India is a country of intelligent individuals and foolish masses. Just try accosting a man on the road and he would offer you unsolicited enlightenment on the dos and don’ts in our daily life, but throw him into a crowd, you will find all his brilliance and discretion vanishing without a trace even as a frenzied mob psychology takes grip of his senses.
The contradiction, which by itself, is a product of a hypocritical dual moral code-one for the real private life and the other for public consumption-is all too evident in every sphere of our activity. This is also the reason why politicians thrive endlessly, zeroes become heroes overnight, idiots parade as intellectuals undetected and fly-by-night operators make a fast buck on the sly.
Most of our edifices, institutions and even reputations are invariably built through the word of mouth of the masses even as reason lies enslaved in the hearts of individuals. Everyone knows, but all of them are ignorant!
The most recent instance of our suicidal herd mentality is the financial carnage wrought by the ceaseless fall of one finance company after another, that now threatens to lay waste the lives of scores of very intelligent individuals and their families. But then, how did so many bright guys, including educated executives, professionals, government staff, bank employees and one learns, even retired income tax officials, allow themselves to be lured by the fortune fad?
It is indeed a revelation that most of those who have ended up as suckers are all well-lettered middle-class urbanites, who have somehow got all their arithmetic wrong when it came to exercising the basic lessons that they had learnt. The profile of the depositors apart, what is really appalling is the size of the flock that has been duped and the mind-boggling booty that the carpet baggers have walked away with.
Depositors’ associations are now a constituency by themselves with their membership swelling by the day, much faster than they though their money would grow. And the amount involved in the various scams, that is either concealed in some private coffers or lying as worthless paper or have simply vanished into thin air, is so phenomenal that it gives the lie to India being perceived as a poor country.
The intention is not to mock at the pathetic plight of those who have lost their lifetime savings to the wily wizards nor to rub salt into their wounds. But is it not a fact that all these financial injuries are primarily self-inflicted? The common denominator that united all the aforementioned classes of individuals was the lust for quick money.
The operator’s gift of the gab found perfect rhythm with the greed of the gullible. And when avarice takes over, it is bound to trample upon all other human senses such as discretion and caution. What business on this good earth can yield returns that can afford the hefty payouts promised by the finance companies?
Well, part from politics and printing of countefeit notes, one is hard pressed to conjure up any legal vocation that can answer to that call. But alas, no one bothered to delve deeper for that would mean asking embarrassing questions which is not the right thing to do when fortune beckons.
Surely, the dream sellers must be having some wonderful schemes up their sleeves and their word is good enough. In any case, look at their plush offices, lithe secretaries, and of course, all those fantastic entreaties on the idiot ‘box’ in the form of ritzy, ads that promised the moon (mostly on the Sun) and even spilled over to the good old newsprint occasionally.
It was as if one can get rich by just remaining glued to the TV. Well, it eventually turned out that in this case the silver lining was visible first, and the dark clouds emerged only later to engulf all and sundry.If earlier, greed was the unifying factor that sent the rats scurrying behind the pied pipers en masse, it is now panic that is causing many a stampede in the financial sector.
True, some of the finance companies that bombed recently were only waiting to be ignited, but now even good companies with strong fundamentals are facing the threat of being run over by a panic stricken mob of depositors.If earlier the people dumped their moneys in whichever colourful basket that was kept open to their myopic eyes, now they are stalking every company that they had parked their savings, regardless of the credibility and standing of the management.
The depositors, in the flurry of fear, have failed to realise that even government-owned banks cannot survive a run and the very business of banking and finance rests on the presumption that all depositors would not barge in on the same day demanding their money back, even if they are legally entitled to do so.
This is because those who have taken loans are also not exactly waiting in queues to pay back their dues. If this is not possible even in boom periods when the economy is sitting pretty one can imagine the scenario in these troubled times when money melts faster than butter. The depositors must also understand that they are not advancing their cause one bit by setting off a furore over delayed repayments or bounced cheques, even if these point to a deeper malaise in the company.
By laying siege to the company premises in droves they are not only jeopardising their savings but are also lending an alibi to the devil-may-care CEOs of the bogus finance companies for not meeting their dues which they never intended in the first place. Instead the investors would do well to examine legal avenues besides resorting to direct dialogues with the company managements to gauge their commitment as well as the financial health.
Having jumped into the bandwagon in a hurry, the hurt will only be compounded if they choose to alight in haste too. In any case, the depositors have little choice in an immature financial sector as ours where legal safeguards exist only on paper.
Though there can be no apologists for the parasites who have preyed on the weaknesses of the public and milked them of their savings in one shot, one can certainly imagine the causes for the sudden mushrooming of these characters. Such men have always made fleeting appearances in the criminal history of mankind in the form of conmen and confidence tricksters and the victims have generally been isolated individuals or institutions, but such large scale mass fooling is a very recent phenomenon.
The current fiasco was a direct result of the feel-good euphoria generated by the liberalisation of the early nineties when the country was confronted with seemingly endless prosperity that it could not cope with. Booming financial markets and rampaging consumerism joined hands to create an intricate spiral of need and greed.
The neo-gold diggers, sensing the opportunity, just walked in for the harvest and walked away with the booty, which was actually handed over to them on a platter, willingly. Though it is greed that breeds these men initially, the impotent law has been equally guilty of nurturing them, not to speak of the pro-active media that offered them the space and time to display their spurious wares.
Sure, watchdogs abound; they seldom bite, but only barks, and that too invariably up the wrong tree. Little wonder that while most of the mischief mongers are now free birds, genuine, committed businessmen are now living under the mortal fear of mid-night knocks and shameful arrests. More on that in the days to come.
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