DHFL Scam: Who are Gaining from Such Surgical Strike?

DHFL Scam: Who are Gaining from Such Surgical Strike?

Posted on 17th January, 2025 (GMT 17: 45 hrs)

ABSTRACT

The DHFL scam has caused massive financial losses for thousands of victims while benefiting select groups. Common citizens lost life savings, while influential business figures allegedly profited by acquiring assets cheaply by means of crony political connections. The healthcare sector and legal professionals gained from increased demand for services due to victims’ distress. Media outlets also capitalized on the scandal for coverage. The case raises concerns about systemic failures, lack of accountability, and the exploitation of financial crises for profit by powerful entities, calling for urgent reforms in regulatory oversight.

All those who are familiar with OBMA’s activities, should be well aware of the DHFL Scam by now. It is undoubtedly one of the big financial scams that post-independent India has ever witnessed. It has not only reveled the crony face of the contemporary ruling party along with its connections to the shadowy ambit of the “underworld”, but has also exposed the roles of vigilant agencies, rating agencies and regulatory authorities.

The purpose of this blog post is to identify all those agencies, institutions and/or persons, who are gaining or profiteering heavily from such financial scams. It is beyond the shred of doubt that the DHFL scam could have been prevented on time if and only if the concerned authorities were willing enough to do so, i.e., if they bothered to turn a hair when it was necessary.

So, let us begin our identification parade to see who are making merry at the cost of the other 99%’s unhappiness, suffering and misery. Note that India ranks 126th out of 143 countries in the World Happiness Index (World Happiness Report, 2024, United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network). We do remember the following in this context:

प्रजासुखे सुखं राज्ञ: प्रजानां च हिते हितम्‌ । नात्मप्रियं हितं राज्ञ: प्रजानां तु प्रियं हितम्‌ 

(“People’s happiness should be the King’s happiness. Welfare of people is the King’s welfare. For a king, there is no task which is only individualistic and pleasurable to him only. It is the King’s utmost duty to look after the progress and welfare of the people of his kingdom“; Kautilya, Arthasastra)

The Sangh Parivar, while advocating for “Ramarajya“—a vision markedly distinct from the Gandhian interpretation of the same—has nonetheless fallen short in addressing the fundamental needs and welfare of their praja (subjects).

A) First of all, the DHFL scam has affected lakhs of common Indian citizens, who have literally lost their life-savings due to the given manufactured bankruptcy. All these victims have been subjected to a state of systematic financial abuse, pointing towards the curtailment of their fundamental rights to life and liberty, including the access to the basic means of livelihood. Henceforth, these victims are suffering from various kinds of mental and physical conditions, further aggravated by the utter uncertainty with which the scam has confronted them over the course of the past 5 years. Thereby, they are taking their recourse to various medical treatments, which are benefiting the medical professionals/healthcare providers (especially psychiatrists and cardiologists) and pharmaceutical companies in running their businesses. This is the reason why Gandhi condemned the business of Doctors in his Hind Swaraj.

B) Some of the victims have also taken their recourse to the judiciary, which is an expensive ambit that yields profits to lawyers, advocates and other legal/court professionals, which amplify further as the entire process inside the premises of the courts is time-taking/lengthy, given the habitual practice of “taarikh pe taarikh” (date upon dates)! Gandhi also criticized lawyers/courts in his Hind Swaraj, stating that they make profits by encouraging people’s conflicts.

C) As the DHFL scam has had become a “news”, the journalists (both mainstream and parallel, both Godi and Non-Godi Media either in newspapers, TV channels or social media platforms) have made plenty of money by circulating the scam’s updates as well. Thus, the fourth and fifth pillars of democracy cannot also be removed from consideration.

D) It would be somewhat obvious to state that selected/chosen business tycoons have benefitted the most from such a scam, viz., how Mr. Ajay Piramal, a crony business magnate, has allegedly adverse possessed the profitable assets of the DHFL more-or-less as a “return gift” just by spending a penny for his previous “services” to the ruling party of India (quid pro quo!) during the Flashnet Scam reveals this fact.

