Political bosses everywhere have become prone to believing that they can flout laws with impunity, and are rarely punished for it. Whether it is amassing huge and illegal wealth, often stashed abroad, or of their progeny misbehaving with, stalking and even murdering people in broad daylight in front of the public, why is it that the law does not apply to them?

Why is it that investigative agencies deliberately scuttle the investigation and weaken the case when it is finally presented? Is there one law for all or different ones for the polity?

Unless this nonsense is stopped and the guilty are punished in an exemplary manner, India cannot flourish. The history of developed nations shows great economic strides only when rule of law is established. Singapore is a great example. Flip it over, and nations which have been poorly governed are in great distress. Think Zimbabwe under Mugabe. Think Venezuela after Hugo Chavez. Well-governed countries, with law treating everyone equally, do well in terms of economic growth and rising living standards.

Not only public governance but also corporate governance standards leave a lot to be desired in our country. The family controlling Raymond is claiming from the company flats, which were a part of an internal agreement, to be sold to them at a rate of ₹9,000 a sqft, never mind that this is a fraction of both the current market rate and of the cost of construction, borne by the company! The internal agreement was not brought to shareholder notice, nor their permission sought.

Now the family members have filed a suit asking for the flats and, instead of questioning the validity of an agreement not shown to minority shareholders, the judge asks them to solve the family matter internally, as if it were private property. And SEBI, too, does not intervene to protect the rights of minority shareholders, which is its mandate.

Governance in the developed world is also sometimes poor, with strange consequences. Most of the States in the US have ‘defined benefit’ pension schemes and lawmakers have a comfortable lifestyle because of their pension benefits. Now the pension funds do not earn enough (they earn 0.5 per cent on average!) and so fresh taxes are needed in order to provide more funds to them.

But those who make the laws are also beneficiaries of the defined benefit pensions, and so are unwilling to reduce the benefits. The new taxes lead to bizarre consequences. Philadelphia, for instance, has raised tax on soft drinks (ostensibly to fund schools, though half the new tax is spent elsewhere) so high that alcohol is now cheaper, leading people to switch to alcohol! Pepsico saw a 43 per cent drop in sales, and laid of 100 people!

In short, lawmakers preferred loss of employment plus encouraging people to drink alcohol, to permitting an inevitable cut in their benefits. Inevitable, because foolishness always succumbs to economic reality.

We, too, will succumb to economic reality if loan waivers to different groups of people go unchecked. Unless we have good, fair, and strong governance, economic growth will stymie. And the political leaders and their kin must learn that they are not above the law.

(The writer is India Head — Finance, Asia/Haymarket. The views are personal.)