पैसे की कहानी

1964 में भारत के उद्योगों की मदद के लिए IDBI की स्थापना की गई। इसलिए इसका पूरा नाम Industrial Development Bank of India रखा गया। 1976 में इसका राष्ट्रीयकरण कर दिया गया और भारत सरकार इसकी मालिक हो गई। 2004 में यह बैंक कमर्शियल बैंक में बदल दिया गया, इसका उद्देश्य व्यापक किया गया।

लेकिन बैंक का NPA बढ़ता गया। कॉर्पोरेट के लोन नहीं चुकाने के कारण संकट गहराता गया। 2017 में RBI ने IDBI पर कुछ अंकुश लगाए और अपनी निगरानी में ले लिया। 2018 में सरकार ने 51 प्रतिशत हिस्सेदारी LIC को 21,624 करोड़ रुपए में बेच दी। लेकिन बैंक के प्रबंधन पर नियंत्रण सरकार का ही रहता रहा। मालिकाना हक LIC को नहीं मिला। तो फिर LIC ने 51 प्रतिशत हिस्सेदारी क्यों खरीदी? शायद उस वक़्त जनता के गुस्से से बचना था — ऐसा दिखाना था कि हमने सिर्फ़ हिस्सा बेचा है, मालिकाना हक नहीं बेचा।

2018 में ही जब यह कदम उठाया गया, तब फ्रंटलाइन में वी. श्रीधर ने लिखा था कि सार्वजनिक क्षेत्रों के निजीकरण की प्रक्रिया शुरू हो गई है। 2026 में वी. श्रीधर की बात सच हो गई। सच तो तब भी थी, बस लोगों का ध्यान नहीं गया होगा कि IDBI में LIC 51 प्रतिशत की हिस्सेदारी खरीद रही है और मालिकाना हक भी नहीं ले रही। LIC का मतलब है जनता का पैसा। भारत की जनता के पैसे से भारत का एक सरकारी बैंक घाटे से उबरने लगता है। जब 2020 से मुनाफ़ा कमाने लगा, छह साल में 30,000 करोड़ से अधिक का मुनाफ़ा हो चुका, तब उसे बेच दिया गया।

राइट-ऑफ़ और NPA की राजनीति

अख़बारों में आपने पढ़ा होगा कि पिछले 10 साल में मोदी सरकार ने लाखों करोड़ रुपए राइट-ऑफ़ किए हैं। यह NPA का पैसा है। NPA की अपनी राजनीति होती है। आप एक रुपया लोन चुकाने में दो मिनट की देरी कर देंगे, बैंक वाले आपके घर पहुँच जाएँगे। लेकिन हज़ारों करोड़ रुपए का लोन लेकर डुबा दीजिए, बड़े-बड़े कॉर्पोरेट वाले गोल्डन चैनलों पर मौज-मस्ती करते नज़र आएँगे। छोटे व्यापारियों को भी ऐसी सुविधा नहीं मिलती। लाखों करोड़ लोन डिफ़ॉल्ट करने वाले कुछ ही बड़े कॉर्पोरेट को इस पर क़राहत दी जाती है।

NPA के बावजूद IDBI ने अपना प्रदर्शन बेहतर किया। LIC को शेयर बेचकर और सरकार की मदद से घाटे कम होने लगे। बैंक का प्रबंधन पटरी पर आया। इसी साल मार्च में जब वित्त वर्ष 2026 समाप्त हुआ, तब IDBI ने 9,513 करोड़ का मुनाफ़ा कमाया। बैंक का कुल डिपॉज़िट 3.46 ट्रिलियन हो गया, एक साल में 12 प्रतिशत बढ़ा। बैंक का लोन भी बढ़ा। लोन देकर ही बैंक पैसे कमाते हैं।

ज़मीन, कर्मचारी और आरक्षण — बिक्री के अनदेखे पहलू

भारत सरकार में सचिव पद से रिटायर हुए एक अधिकारी ने अपने पत्र में कुछ उदाहरण दिए हैं। हैदराबाद में बहुत अच्छी जगह पर IDBI के पास पचास एकड़ से अधिक की ज़मीन है, जिसकी मौजूदा कीमत 269 करोड़ रुपए प्रति एकड़ बताई जा रही है। केवल इस पचास एकड़ ज़मीन की कीमत 13,450 करोड़ हो जाती है। इसी तरह IDBI के पास और भी शहरों में ज़मीनें होंगी। केवल ज़मीनों की वैल्यू जोड़ लें तो 50,000 करोड़ से अधिक की राशि हो जाती है।

IDBI में 19,000 से अधिक कर्मचारी काम करते हैं, और इनमें से 9,500 कर्मचारी अनुसूचित जाति, जनजाति और OBC वर्ग के हैं। IDBI के ख़त्म होते ही, यानी प्राइवेट होते ही आरक्षण भी ख़त्म हो जाएगा। CPIM के जॉन ब्रिटस ने इसी बात पर ज़ोर देते हुए जून में निर्मला सीतारमण को पत्र लिखा कि बात सिर्फ़ विनिवेशीकरण की नहीं है — 20,000 कर्मचारियों और उनके सोशल रिज़र्वेशन सुरक्षा की भी है। यह भारतीय बैंकिंग के विदेशीकरण का संकेत है।

भारत कब तक इस तरह से निजीकरण की राह पर चलता रहेगा जिसमें किसी कंपनी को खड़ा करने में भारत की जनता पैसे लगाएगी, कंपनी घाटे में आएगी तो बचाने के लिए भारत की जनता फिर से लगाएगी, और कंपनी मुनाफ़ा कमाने लगेगी, तो उसे प्राइवेट हाथों में बेच दिया जाएगा?

शेयर मूल्य का खेल और बिज़नेस अख़बारों का नृत्य

IDBI के शेयर का दाम भी कम लगाया गया। एक शेयर का दाम 81 रुपया लगाया गया, जो कि कम बताया जा रहा है। इसके बचाव में सरकार ने लंबे-चौड़े जवाब दिए हैं, जिसके अनुसार अधिक दाम पर कोई खरीदार ही नहीं आ रहा था। लेकिन एक साल पहले सरकार ने इसी बैंक का एक शेयर 94 रुपया 42 पैसे रखा था। खरीदार नहीं आ रहे थे, वैसे ही जैसे टेंडर में कोई कंपनी नहीं आती है और हमेशा वही कंपनी आ जाती है। या जब उस कंपनी को आना होता है तो बाकी कंपनियाँ आ ही नहीं पातीं। जिस बैंक की बैलेंस शीट एकदम क्लीन हो, उसके शेयर के दाम में 6.5% से ज़्यादा कटौती कर दी गई।

बिज़नेस अख़बारों का निवेश-डांस चल रहा है। खबरों में बताया जा रहा है कि नीति आयोग ने Central Bank of India और Indian Overseas Bank का चयन किया है। तो IDBI के बाद और भी बैंकों को बेचा जा सकता है। एक बैंक विदेशी को और एक बैंक देशी को — हिसाब हो गया बराबर।

कर्मचारियों की चुप्पी और व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप की संस्कृति

IDBI या सभी बैंकों के कर्मचारियों से कुछ सवाल हैं। हो सकता है उन्हें इस बात से खुशी हो कि कोई तो है जो एक सफल बैंक को बेचे जाने पर वीडियो बना रहा है। उन्हें यह भी उम्मीद होगी कि इससे पब्लिक ओपिनियन बनेगा। लेकिन बैंक के अधिकारी आर्थिक मामलों को बेहतर समझते हैं। सवाल यह है कि उनके व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में 2014 के बाद से अर्थव्यवस्था को लेकर किस तरह की बातें होती रही हैं? या डर से उन्होंने सच्ची बात बंद कर दी और उसकी जगह मंदिर-मस्जिद, मुसलमान विरोधी राजनीति के मीम ठेले जाने लगे? राहुल गांधी को पप्पू बताकर मज़ा लिया जाने लगा?

