Piramal Finance and the Rating Ruse: How India’s Credit Rating Agencies Manufacture Trust to Enable Systemic Expropriation
Piramal Finance and the Rating Ruse: How India’s Credit Rating Agencies Manufacture Trust to Enable Systemic Expropriation Posted on 6th January, 2026 (GMT 11:12 hrs) Compiled by DHFL Victim⤡ ABSTRACT In India’s deeply captured financial regime under prolonged BJP-NDA rule (2014–2025), credit rating agencies (CRAs)—dominated by the CRISIL-ICRA-CARE triopoly—have degenerated from purported risk sentinels into systemic enablers of crony expropriation, perpetuating a predatory cycle of manufactured trust, retail mobilization, delayed collapse, and crony oligarchical consolidation. The Piramal Finance–DHFL saga stands as the paradigmatic indictment: investment-grade ratings (AA to AAA) were stubbornly retained despite whistleblower alerts, Cobrapost exposés, and KPMG audits exposing ~₹29,000–34,000 crore in promoter diversions through shells and evergreening, facilitating continued borrowing until 2019 defaults; post-crisis, Piramal—bolstered by dynastic kinship to Mukesh ...