Secret wealth abroad
Switzerland
has been accused of giving shelter to
black money
and
there has been a lot of inflow
of such wealth from India and other countries of the world."
This is not L K Advani,
on election mode,
speaking last Sunday,
but
the Swiss ambassador to India
briefing the media in Delhi last year.
The occasion was the
60th anniversary
of Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty.
Admitting that Indian black money
gets hoarded in his country,
he added that
the new law in Switzerland would,
not stop it,
but
control it
"up to a certain limit".
The Swiss diplomat authentically answers
the first of the FAQs, that is,
whether a lot of Indian money is really
stashed away in Swiss banks.
Swiss banks
are not the only secret destination.
There are 37 such shelters in the world,
says US Inland Revenue.
The secret owners of the secreted
monies operate in secrecy
— venal businessmen, corrupt politicians,
public servants, drug lords,
and criminal gangs like the D-company.
The slush monies are the
financial RDX for terror,
besides weapons of mass destruction of
national and global finance.
That there is secret money is no more a secret.
Only the amounts and persons are secret.
But
how much of India's stolen wealth
could be stashed in Switzerland?
Specific estimates of this later.
Before that,
here is a sideshow,
but
a relevant one.
Illicit money
is the dirty outcome of modern capitalism.
But,
after 9/11,
the US realised that
not just the buccaneers in business,
but
Osama bin Laden
could also hide his funds in secret havens
and use them to bomb the world.
Campaigns against dirty money
as high security risk commenced
with the path-breaking research done
by Raymond W Baker,
a Harvard MBA and a Brookings scholar.
He published his research as a book
Capitalism's Achilles Heel:
Dirty Money and How to Renew
the Free- Market System.
The book was published in 2005.
This set off intense debate in the US
as the exposure linked dirty business
and dirty money with terror and national security.
Raymond Baker
had estimated, using authentic data,
tools and reasons, the dirty wealth secreted
in banks at $11.5 trillion to which,
he found,
one more trillion
was being added annually.
He added that in the process the
West was getting an annual bounty
of $500 billion from
the developing countries,
India included.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI),
a global watchdog headed by Baker
to curtail illicit money flows,
has recently brought out detailed
estimates of the black wealth hoarded
in secret havens from different countries.
GFI research shows that
during the period 2002 to 2006,
annually $27.3 billion
was stashed away from India,
making a total of
$137.5 billion
for the five-year period.
That is,
in just five years,
Indian wealth amounting to Rs 6.88 lakh crore
has been smuggled out of India.
This gives a clue as to how much
Indian money would have slipped out of India
in the last 62 years,
particularly during the
Nehruvian socialist regime
when the income tax (97.5 per cent)
and
wealth tax
(almost equal to the income
earned on investments)
together constituted double the income earned.
It is undisputed that
the Nehruvian socialist model
forced huge sums out of India.
So the amount of Indian black wealth
secreted away in the last 60 years
— estimated at
from $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore)
to
$1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore)
— does not seem to be wide off the mark.
Economists call it
flight of capital.
This is the people's money stolen from them.
See the consequence
even if part of it is brought back.
A portion of it would make India free
from all external debts
which is now over $220 billion;
India
will transform into an economic superpower;
some 10 or 15 Indian rupees
could buy a US dollar
which today 50 Indian rupees cannot;
a litre of petrol on our roadside would cost
Rs 15 or even less,
against today's 50 plus;
the cost of imports in rupee terms
would be down to a third or half;
India's entire infrastructure needs can be funded;
India will become so energy efficient
and costcompetitive that exporters may
need no sops at all; India will lend to
— not, as it does now, borrow from —
the world;
Indian housing can be funded
at affordable cost; rural poverty can be wiped out...
The list is endless.
But,
then,
is it possible to bring back
the secreted monies?
What are the roadblocks to such efforts?
Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship.
Dharmo Rakshati Rakshithaha
If you protect Dharma, Dharma will in turn protect you.
Hindus, If people slap you once, slap them twice!
Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Invite them now.
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