अगर बैंक के ही कर्मचारी अर्थव्यवस्था की सच्चाई को लेकर आपस में व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में बात नहीं कर रहे हैं, एयरपोर्ट के बेचे जाने को लेकर एक-दूसरे से नहीं कह रहे हैं कि जनता का पैसा लगाकर दो-चार उद्योगपतियों को बेचा जा रहा है, तो फिर उन सभी कर्मचारियों को पब्लिक से क्यों उम्मीद है कि वह बैंक के बेचने पर विचार करेगी और अपना दबाव सरकार पर डालेगी? जब बैंक वाले खुद नहीं कर रहे, तो पब्लिक बैंक की क्यों चिंता करेगी?

बैंक के सभी कर्मचारियों को अपने-अपने व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में जाकर पुराने मैसेज देखने चाहिए कि बैंकिंग सेक्टर के प्रबुद्ध लोग 2014 के बाद से किस तरह की बातें कर रहे थे। SIT के ज़रिए वोट काटे जा रहे हैं, लोगों के वोट के अधिकार छीन लिए गए — क्या इस पर उनके व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में कुछ आर्टिकल शेयर किए गए हैं? बैंक तो चला गया, अब आत्ममंथन करने का ही रास्ता बचा है।

लोकतंत्र और विरोध का दमन

यह सवाल बहुत ज़रूरी है — जिस देश में Gen Z को जंतर-मंतर पर प्रदर्शन करने नहीं दिया जाता, आशुतोष रांका, सौरव दास और नेहा बोरा को जंतर-मंतर नहीं जाने दिया गया, नेता प्रतिपक्ष राहुल गांधी को जंतर-मंतर नहीं जाने दिया गया, 300 सांसदों को नहीं जाने दिया गया, उस देश में बैंक के मैनेजर, अधिकारी, कर्मचारी अगर लाउडस्पीकर लेकर मोहल्ले में निकलेंगे, लोगों को जागरूक करने, तो क्या उन्हें करने दिया जाएगा? अगर नहीं, तो उन्हें लौटकर अपने ब्रांच में इस पर विचार करना चाहिए कि इस देश को यहाँ तक लाने में उनका कितना योगदान रहा है।

समाजवादी पार्टी के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष अखिलेश यादव ने ट्विटर पर लिखा है कि बस अब सरकार बेचनी बाकी है। लगता है भाजपा सरकार ने अपनी दुकान बंद होते देख सीज़न एंड सेल लगा कर सब बेचकर निकलने का प्रोग्राम बना लिया है। All India Bank Employee Association ने लिखा कि वे IDBI बैंक के निजीकरण और विदेशीकरण के खिलाफ़ हैं और इसे वापस लेने की मांग करते हैं। लेकिन वित्त मंत्री निर्मला सीतारमण ने जवाब दिया कि UPA ने बैंकों की हालत खराब की। सवाल यह है कि जब मोदी सरकार ने बैंकों को संकट से उबारा, तब बेचने की स्थिति क्यों आ रही है? क्या निर्मला सीतारमण ने यह कहा कि 2004 में BJP की सरकार ने आश्वासन दिया था कि IDBI में सरकार की हिस्सेदारी 51 प्रतिशत से कम नहीं होगी?

क्या किया जाना चाहिए

एक बैंक का निजीकरण क्यों ग़लत है? सरकारी बैंक के कर्मचारियों को हर जगह जनता को बताने के लिए वर्कशॉप लगाना चाहिए। जहाँ-जहाँ उनके ब्रांच हैं, हड़ताल के दिन कार्यशालाओं का आयोजन करना चाहिए, पैम्फ़लेट बाँटना चाहिए, जनता को जागरूक करना चाहिए। लेकिन पहले उन्हें देख लेना होगा कि क्या ऐसा करने दिया जाएगा।

12 करोड़ निवेशकों का पैसा पिछले तीन-चार साल से घाटे में जा रहा है। कई सौ कंपनियों के रिटर्न नेगेटिव में हैं। SIP घाटे में है। जनता को समझ ही नहीं आ रहा कि उसके साथ हो क्या रहा है, उसका पैसा जा कहाँ रहा है। बैंक और एयरपोर्ट को निजी हाथों में बेचने, या किसी कॉलेज या यूनिवर्सिटी को निजी हाथों में बेच देने का खेल इतनी आसानी से समझ नहीं आता।

इसलिए कर्मचारियों को चाहिए कि वे अपने व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में जाकर पुराने मैसेज देखें। जब जनजी को जंतर-मंतर पर प्रदर्शन करने से रोका जा रहा था, तब वे अपनी फैमिली और ऑफ़िस के व्हाट्सएप ग्रुप में क्या लिख रहे थे? समर्थन कर रहे थे या आलोचना? यह बात पहले देख लेनी चाहिए, और तब बैंक के मैनेजर, कर्मचारी लाउडस्पीकर लेकर मोहल्ले में निकलें, लोगों को जागरूक करें।

आलोचनाएँ

मोदी सरकार द्वारा मुनाफ़े में चल रहे सार्वजनिक क्षेत्र के बैंक IDBI को विदेशी कंपनी के हाथों बेचा गया।

सरकार के आधिकारिक प्रचार माध्यमों द्वारा बैंक के घाटे का पुराना आँकड़ा पेश कर जनता को गुमराह किया गया, जबकि 2020 के बाद का लगातार मुनाफ़ा छिपाया गया।

LIC के रूप में जनता के धन से घाटे में चल रहे बैंक को उबारा गया, और उसके लाभ में आते ही उसे निजी हाथों में सौंप दिया गया।

भाजपा के पूर्व वित्त मंत्री द्वारा संसद में दिए गए आश्वासन को भाजपा सरकार द्वारा ही तोड़ा गया।

सरकार द्वारा बैंक के शेयर का मूल्य एक वर्ष पहले के 94.42 रुपए से घटाकर 81 रुपए कर दिया गया, जिससे सार्वजनिक संपत्ति की सस्ती बिक्री हुई।

सरकार द्वारा बैंकों में विदेशी निवेश की सीमा 20 प्रतिशत से बढ़ाकर 49 प्रतिशत करने पर विचार किया जा रहा है, जिससे भारतीय बैंकिंग सेक्टर का विदेशीकरण होगा।

केंद्र सरकार द्वारा 9,500 से अधिक SC, ST और OBC कर्मचारियों के आरक्षण की सुरक्षा को बिक्री के बाद समाप्त किए जाने का मार्ग प्रशस्त किया गया।

सरकार द्वारा लोकतांत्रिक विरोध को दबाया गया — जंतर-मंतर पर प्रदर्शन करने से आम नागरिकों, पत्रकारों और विपक्षी नेताओं को रोका गया।

