The political-corporate tango

The wealthy and their wealth are in the news and on our social media feeds. Beyond the awe and shock, this is a reminder that India's transition to a well-regulated market economy remains incomplete. No special treatment Journalists who cover the finance ministry as beat reporters end up running into wealthy business tycoons as part of their everyday work life. In the early 2000s, Anil Ambani was often seen outside Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha's chamber in North Block. Sunil Mittal was a regular visitor to the then Law Minister Arun Jaitley. What was impressive was that suited-booted wealthy visitors were treated no differently than journalists by his Shastri Bhavan office staff. As they waited, everyone was seated in the same room, the office of a member of the minister's staff; there were no special visitor rooms. Government offices weren't as swanky in those days as they are now. It had just been about a decade after the 1991 liberalisation. New regulations in many sectors, such as Telecom, were taking shape. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was privatising public sector companies and selling them to private owners. Policymakers and business leaders were, therefore, interacting quite a bit to determine how these big changes were to be navigated. Ministers saw no reason to meet with business people anywhere other than their offices. Business people used to

This article was originally published on August 01, 2024.