Online activist, offline insider trader – Madam Shaw is hypocrisy personified

A day after industrialist Rahul Bajaj hit out the Modi government for being intolerant, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw- Chairperson of Biocon- said that the “Government is Dealing With India Inc At Arm’s Length”. Shaw is not happy with the fact that people and political parties exercising their freedom of expression to criticize Mr Bajaj, who was one of the outspoken critics of economic liberalization in the late 80s and early 90s. 

In a modern capitalist political economy, it is expected that the government keeps the business at arm’s length. If a fair competition has to be maintained in the market, it is necessary that government does not ‘favour’ any corporate house. An ideal political economy would be where the government keeps the business at arm’s length, but, on the contrary, Shaw wants the government to do favour to some outspoken corporates.

If a government favours some particular corporate houses, it is called ‘crony capitalism’. The UPA government was infamous for corruption and crony capitalism, where people like Shaw were granted special favours from government of India. Shaw wants the golden days of crony capitalism back in the country, therefore, she has waged war against Modi government since 2015.

“India Inc is a pariah and the government dislikes criticism,” said Shaw, in an interview with Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV. 

“PM Modi’s regime has been a fair and equitable regime where everyone runs and does their businesses as per the policy that is not meant to please or further business interests of one corporate house over the other,” said BJP IT cell chief, Amit Malviya. “Their privileges got over when PM Narendra Modi came to power,” he added.

Shaw was among the policy wonks and businessperson who advised the Congress party on 2019 election manifesto, which had disastrous ideas like NYAY scheme.

She is also among the donors of Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF), a Bangalore based trust which has, in past, funded to primarily leftist media houses like- Wire, Caravan, AltNews, News Laundry and many more! Her name is listed among the donors to the trust along with Aamir Khan, Azim Premji Foundation, and many other trusts. However, when Amit Malviya raised the same question, she denied any donations to the said organization. 

Shaw has also been involved in insider trading case. A few days ago, she reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in the insider trading case. Shaw, lead independent director of IT major Infosys has violated provisions of the Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) regulations. Shaw has agreed to pay 3.01 lakh rupees to SEBI as fine, in violation of the Infosys’ insider trading policy.

The whistleblower’s letter in the Infosys case revealed that Shaw makes silly points and does not understand the technicalities of the business. “The letter stated, “The CEO told us, ‘no one in the board understands these things. They are happy as long as the share price is up. These two Madrasis (Sundaram and Prahlad) and Diva (Kiran) make silly points. You just nod and ignore them.’ We have voice recordings of this.”

A few months ago, she also supported the ‘rising intolerance’ remarks of Adi Godrej. “Rising intolerance, social instability, hate crimes, violence against women, moral policing, caste and religion-based violence and many other sorts of intolerance that are rampant,” said Adi Godrej While addressing a gathering to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his alma mater St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw supported his statement and wrote on Twitter quoting an NDTV article. She wrote, “rising Intolerance, Hate Crimes Can “Seriously Damage” Growth: Adi Godrej – well-spoken.”

Shaw belongs to the old elite cabal, which first benefitted from License quota Raj and then from crony capitalist policies of UPA era. She wants the government to favour some outspoken corporates instead of a rule-based capitalist economy with the space for creative destruction.