बिज़नेस अख़बारों द्वारा सरकारी संपत्तियों की हर बिक्री को बिना आलोचनात्मक विश्लेषण के सफल क़दम बताया गया, जबकि जनता के पैसे पर उद्योगपतियों के नियंत्रण की प्रक्रिया को सामान्य बना दिया गया।

बैंक कर्मचारियों द्वारा अपने व्हाट्सएप समूहों में आर्थिक मुद्दों की बजाय सांप्रदायिक और विभाजनकारी विषयों को बढ़ावा दिया गया, जिससे सार्वजनिक संपत्तियों की बिक्री के ख़िलाफ़ एकजुट आवाज़ नहीं उठ सकी।

सरकार द्वारा NPA के नाम पर हज़ारों करोड़ रुपए के लोन डिफ़ॉल्ट करने वाले बड़े कॉर्पोरेट घरानों को संरक्षण दिया गया, जबकि आम कर्ज़दारों को कठोर वसूली प्रक्रिया से गुज़रना पड़ा।

मोदी सरकार द्वारा सार्वजनिक उपक्रमों — बैंक, एयरपोर्ट, संस्थान — को व्यवस्थित रूप से बेचने का पैटर्न अपनाया गया है, जिसमें जनता पैसे लगाती है और मुनाफ़ा निजी हाथ ले जाते हैं।

सरकार द्वारा यह दावा किया गया कि बैंक को बचाने के लिए जनता का पैसा लगाना ज़रूरी था, लेकिन जब बैंक मुनाफ़े में आया तो उसी जनता से उसके लाभ का हक़ छीनकर विदेशी निवेशकों को दे दिया गया।

यह कहानी सिर्फ़ IDBI की नहीं है। यह इस सवाल की कहानी है कि इस देश की जनता की कमाई से बनी संपत्तियाँ आख़िर किसके लिए हैं — जनता के लिए या उनके नाम पर मुनाफ़ा कमाने वालों के लिए।

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The Friend That Was Sold: IDBI, Public Money, and the Government's Sell-off

Namaskar. IDBI carried a slogan: "Bank aisa dost jaisa." A bank like a friend. Today that friend is being auctioned. The people who kept that friend alive, the employees of IDBI, are going on strike on 2 and 3 November. They need friends. But the government that once called this bank a strategic public institution is not listening. It has sold the controlling stake to Canada's Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited for Rs 52,878 crore. Around 61 percent of the bank is gone, pending the Reserve Bank of India's approval. The government will keep a 15 percent minority share, which it can sell later on the open market.

The Official Story and the Missing Years

The official press release from PIB said that the bank was running in loss and needed government help. That is not a lie, but it is a half-truth. The government injected about Rs 25,000 crore between 2010 and 2020. Why? So that one day the bank could become profitable. That day came. After 2020, the bank started earning. Yet the official story stops at 2020. It does not tell you that in FY2025 the profit was Rs 7,515 crore, and in FY2026 it was Rs 9,513 crore, a jump of 27 percent. It does not tell you that in the last six years the bank earned more than Rs 30,000 crore in profit. Why is the story told only up to 2020? Because after 2020 the truth becomes inconvenient.

IDBI: The official story versus the financial record

Indicator	Data	What it shows
Government support, 2010 to 2020	Rs 25,000 crore	Public capital used to clean the bank
Net profit, FY2025	Rs 7,515 crore	Bank was already profitable
Net profit, FY2026	Rs 9,513 crore	27 percent growth year-on-year
Cumulative profit, last 6 years	Over Rs 30,000 crore	Turnaround complete
Total deposits	Rs 3.46 trillion	Up 12 percent in one year
Total business, 30 September	Rs 6.26 trillion	Up 18 percent in one year
Share sale price	Rs 81 per share	Below the earlier benchmark of Rs 94.42

The bank's total deposits reached Rs 3.46 trillion, up 12 percent in one year. Its total business crossed Rs 6.26 trillion by 30 September, up 18 percent. This is not a sick bank. It is a repaired bank. It was repaired with public money, and now it has been sold.

Look at the land. A retired secretary in the Government of India wrote that IDBI has more than 50 acres of prime land in Hyderabad, valued at around Rs 269 crore per acre. That parcel alone is worth Rs 13,450 crore. Across cities, the bank's land holdings may be worth more than Rs 50,000 crore. The share was sold at Rs 81. A year earlier, a benchmark of Rs 94.42 was reported. When the buyer is chosen, the price drops.

A Short History of Public Risk, Private Reward

IDBI was not born yesterday. Established in 1964 to finance Indian industry, it was nationalised in 1976. In 2004, when the bank's status was changed to a commercial bank, the then finance minister Jaswant Singh of the BJP assured both houses of Parliament that the government's equity in IDBI would never fall below 51 percent. That promise has now been quietly thrown away.

Devidas Tuljapurkar, convener of the United Forum of IDBI officers and employees, wrote in The Wire that the bank is being gifted to the private sector after the public took the risk. The bank's NPAs grew because of corporate loans. IDBI was used to rescue sinking companies. TCA Sharad Raghavan has written in detail about how IDBI was made to lend to companies that failed later: Kingfisher Airlines, Winsome Diamonds, Videocon Group, and others. In 2006, IDBI was pushed to buy United Western Bank to save it. The bank also helped build the National Stock Exchange, NSDL, and Stock Holding Corporation of India. Its loans went bad because big borrowers did not repay. In the last ten years, the system has written off about Rs 16 lakh crore in non-performing assets. But the small borrower who delays a two-minute EMI is chased to their door.

In 2018, LIC, which is public money from crores of Indians, bought 51 percent of IDBI for Rs 21,624 crore. Management control still remained with the government. At that time, V Sridhar wrote in Frontline that the process of privatisation of strategic sectors had begun. In 2026, that warning has materialised.

What Is Sold Along With the Bank

IDBI runs Jan Dhan accounts, Jeevan Jyoti Bima, Suraksha Bima, Atal Pension Yojana, MUDRA loans, PM SVANidhi for street vendors, and PM-KISAN accounts. The bank carries government schemes into villages and small towns. Once privatised, these public welfare works become an expense line for a private company.

The bank has over 19,000 employees; about 9,500 belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. With privatisation, reservation safeguards and service protections are put at risk. DIPAM Secretary Arunish Chawla has given verbal assurances that pension and service conditions will not change. He has not given written guarantees. CPI(M) leader John Brittas wrote to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in June that this is not just disinvestment; it is an attack on the social reservation safeguards of about 20,000 workers and their families. All India Bank Employees Association has opposed the sale. Akhilesh Yadav tweeted that the BJP has opened a season-end sale, selling everything before the shop shuts.

Media and the Next Targets

Business newspapers have already begun their familiar dance. When the government sells a public asset, business media celebrates. The deal is called fair. The buyer is called efficient. The social cost is never counted. The Indian government is considering raising the foreign investment limit in public sector banks from 20 percent to 49 percent. NITI Aayog has reportedly selected Central Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank as the next in line for sale.

The playbook is clear: first, let a public institution fall sick because of corporate defaulters; second, use public money to cure it; third, sell it to private buyers once it starts earning. This was done with airports too. Public money built airports where there was no traffic. Later, when flights became fewer, private companies were invited to run them. Why is the private company not asked to build the airport from the beginning with its own money? Because the profit comes after the public takes the risk.

