Of late, I have developed a curiosity to enquire about the real-life stories of people, facts, untold truths, fantasies that very few know about. And being a fervent reader, I keep searching for books that could show me the concealed realities of the world. This article is about one such book I read which can jolt every reader with its vivid expression about the hidden business of democracy in India.
It is none other than Feast of Vultures written by an investigative journalist, Josy Joseph. The writer has not only put his views but embedded the words of civil servants, politicians, businessmen, activists he had interviewed to give an authentic and evocative shape to real events.
The book describes how latent corrupt practices have got footprints in India which gave birth to infamous scams like 2G spectrum, Commonwealth Games (2010), Coalgate (2014), etc. It will show the reader the hidden faces behind such illicit activities which one can’t even imagine—how politicians and businessmen join hands for their mutual benefits and do away with the law, and how civil servants just climb on the bandwagon.
The book starts with a story where a village man got hit with the red-taped Indian bureaucracy for a long time to get a road constructed in the village. Though short, the story goes deep to depict the agony of a citizen who tries to confront the mighty authority for the rights they have already been awarded by the constitution. With this small precedent, the writer opens a basket of secrets that he has come to know about in his profession. He recounts incidents where some powerful people tried to bribe him into not writing anything against them.
Gradually, the book turns towards the defence sector and the unrevealed truths about it. Readers will get to know about the collusion of higher authorities and the integral role of middlemen in finalizing any defence deal. Fully-fledged accounts about how some loyalists or personal secretaries of past politicians, who controlled access to them for anyone, bred corruption or how there are middlemen with deep contacts in every corner of Raisina Hill to facilitate dubious corrupt deals are unbelievable.
The book throws a clear light on such complex networking of all these mighty stakeholders making use of money laundering, that is, illegal and disguised transactions, to execute things which are far away from a layperson’s imagination. Amid all this, the author introduces another element of this web—the underworld criminals. The book gives a detailed picture of rivalry between Jet Airways and East West Airlines involving criminals who finance big businesses in India with the support of politicians. It shows how industrialists like Jindal have tweaked the law to make huge profits out of the miseries of locals in mining areas. Finally, the author’s eloquent expressions in describing a connection between the extravagance of rich people and corruption will force the reader to feel awful.
Being an investigative journalist, the author has dared to name every relevant person clearly in his description. The reader will see names like Naresh Goyal, Naveen Jindal, Mukesh Ambani, Dawood Ibrahim, ex-prime ministers and many more unknown but powerful personalities in the book which give every word a fragrance of authenticity.
Overall, this writing provides a mysterious but grim picture of India personified as a feast of many powerful vultures. Honestly speaking, I was feeling dreadful after finishing the book which testifies the saying, “sometimes truth is bitter”. In the end, I would like to quote a single line from the author which captured my eyes—“It is easy to get anything done in India provided you know whom to contact with how much money.”