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Rise of postcolonial thuggery

COUNTERING the long history of savagery and malevolence, British historian Niall Ferguson offers the self-congratulatory argument in his book, Empire, that Britain bestowed upon the world the gifts of language, banking, liberalism and democracy, and that India, “the world’s largest democracy, owes more than it is fashionable to acknowledge to British rule”.

Rise of postcolonial thuggery

SAFETY NET: Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi, all have absconded to Britain.



Shelley Walia

COUNTERING the long history of savagery and malevolence, British historian Niall Ferguson offers the self-congratulatory argument in his book, Empire, that Britain bestowed upon the world the gifts of language, banking, liberalism and democracy, and that India, “the world’s largest democracy, owes more than it is fashionable to acknowledge to British rule”. Ironically, he may well have added to the list Britain’s current support to criminal fugitives by offering them a safe haven. It is not a coincidence that the recent crop of financial offenders — Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi — have absconded to Britain.

Britain succeeded in obtaining its maximum revenue from India through plunder and exploitation. Indian exports plummeted from 27 per cent to 2 per cent at the turn of the 19th century. The Indian shipping industry was demolished and Indian currency cleverly deployed while prices and procedures were manoeuvred for British profit. In his book, Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that “the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year”. This “has not only been a major factor in India’s impoverishment… it has also been a very significant factor in the industrial revolution in Britain”.

Britain continues to obtain economic gains through the one-trillion dollar money laundering that it permits by allowing economic offenders to nonchalantly continue residing in a land that still brags of being the mother of the parliamentary form of government and the idea of liberalism. Once a stable government, it now is living through a phase of excruciating humiliation with its weakened Prime Minister, a civil war in the ruling party, and Labour led by a staunch Left liberal. An established democracy once, it finds itself in a quagmire of unlawful deals with the hope that it might turn the economic tide in its favour. Remittances from India continue to flow into UK banks by way of the millions that the economic offenders rip off from their own country. The British affluence comes not only from the reprobates from abroad. The Paradise Papers exposed some 100 UK millionaires guilty of tax fudging through surreptitious offshore siphoning of wealth with government complicity. Astonishingly, the Queen and the Oxbridge endowment funds also find a place in the “honourable” list. 

According to Robert Seiler, an investment economist, “Unsurprisingly, the shadowy nature of Britain’s financial sector and well-developed infrastructure for avoiding taxes has made the City of London a key destination for foreign investors looking to do the same. Super-rich (and often corrupt) moneyed interests from around the world have flocked to make their homes in London, causing property prices to surge and driving anyone of more modest means out to the edges of town.” Investment in property in the UK thus has become an opportune mechanism to launder the ill-gotten wealth of overseas investors with no state measures as deterrence in place. Instead, the state has “laid out a welcome mat” to criminals like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, to name only two of at least 30 offenders who have been chased for years by the Directorate of Enforcement and the CBI.

Like a typical shopkeeper, Britain’s entrepreneurial deeds are underpinned merely by avarice and opportunism. Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation about its colonial subjects — “in their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward” — resounds in the secure residency that Britain now provides to its economic offenders. Sudhir Choudhrie, the middleman arms dealer accused of taking bribes from Rolls-Royce and for MiG contracts, is an unabashed donor of the Liberal Democrats and has been adequately recompensed with UK citizenship. Vijay Mallya, accused of money laundering and financial fraud to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore, has been in London for over two years now, living in luxurious comfort. His deportation still awaits a nod from the UK government. Lalit Modi is similarly accused of financial irregularities, and his extradition request remains pending. Orders for his permanent residency would arrive any day now. The list is endless with conspicuous names of notorious offenders like Nadeem Saifi, Ravi Shankaran and Tiger Han of enjoying their stay in the UK while the Indian Government waits hopelessly for their extradition. It appears that residency and citizenship are accessible to those who can invest a few million in Britain. This is outrageous. 

This expedient indulgence of the British government further blemishes the traditional romanticised accounts of colonial history. The inflated self-regard turns into hollow rhetoric of a nation that has sunk so low that the EU has derecognised most of its beaches for not keeping to the standard sanitary levels prescribed all over Europe. Over the past many years the world is witness to a litany of unequivocal ethical letdowns such as the cash-for-question row, the Hinduja and Ecclestone dealings, the BAE corruption probe, the cash-for-honours jaunt and the cash-for-amendments scandal. Russian money and commercial interests have turned London into a “crucible of Russian secret service and mafia activity” that unscrupulously eliminates those in disagreement with Kremlin. Add to this the humiliation of allowing itself to be a haven for the economic or anti-national offenders and the outrage against Britain gets exacerbated by the dodgy decline or delay by the UK government to accept the extradition requests of the Indian Government. If prima facie evidence has been provided, one wonders why such a delay.

The UK with its slack tax laws, and low tax rates, and promise of financial confidentiality, lures many offenders with easy incentives to unload their wealth into Britain, a nation steadily firming up as a tax haven. This at present is being looked upon by the EU as a deterrent to financial transparency that would emerge only out of willing exchange of banking information. Though Britain somewhere feels it is in a better position under the Brexit status to become a tax refuge, it does not realise that the EU now can enforce the anti-laundering directive more rigorously. 

However, if the Criminal Finance Act is enforced strictly in Britain, properties belonging to criminals could be instantaneously seized, a redeeming feature that could counter the label of Britain as a zone of escape for non-residents. The Serious Fraud Office, HM Revenue and Customs and other agencies can seek, through the judiciary, prosecution orders for both unaccounted possession of real estate and assets amounting to more than £1,00,000. Accounts can be frozen and expensive art impounded. A report from the Home Office says, “Land Registry figures show UK real estate worth more than £170 bn is held by more than 30,000 tax haven companies”. We have to see how serious enforcement agencies can be. Or is it again a part of British hypocrisy, and India must wait endlessly for Britain to relent?

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