A Question for the Employees

But I have a question for bank employees. The bank officials and staff understand economic matters. After 2014, what was discussed in their WhatsApp groups? Were articles shared about the economy, about disinvestment, about electoral bonds? Or were temple-mosque memes and anti-Muslim politics circulated? Was Rahul Gandhi called "Pappu" for entertainment? When students were stopped from protesting at Jantar Mantar, when 300 MPs were not allowed to reach Jantar Mantar, when Rahul Gandhi and Ashutosh Rana, Saurav Das, and Neha Bora were blocked, what did bank employees write in their family and office groups? Did they support it or criticise it?

If the bank's own employees kept quiet on the economy when it did not affect them directly, how can they expect the public to defend their bank now? Before taking out loudspeakers in the streets to raise public awareness, they should first open their own WhatsApp groups and see their old messages. The bank is gone. What remains is self-examination.

Criticisms

1. A bank that earned over Rs 30,000 crore profit in six years is sold by the Indian government to a Canadian financial company at Rs 81 per share, below the price earlier cited.

2. Public money is injected into a bank through budgetary support and LIC, and after the turnaround the profits are transferred by the government to private hands.

3. The PIB's press release gives the loss figure before 2020, but the post-2020 profit is not disclosed with equal prominence by the government.

4. A promise made in Parliament by the then BJP finance minister that government equity in IDBI would never fall below 51 percent is broken by the same political party.

5. Reservation safeguards and service conditions of over 19,000 employees, including about 9,500 SC, ST and OBC workers, are put at risk by privatisation.

6. Welfare schemes run by IDBI for the poor and rural people, such as Jan Dhan, MUDRA, PM SVANidhi and PM-KISAN, are endangered by the sale.

7. A network of public assets built with taxpayer money, including airports, is handed to private players by the government after the public has borne the risk.

8. The success of the sale is celebrated by business newspapers without a serious investigation of the valuation, the social cost, or the history of public rescue.

9. The workers' demand for written guarantees on pension and service conditions is not met by the government; instead, the opposition is blamed by the finance minister.

10. Public attention is diverted by communal and personality-based politics while the government executes economic decisions that reduce public ownership.

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Mumbai Fills Shivaji Park, Delhi Turns Jantar Mantar into a Police Exhibition

Namaskar. On Gandhi Jayanti, two cities held up a mirror. In Delhi, the police outnumbered the public at Jantar Mantar. In Mumbai, the public filled Shivaji Park so completely that the police, despite being deployed in massive numbers, looked like an occupying force on the margins. The message was not subtle. If Delhi has Jantar Mantar, Mumbai has Shivaji Park. And the young people who were written off after earlier agitations have not gone home. They have come back with a sharper question: who is stealing the voter list?

Two Protests, Two Police Responses

Abhijeet Deepke had asked Mumbai to reach Shivaji Park by 4 pm. The people did not disappoint. Despite no official permission, crowds gathered in enormous numbers. Film personalities, including Naseeruddin Shah, lent their presence. One speaker at the rally reminded the crowd that dictatorship ends only when the public itself steps out. No one will come to save you, he said. The public must come out. The public did.

The contrast with Delhi was deliberate. In Delhi, the police were everywhere. Barricades, heavy police vehicles, varied uniforms. An Emergency Response and Mobile Surveillance Control and Command Centre was parked at the venue. Riot intervention vehicles stood ready. Cameras were mounted for surveillance and control. Yet the public kept coming. People gave peaceful arrests. They sat down in front of the police and made the massive deployment look useless. The public watched the police as if watching a spectacle. Security forces suffered in the heat wearing heavy gear, while the public simply looked on, wondering why all this was done for them.

From the stage at Shivaji Park came a shout of salute to the Mumbai Police. It was not because the Mumbai Police had granted permission. Permission had been denied. It was because Mumbai did not turn the protest into a battlefield. The comparison with Delhi was explicit. Delhi Police officers Sachin Sharma and Amit Shankar were named from the stage by speakers who accused them of violence against protesters and even small children. A speaker warned that if the government continued, so many people would come from across the country that the barricades would be buried.

The government had thought it could protect Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar by flooding Delhi with police. But the story got bigger than the police. The public in Delhi was fewer, the police were more. And still the protest did not die.

Gen Z Has Not Gone Home

Those who believed that the youth had retreated after their earlier agitations over education and governance issues were proven wrong on October 2. The Mumbai crowd was young, large, and politically alert. The protest was not a party event. It was civic anger. The youth understand that their country has been handed to people who worked against the Constitution. And they understand this not only in Delhi but also in Mumbai.

In June and July, the participation of Mumbai's Gen Z in protests had already been strong. At that time, many dismissed them as a passing trend. Two months later, the same young people have become a force the government no longer knows how to handle. The ruling establishment was forced to talk to these so-called cockroaches. It was forced to accept their conditions. The very people whom government supporters called part of a foreign conspiracy are now setting the national agenda.

The Arithmetic of Deletion

The anger is not without reason. The numbers coming out of Maharashtra are staggering. The draft Special Summary Revision, or SSR, was published on August 31. Before the SSR, Maharashtra had around 9.80 crore voters. After the draft list, 21.14 per cent of them were removed. In absolute terms, 2.07 crore voters were cut. These were voters who had cast their ballots in the April-May 2024 Lok Sabha election and again in the November 2024 Maharashtra assembly election. Now their names are gone.

Here is what the deletion looks like in numbers:

Indicator	Figure
Voters in Maharashtra before SSR	Approximately 9.80 crore
Names deleted	2.07 crore
Percentage deleted	21.14 per cent
Assembly seats with over 40 per cent deletion	25
Assembly seats with over 33 per cent deletion	58
Deletions in Pune alone	17.8 lakh
Deletions in Kalyan Rural assembly constituency	2.5 lakh
Deletions attributed to shifted or absent category in 85 constituencies	75 to 96 per cent

These are not small technical corrections. In a single assembly seat, Kalyan Rural in Thane, 2.5 lakh voters were removed. For every 100 deletions, 96 were categorized as shifted or absent. Where did they shift? To the moon? Are villages suddenly becoming employment hubs? Is India witnessing reverse migration from cities to villages? The Election Commission has not answered any of this.

The pattern raises a fundamental question. Rahul Gandhi had pointed out after the Maharashtra assembly results that around 40 lakh voters were added between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections of 2024, and that the BJP gained exactly in those seats. His question was simple: how can 40 lakh voters be added in a matter of months? The longer comparison is even stranger. Between the 2019 and 2024 assembly elections, 32 lakh voters were added. But between the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the 2024 assembly election, around 39 lakh voters were added in five months. That is almost the population of Himachal Pradesh dropped into Maharashtra's rolls between two elections.

Who are these additional voters? Where were they? Where did they come from? No answer has been given. And now, after the SSR, more than 2 crore names have been removed. Uttar Pradesh, the largest state by voter count, did not see deletions on this scale. Delhi, Maharashtra, and Karnataka combined do not have as many voters as Uttar Pradesh, yet Maharashtra alone erased more than 2 crore names. This is not a routine cleanup. This is a surgical removal of voters from urban areas.

The Referee Was Selected by One Team

The man at the centre of this storm is Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. At Shivaji Park, posters called him a cockroach and said Gyanu Must Go. The protesters call him Gyanu. The contempt is not personal. It is institutional.

His appointment itself was made after the Modi government passed a law in December 2023 that removed the Chief Justice of India from the panel selecting election commissioners. The referee was selected by one team. Now the same referee is presiding over a list that has cut 2.07 crore voters in one state. A speaker at the rally said that if going to jail can restore the votes of 13 crore people and bring accountability, then they are ready to go to jail. That is the mood on the street.

