Bigotry unlimited
November 30, 2021 15:52
In 2017, the Narendra Modi government announced a new scheme of electoral funding -- namely electoral bonds -- that could be bought through the State Bank of India at stipulated times of the year.
Touted as a new transparent funding mechanism, it effectively legalized opacity.
The donor didn't have to report the donation and the party didn't have to reveal the funder's identity.
Unsurprisingly, 95 per cent of these electoral bonds went to the BJP and in this way political rents came to be collected in wholly legal, yet deliberately unaccountable, ways.
Mukul Kesavan on how India pioneered the global surge in majoritarian populism. Read the column here.