E) This scam has also enriched the religious gurus in two ways. First of all, some of the small depositors as victims have approached their “small” gurus to confess their insecurities, anxieties and fears unleashed by this scam. Secondly, the corporate tycoons like Mr. Piramal have also reached the quarters of their big corporatized gurus like Radhanath Swami to reflect upon his possible guilt consciousness for (allegedly) illegally claiming to “own” the DHFL. Both these groups, 99% (“Religion is sigh of the oppressed creature“!) and 1% of the total population, are anxious enough and both are engaged in praying to the non-existent God(s) by bribing (or otherwise, donating) Mr. (?) Almighty to solve the ongoing predicament.

F) The Resolution Professionals, especially those belonging to the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors (CoC) for DHFL, have profited from this scenario massively, too. They have gathered large amount of money for themselves in their capacities (mind that, it is the investors’ money) to enhance the suffering of the DHFL FD and NCD holders. Thus, the creamy layer members of the CoC have taken money from the investors to provide the latter with a CAPITAL punishment that has “extinguished” the victims!

G) All those DHFL victims, who have tried to voice their protests or resistance through the popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Whatsapp, Telegram etc., have actually benefitted the internet service providers and the particular social media owners. When we are writing this post by using our keyboard, we ourselves are part of this vicious cycle by contributing to the high grossing social media business.

H) In fact, the proliferation of alcoholism (both legal and il-legal), narcotics etc., is observed in the aftermath of such surgical strike. It is well understood that Mr. Adani’s Mundra Port in Gujarat is the main corridor of illicit drug supplies.

I) Last but not the least, perhaps most importantly, in the context of the crony capitalist scenario in present-day India, the occurrence of such scams provide(d) huge incentives to the ruling political party, viz., the BJP. Not only did it receive donations from the DHFL via alleged terror-funding links before the public unfolding of this scam, it also handed over the DHFL to the close crony ally, viz., Mr. Piramal, who is also the secondary kin of Mr. Mukesh Ambani, another favoured tycoon of the BJP. Mr. Piramal himself has served the BJP during the Flashnet Scam, and has also bribed (donated?!) 85+ crores through the illegal electoral bonds to the BJP.

After viewing all these points, what conclusions might be drawn? Obviously such a scam is contributing to the cunning design of concentration of wealth from fewer to fewest hands. This type of surgical strike leads to the Malthusian “positive check” of consolidating grand depopulation measures, amplified by many of the victims’ rising urge to self-terminate their beings.

APPENDIX

I) GANDHI ON DOCTORS:

“Let us consider: the business of a doctor is to take care of the body. (…) Their business is really to rid the body of diseases that may afflict it. How do these diseases arise? Surely by our negligence or indulgence. I overeat, I have indigestion, I go to a doctor, he gives me medicine, I am cured. I overeat again, I take his pills again. (…) The doctor intervened and helped me to indulge myself.

(…)

I have indulged in vice, I contract a disease, a doctor cures me, the odds are that I shall repeat the vice. Had the doctor not intervened, nature would have done its work, and I would have acquired mastery over myself, would have been freed from vice and would have become happy.” (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 1909/1938, pp. 81-82; emphasis added)

II) GANDHI ON LAWYERS:

“Whenever instances of lawyers having done good can be brought forward, it will be found that the good is due to them as men rather than as lawyers. All I am concerned with is to show you that the profession teaches immorality; it is exposed to temptation from which few are saved.

The Hindus and the Mahomedans have quarrelled. An ordinary man will ask them to forget all about it; he will tell them that both must be more or less at fault, and will advise them no longer to quarrel. But they go to lawyers. The latter’s duty is to side with their clients and to find out ways and arguments in favour of the clients to which they (the clients) are often strangers. If they do not do so they will be considered to have degraded their profession. The lawyers, therefore, will, as a rule, advance quarrels instead of repressing them. Moreover, men take up that profession, not in order to help others out of their miseries, but to enrich themselves. It is one of the avenues of becoming wealthy and their interest exists in multiplying disputes. It is within my knowledge that they are glad when men have disputes. Petty pleaders actually manufacture them. Their touts, like so many leeches, suck the blood of the poor people. Lawyers are men who have little to do. Lazy people, in order to indulge in luxuries, take up such professions. This is a true statement. Any other argument is a mere pretension. It is the lawyers who have discovered that theirs is an honourable profession. They frame laws as they frame their own praises. They decide what fees they will charge and they put on so much side that poor people almost consider them to be heaven-born.” ⤡