The demands are clear. The SSR must be scrapped. Upcoming elections must be held on the basis of the old voter list. The appointment process of election commissioners must be changed. The Chief Justice of India must be brought back into the selection panel. The process must be made transparent so that the government does not hold the upper hand.

The government could have avoided all this. Gyanesh Kumar could have held a press conference and answered a dozen journalists. That would have been cheaper and more democratic. Instead, the government chose thousands of police officers in heavy gear. A press conference would have been a sign of accountability. This government does not do accountability. It does spectacle.

Political Parties and Civil Society

The Delhi protest was joined by political parties. Congress, CPM, CPI, CPIML, and the Aam Aadmi Party took part. Yogendra Yadav, Sanjay Singh, Manoj, and Neha Bora were detained. Neha Bora was detained multiple times, but she kept returning to Jantar Mantar. Brinda Karat, at her age, was still on the streets, still fighting on public issues. That is both a strength and a warning for the movement.

The ruling party would like this movement to be branded as a party event. But the Mumbai crowd was beyond any single party. It was civic. It was young. It was angry. The Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray supported the Mumbai protest. Aaditya Thackeray had been present at earlier protests. But the crowd was not there for any leader. It was there for the vote.

The media cameras were many at Shivaji Park. Yet the coverage often treats such crowds as law and order problems. When the government deploys thousands of police against its own citizens, that should be the headline, not the size of the crowd.

This Is Only the Beginning

The Mumbai protest started from Gate Number 6 of Shivaji Park. The appeal from the stage was repeated again and again: join tomorrow's protest in maximum numbers. This is a movement to save democracy. The youth have made their point. The political parties have not yet held their full protest. The government has been put on notice.

On Gandhi Jayanti, the public looked at the police spectacle and refused to be afraid. The police outnumbered the public in Delhi, but the public won the moral argument. In Mumbai, the police simply could not match the public. The people filled Shivaji Park and sent a message: the vote is not a small matter. The voter list is not a technical file. It is the foundation of democracy. And if you touch that foundation, the public will come out. From Mumbai. From Delhi. From everywhere.

Criticisms

The following criticisms are recorded:

• It has been observed that the office of the Chief Election Commissioner was brought under political control through a legislative change that removed the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel.
• It has been noted that 2.07 crore voter names were deleted from Maharashtra's electoral rolls without adequate public justification.
• It has been argued that the category of shifted or absent was used to remove urban voters at an extraordinary scale.
• It has been alleged that voter additions between the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Maharashtra favoured the ruling party disproportionately.
• It has been reported that peaceful protesters in Delhi were detained in large numbers while police deployment exceeded public participation.
• It has been documented that surveillance vans, command centres, and riot intervention vehicles were positioned at Shivaji Park and Jantar Mantar as a display of intimidation.
• It has been claimed that two Delhi Police officers were named from the stage for acts of violence against protesters and children.
• It has been observed that the Election Commission's silence on the mass deletion of voters was interpreted as complicity by the protesting public.
• It has been suggested that the government chose police deployment over dialogue when confronted with demands for accountability.
• It has been said that the Chief Election Commissioner did not hold a press conference to answer journalists, even as thousands of police personnel were deployed in his defence.
• It has been noted that the term cockroach used by protesters reflected a deep public loss of trust in the office of the Election Commissioner.
• It has been argued that the safety of the vote itself is now in question, and that no democracy can survive such a loss of faith.

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The Unending Agony of India's Exam Warriors: From Ranchi to Raisina

An election is not the only place where a government’s credibility is tested. In India, the examination hall is a far more brutal courtroom. Here, the state stands directly accused by its youngest citizens, and the evidence—leaked papers, rigged OMR sheets, commissions that cannot conduct a single exam on time—is damning. The protests engulfing Ranchi are neither new nor local. They are a national indictment, a scream from the heart of a country where the very institutions meant to guarantee fair selection have become syndicates of loot. And as students gather at Jaipal Singh Stadium, braving lathis and hunger, the silence from New Delhi and the sudden noise of a fractured media expose a conspiracy of indifference that has ruined generations.

The Ranchi Protest: A Microcosm of Systemic Rot

For almost a fortnight, the youth of Jharkhand have been on the streets. They are not asking for a change in syllabus or a few grace marks. Their demands are foundational: that the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) and the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) be held accountable; that the chairpersons of these bodies be appointed with transparency; that the officials who played with their futures face criminal action. A student from Ranchi, Devendranath Mahto, has been on a hunger strike for three days—a picture of Shibu Soren in his hand, a tragic reminder that even a tribal icon’s party now stands accused of the same betrayal as its predecessors.

The facts are not opinion. In 2015, the JPSC advertised an examination. It was cancelled twice. For three years, only the preliminary exam could be held; the mains exam did not happen for four years. This was under a BJP government. In 2024, the Jharkhand Eligibility Test saw question papers not reach centres in Ranchi and Bokaro, and the printing was so abysmal that the papers were illegible. This happened under the Hemant Soren-led JMM-Congress government. Twenty-six years after the state’s formation, the commissions are still not capable of conducting a single examination without controversy. The government now rushes to form committees, to send ministers to talk, to arrest a few middlemen. But the network—the coaching mafia, the corrupt officials, the politicians who protect them—was allowed to grow precisely because no one in power wanted to dismantle it. The students’ rage is not spontaneous; it is accumulated poison.

The following table, assembled from media reports and testimony, captures just a sliver of the chaos:

Incident	Year	Details
JPSC examination cancelled twice	2015–2018	Only prelims conducted in three years; mains never held under BJP rule.
JSSC paper leak arrests	2024	Abhay Tiwari, a former TDP agency marketing manager, identified as mastermind; multiple coaching centres raided.
Jharkhand Eligibility Test fiasco	April 2024	Papers not delivered; unreadable printing; exams cancelled after large-scale protest.
OMR swapping racket busted	2024	Suman Saurabh allegedly scored 48 marks but was passed; CID raids linked to Patanjali Academy.

The government’s response? Threatening words, a committee, and a promise of a CBI probe that may never come. Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Kunal Sarangi tweeted that “all gangs and their masters will be found” and punished—a statement that conveniently forgets the party’s own history with the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, where backdoor doctor degrees were handed out like pamphlets. The Congress, in opposition, is no better. Rahul Gandhi holds rallies in Kota and Prayagraj, speaking of paper leaks and student despair. But his own party’s government in Jharkhand has presided over the same rot. The student is asked to choose between two sets of arsonists—one has already set the house on fire, the other is promising to burn it more “justly”.

The All-India Disease: Paper Leaks and the NTA’s Dubious Chief

Away from Ranchi, a larger, more sinister architecture of fraud has been erected by the central government. The National Testing Agency (NTA), created to streamline entrance exams, has become a byword for scandal. And at its helm sits a man whose career is a masterclass in how the RSS and BJP reward loyalty over competence. Pradeep Kumar Joshi—current chairman of the NTA—has spent two decades moving from one top post to another, trailing controversies like a shadow.

An investigation by The Indian Express, based on RTI documents cited by Milind Ghatwai, revealed that Joshi was appointed chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission in 2006 on the recommendation of the RSS’s kshetriya pracharak Vinod ji, who explicitly stated that Joshi was “not the president of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad”—a clear admission that ideological proximity, not merit, was the criterion. After five years in MP, he was made chairman of the Chhattisgarh PSC in 2011. From there, he went straight to the UPSC as a member for five years, and then became its chairman in August 2020. In 2023, he was placed at the head of the NTA. In his 20-year career, at least 13 major controversies are linked to his name, including paper leaks. Yet his rise has been uninterrupted.

The NEET-UG 2024 examination, conducted by the NTA for the first time, was marred by allegations of paper leaks and inflated marks. While students were on the streets in Delhi, the government and its Godi media remained silent. The Prime Minister’s Office, which never misses an opportunity to pose with exam warriors, had nothing to say about the agency it created. The entire architecture of competitive examinations has been reduced to a patronage network, and the chief of that network is promoted again and again. If this is not institutional corruption, what is?

The Two-Faced Media: Silencing Protests in Delhi, Amplifying in Opposition States

Nowhere is the cynicism of this government more visible than in the behaviour of the “Godi media”. When students protested at Jantar Mantar—in the heart of Modi’s Delhi—the same channels that will scream for hours about a temple or a cow vigilante buried the story. They called the protesters Chinese agents, Pakistani agents, anything to delegitimise a cry for employment. But the moment protests erupted in Ranchi, under a non-BJP government, cameras rushed in. Suddenly, every anchor was a messiah of the youth, every prime-time debate a courtroom for Hemant Soren. The switch is so mechanical that even a child can see the script.

These media houses receive hundreds of crores of rupees in government advertisements—money taken from the same taxpayers whose children are now being lathi-charged. They have hundreds of reporters, dozens of empty anchors, and not a single one was allowed to raise the students’ voice in Delhi. Instead, they run four people in boxes spouting nonsense from their bedrooms. Meanwhile, a lone YouTuber can do more factual coverage in a 15-minute video than an entire media empire does in a year. The government should, with immediate effect, stop all advertisement flow to these propaganda machines and redirect the funds to independent journalists who actually stand with the people. Let the prime-time bullies survive without the state’s crutch—they will not last a single evening.

The Larger Rot: Higher Education in the Hindi Belt

But there is a question no political party, no commission, and no coaching giant wants the students to ask: what about the colleges they came from? For years, the Hindi-speaking states have been subjected to a deliberate devaluation of higher education. In hundreds of districts, not a single college is functional. A handful of professors—retired, tired, or simply absent—guard empty corridors. The rest are busy doing “cultural” work: organising religious events, running abvp campaigns, stoking communal tensions. It is a brilliant diversion. A teacher who cannot step into a classroom to explain a basic concept can still pose as a guardian of Hinduism and escape all scrutiny. The student, already weak in language and logic, enters a coaching centre thinking 20 hours of memorisation will compensate for three years of rot. It does not.

For two decades, this destruction has been intentional. It did not happen by accident; it was brought. Brought by design, by a politics that finds it easier to rule over an uneducated, desperate populace that sees a Rs. 15,000 government job as the ultimate salvation. The students who are now marching did not ask for critical thinking; they were trained to crave a post, any post. And they will win their battle for fair exams—they must—but even if they do, they will walk into offices and classrooms with a hollowed-out intellect. The damage will take another twenty years to undo.

Criticisms

— The Prime Minister is observed to have never personally addressed the systematic failures of the NTA, the paper leak crisis, or the brazen political appointments in examination bodies.

— The central government is noted to have weaponized silence and misinformation during the Jantar Mantar student protests, while permitting aggressive coverage in opposition-ruled states.

— The Godi media is seen to have abandoned journalistic duty in exchange for hundreds of crores in taxpayer-funded advertisements, actively branding young protesters as anti-national elements.

— The BJP’s legacy of the Vyapam scam and the continued patronage of individuals like P.K. Joshi is regarded as a direct assault on meritocracy and social mobility.

— The Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand government is found to have procrastinated on dissolving both the JPSC and the JSSC despite years of evidence of their complete administrative failure.

— The Congress leadership is perceived as exploiting student anger for political rallies while failing to reform examination systems in its own states, thereby eroding the credibility of its demands.

— The RSS’s role in placing ideological loyalists in crucial institutional positions is identified as a primary reason for the collapse of impartiality in public service commissions across India.

— The higher education infrastructure in Hindi-speaking states is recognised as having been deliberately degraded by successive governments to produce a dependent, easily manipulated workforce rather than a thinking citizenry.

— The coaching mafia and the political class are believed to operate in symbiosis, with arrests made only as spectacle, never as structural correction.

— The entire competitive examination apparatus, from paper-setting to result declaration, is charged with being captured by networks of corruption that span multiple states and parties, leaving the ordinary student with no recourse but the street.

The Spectacle of Waste: When Development Grandeur Masks a Shrinking Economy and a Starved Education System

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The Spectacle of Waste: When Development Grandeur Masks a Shrinking Economy and a Starved Education System

In a country where net foreign direct investment (FDI) is plummeting, should crores of rupees be splurged on the inauguration of a single international airport? The question is not rhetorical—it is an audit of priorities. Yet, when the Bhogapuram International Airport in Andhra Pradesh was inaugurated with a lavish ceremony, the government did not disclose the expenditure. The media did not ask. Meanwhile, in the Rajya Sabha, the same government revealed that net FDI for 2025-26 hovers around a mere 6 billion dollars. In 2022-23, India’s net FDI stood at 27.99 billion dollars. By 2024-25, it had slumped to less than one billion dollars—a staggering 97 percent decline. But the grand spectacle of the inauguration would have us believe that India is swimming in so much wealth that it must be burned in such pageantry.

The Grand Illusion of the Bhogapuram Airport Inauguration

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s event in Andhra Pradesh, thousands of schoolgirls were assembled like a crowd, made to perform a traditional tribal dance, Timsa, to create a Guinness World Record. The ostensible celebration of cultural heritage came at a steep price—one the government has refused to quantify. Over 13,500 students in pink-and-green attire were organized into 433 groups, ferried in 3,000 buses, and made to rehearse endlessly. They waited for hours before the Prime Minister’s convoy passed. But what were the real costs? Was even a token amount paid to these girls? In 2023, Assam’s Bihu record event paid each participant Rs 25,000. That was announced proudly. Here, silence.

The expenditure did not end there. Before the main event, a practice session for 5,000 students was held in the presence of Andhra Pradesh’s Special Chief Secretary M.T. Krishna Babu and Collector Ram Sundar Reddy. That, too, cost money. No accounts were shared. The entire exercise was designed to cushion the political image of a leader at a time when young Indians are on the streets, under lathis, demanding a credible examination system and accountability from the Education Minister.

Guinness Record Mania: At What Cost?

The Guinness Book of World Records is a for-profit private company. To get a record certified, you pay a fee, invite their team, and stage the attempt. India’s government has become a repeat customer. For the Bihu record in Assam, the government later admitted through an RTI that it paid Rs 1.6 crore to Guinness. For the Jhumur dance of 8,888 tea garden workers in Guwahati in February 2025, similar costs were incurred. In Bhogapuram, the expenditure is still hidden. The Prime Minister’s YouTube channel shows a sanitized video—a van gliding past dancers, no public in sight, but party flags of BJP, TDP, and Jana Sena Party parked prominently on the vehicle. The Ashoka Stambha, which should be at the centre, was pushed to the side. State funds paid for a political brand-melding exercise.

The Guinness fixation extends even to ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’, where 3.53 crore registrations in a month were declared a world record. In a nation where an exam cannot be conducted without paper leaks and protests, the government chases a certification for collecting the most registrations—most of them likely from schools coerced into mass sign-ups. How much was paid to Guinness for that? That money could have funded scholarships for thousands of students. Instead, it was handed to a private entity in exchange for a certificate.

Education: The Sacrificial Lamb

While crores are poured into political mega-events, India’s education budget has been gutted. In 2013-14, education spending was 4.6% of the total budget. By 2025-26, it has fallen to just 2.5%. Over the past decade, more than 93,000 schools have been shut down or merged, and a shocking 2.25 crore children have dropped out. Yet the government finds no money to keep these children in classrooms. But it finds limitless resources to dress up students in coordinated costumes and parade them for a record that the Guinness company profits from.

Empty Airports and Vaporous Promises

The pattern goes beyond dance records. India has opened airports that remain dormant. Khajuraho’s airport recently received a top consumer satisfaction ranking. In July, that airport did not witness a single commercial flight—not one take-off or landing. It was a phantom award for a phantom facility.

The Kushinagar International Airport was inaugurated with great fanfare in October 2021, ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections. The project cost Rs 327 crore. Yet, since November 2023, the airport has been shut down. Ashok Upadhyay, through an RTI, revealed that maintenance costs of crores continue even when the airport is dead. Airports are built not where demand exists, but where electoral cycles demand a visual of progress. A real hospital or a functional college would serve the public, but that doesn't make for a photo-op with a Boeing in the background.

The Plunge of Net FDI: A Table of Decline

Financial Year	Net FDI (in billion USD)
2022-23	27.99
2024-25	Less than 1
2025-26 (early estimate)	Approx. 6

*Source: Rajya Sabha reply, government data. The 97% drop between 2022-23 and 2024-25 reflects not a global trend but a crisis of investor confidence.

Aesthetics of Power: How Spectacle Replaces Accountability

The political theorist Walter Benjamin wrote about the “aestheticization of politics”—turning governance into a grand, beautiful spectacle so that citizens, mesmerized, forget their own miseries. Fascism, he noted, thrives on such pageantry. When thousands gather and millions watch on screens, they see not their own poverty and despair but a larger-than-life projection of the leader. The event becomes a ritual in which the public, instead of being questioning citizens, become an audience to a grand show. Ram Mandir consecrations, massive Yoga Day extravaganzas, G20 summits in every corner, and record-dance assemblies all serve one purpose: to shift focus from crumbling schools, unaffordable healthcare, and jobless growth towards an intoxicating visual of national glory.

The government’s reply to every crisis is another record, another inauguration, another flood of official photographs. But the numbers tell the real story: FDI collapsing, children out of school, airports shut after a single political season. The “vikas” narrative is sustained not by material change but by sensory overload. The van moves slowly, the dancers move in sync, the cameras capture it all, and the public is told they are witnessing history. But history does not fill empty stomachs or reopened schools.

What the Public Is Not Told

The lack of transparency is deliberate. In Delhi, the BJP promised Rs 2,500 per month to women under the Mahila Samridhi Yojana. But the scheme came with a maze of conditions: a dedicated Program Management Unit, verification by district officers, a monitoring committee, a grievance redressal committee, exclusion for families with three children, for those consuming more than 2,400 units of electricity, and for households earning over Rs 2.5 lakh annually. So the woman struggling to make ends meet must navigate an obstacle course for a promise that was sold as a simple guarantee. Meanwhile, the same government spends unknown crores on one Prime Ministerial event after another, without a single question answered.

Criticisms

• Public funds were burned on a lavish airport inauguration while the country’s net FDI registered a historic collapse.
• Thousands of schoolgirls were forcibly assembled and made to practise for weeks, sacrificing their education to create a photo-op and a private Guinness record.
• Party flags were displayed on a state-funded vehicle during an official event, violating the neutrality of public expenditure.
• No accounts of the Bhogapuram event expenditure were provided to the public or the media.
• The education budget was systematically gutted, from 4.6% to 2.5% of the total budget, while colossal sums were diverted to cultural spectacles.
• More than 93,000 schools were closed or merged, and 2.25 crore children dropped out in a decade, but crores were spent on dance records.
• Crores of rupees were paid to the Guinness Book of World Records—a private for-profit company—for certifications that brought zero developmental value.
• Airports were inaugurated in Kushinagar and Khajuraho at enormous cost, then abandoned, with maintenance costs still draining the exchequer.
• The media’s failure to question the expenditure on these events was exploited to perpetuate the spectacle without accountability.
• A culture of political aestheticization was engineered, where grand ceremonies replaced genuine governance, and citizens were reduced to spectators of their own marginalization.
• The Prime Minister’s official YouTube channel was used to airbrush reality—showing a sanitized event devoid of the public, while the political branding was carefully staged.
• Repeated Guinness records were pursued using government machinery, while basic services like healthcare and education remained starved of funds.
• The state’s complicity in converting tribal and folk traditions into mass choreographed performances drained their cultural essence for political optics.
• Instead of addressing youth demands for a fair examination system, the regime spent public money on a “Pariksha Pe Charcha” registration record, mocking student struggles.

This is not governance. This is a carefully constructed theatre where the audience is supposed to clap while their own resources are incinerated. The question must not be what record was broken, but why the public is never allowed to see the bill. Because once the bill is seen, the illusion of development shatters, and what remains is a painful audit of priorities—one where a crores-strong dance ensemble mattered more than a single functional school.

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The Paper Leak Epidemic: Jharkhand's Unending Agony and India's Broken Exam System

On 28 January 2024, the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) was set to conduct its examination. Three hours before the third shift, the General Studies paper for 50% of the candidates was abruptly cancelled. That exam was later re-conducted, but doubts never vanished. In December 2025, results were announced, and within days, successful candidates were issued joining letters. Yet, the embers of protest were already glowing. The anger of the youth, simmering since that hurried joining in late 2025, exploded when the results of the 14th JPSC examination were declared on 2 July. Within 48 hours, allegations of massive irregularities spread, and students took to the streets demanding that not only the latest results but all appointments stemming from the January 2024 exam be scrapped.

The agitation in Jharkhand is not a sudden outburst. It is the logical culmination of a system where merit has been replaced by money, fairness by fraud. And the response of the government — led by Hemant Soren — reveals a deep disconnect between those who rule and those who dream.

The Chronology of Betrayal

On 28 January 2024, the paper was cancelled because of a leak. The re-test was ordered, but questions about its integrity surfaced immediately. Despite this, results were declared in December 2025, and candidates were appointed. Students say that even before the ink dried on their joining letters, they had evidence of foul play. When the 14th JPSC result came on 2 July, OMR sheets of several candidates were leaked online. The data showed that candidates with lower scores had secured jobs while deserving ones were shut out. The demand swelled: cancel the 11th, 13th, and 14th JPSC examinations, and conduct a fresh, fair process.

The government took notice only after the protests grew. A high-level committee was formed, but the students refused to meet behind closed doors. “We will not talk in a closed room,” they declared. “The government must come to us, in the open, with the media present.” This stance mirrors the Jantar Mantar protests of NEET-UG aspirants, where the central government refused to face students publicly. The bargaining power of the youth now hinges on this public confrontation — a strategy that underscores the deep trust deficit.

The Demands: Cancel, Investigate, Rebuild

The students’ charter is clear:

• Cancel the results of the 11th, 13th, and 14th JPSC examinations.
• Annul all appointments made from the December 2025 result.
• Conduct an independent, transparent investigation into the entire examination process.
• Ensure that the probe extends to the assets of all officials linked to the JPSC, Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC), and the private agency TDPL that has been repeatedly accused of irregularities.

To understand why these demands are not excessive but urgent, one must look at the history of competitive examinations in Jharkhand. Since the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000, there has not been a single JPSC or JSSC examination that has not been mired in allegations of cheating. Not one. The system is so deeply corrupted that a clean recruitment drive seems an impossibility.

The Government’s Response: Too Little, Too Late

When the protests escalated, the Hemant Soren government sent SDMs and ADMs to the protest site, offering a five-member team to meet at the Chief Minister’s residence. But the students refused. They insisted on an open dialogue. The government eventually formed a committee, but the youth remain unconvinced. Their fear is legitimate: closed-door negotiations can easily turn into a whitewash.

Hemant Soren has claimed that the state’s CID has acted swiftly — 18 people arrested, documents seized, and key conspirators identified. He believes this should restore trust. But the students have ample reason to doubt. The CID is a state agency, and in Jharkhand, political interference in investigations is an open secret. Moreover, the central agencies that might have offered hope — the CBI and the ED — have their own credibility crises. The CBI’s conviction rate in paper leak cases is abysmal; the ED’s selective targeting of opposition leaders has made it a political weapon, not an impartial arbiter.

The Vyapam Precedent and the Supreme Court’s Sword

The students’ demand for cancellation finds strong legal backing. In the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court cancelled the degrees of over 600 medical students who had reached the final year of their MBBS. Admissions taken, exams passed over several years — everything was declared void because the foundation was fraudulent. If the apex court could do that, why can’t the Jharkhand government annul appointments based on demonstrably tainted examinations? The answer lies in political will, not legal hurdle.

The irony is that the Jharkhand High Court, in an unrelated case, had strongly indicted the ED for arresting Hemant Soren without solid grounds. The ED lost that case in the Supreme Court too. Yet the same Hemant Soren, when faced with student anger, has not shown the same resolve to uproot the examination mafia that his own government’s agencies are supposed to control.

A Nationwide Cancer: The Paper Leak Industry

The Jharkhand agitation cannot be viewed in isolation. India is witnessing a terrifying surge in examination frauds. A PTI report reveals that the CBI has over 150 cases related to recruitment exam irregularities — investigations are complete in most, but trials have not even begun. Some cases are 20 years old. The CBI is now trying to move these to fast-track courts, but the damage is already done. The faith of the young has been crushed.

The 2024 NEET-UG paper leak case is a glaring example. The main accused, Sanjeev Mukhiya, was discharged by a court because the CBI found no evidence against him. The ED, which arrested Hemant Soren in a money-laundering case, was itself pulled up by the Supreme Court for frivolous arrests of opposition leaders. The investigating agencies that students are supposed to rely upon are either handcuffed or complicit. In such a scenario, the demand for an independent probe becomes a cry into the void.

The Anatomy of a Cheating Cartel

The CID’s raids have thrown up chilling details. In Jharkhand, post-dated cheques worth Rs 6 crore were recovered from the houses of Lalu Yadav and Pradeep Yadav of Hazaribagh. These cheques were signed by different individuals — likely candidates or their relatives — revealing a pay-after-success racket. The CID also found admit cards of constable recruitment exams and carbon copies of candidates’ OMR sheets at the residence of Santosh Kumar Singh in Palamu. The suspicion is that candidates who could not pay cash were forced to part with land documents as collateral.

The private firm TDPL is at the heart of this network. Blacklisted by the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission in May 2025, the company was re-engaged to conduct examinations. That re-appointment itself stinks of a deep nexus. The case of Abhay Tiwari is even more instructive. The CID claims that Tiwari, between 2013 and 2024, passed over 12 competitive examinations, including those of Jharkhand and the Centre. In every exam where Tiwari succeeded, TDPL was involved in some capacity. That is not coincidence; it is a meticulously managed, exam-clearing formula for sale.

A similar pattern emerged in the NEET-UG case. Dinesh Binwal, his brother Mangilal Binwal, and Mangilal’s son Vikas were arrested. Of the five arrested by the CBI, three belonged to the same family — a family whose five children had cleared NEET-UG in the previous year. Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra had tweeted the names and asked uncomfortable questions about where these children were studying. The answers are still buried.

The Political Calculus and the Media’s Silence

On the protest stage at Jantar Mantar, several political parties sent leaders, but the ruling BJP in Jharkhand exerted no real pressure on the state government. Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan never once engaged with NEET aspirants. The NTA chief, despite the paper leak, did not resign; he did not even accept moral responsibility. In contrast, the JPSC Chairman, E. Khizangte, stepped down on 22 July after CID raids at his home and office. That resignation, however, is little solace to students who have lost years of their lives.

The students in Jharkhand have displayed remarkable discipline. They have consciously kept political, religious, and caste symbols off the stage. They have banned personal attacks on individuals and maintained a sharp focus on systemic reform. This is a movement led by young people who understand that their power lies in their unity, not in the patronage of any party.

Data Points: The Scale of Contamination

Aspect	Detail
Exams passed by Abhay Tiwari (2013-2024)	More than 12 (state and central)
Post-dated cheques recovered	Rs 6 crore (number of cheques undisclosed)
CBI cases on recruitment fraud	150+ (investigations complete, trials pending)
Oldest pending CBI paper leak case	20 years
NEET UG 2024 arrested family members	3 out of 5 accused from one family; 5 family children passed NEET
JPSC examinations since state formation without corruption charges	None

The Road Ahead: A Republic Without Fair Exams?

Every country’s examination system carries a certain prestige. India’s used to. Today, it is a market. The youth are not just protesting a leak; they are questioning the very legitimacy of a state that cannot hold a single honest test. The Jharkhand government must accept that no closed-door committee will placate the anger. The central government must ensure that the CBI is empowered to deliver swift justice, not just file chargesheets. The political class must understand that using agencies like the ED to harass opponents while ignoring exam mafias is a recipe for social explosion.

The students have said it plainly: “We do not care about any party. Come and support us, understand our pain.” Their agony is not partisan. It is the agony of a nation that has told its young: work hard, and you will rise. But when the results come, the seats are already sold. The paper has leaked, and so has the dream.

Criticisms

• A transparent dialogue with protesting students in an open forum is consistently avoided by the government.
• The moral responsibility of resigning upon witnessing a paper leak is not accepted by senior bureaucratic officials in central agencies.
• Blacklisted private firms are re-hired for conducting competitive examinations, with no explanation provided.
• The ED is utilized as a political instrument to target opposition leaders rather than as an impartial investigative body.
• Fast-track trials in paper leak cases are not completed, and delay in justice is perpetuated.
• The credibility of the CBI is eroded by repeated failure to secure convictions in recruitment fraud cases.
• The Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand is allowed to project the CID’s actions as sufficient while systemic rot remains unaddressed.
• The network of post-dated cheques and land documents as collateral is not investigated with the urgency it demands.
• Political parties are observed to treat student movements as vote banks rather than engaging with the core issue of examination integrity.
• The NTA’s flawed examination processes are not overhauled despite repeated national-level leaks.
• A uniform national law to punish exam cheating with stringent action is not enacted by Parliament.