Practices of Governments an anti-thesis to principles of Blockchain!!
Blockchain has properties that many Governments would despise because there are Governments around that don't want to disclose information or facts to the public. Blockchain embodies principles of transparency, and integrity of recorded information as manipulation of data is impossible.
All transactions on public Blockchains are available for the public to view on Blockchain Explorer.
This information is as it is, original and true, maintaining data integrity. There is no need to trust another third party entity for disclosing information. This is the trustless nature of Blockchain.
These attributes of Public Blockchains, have potential to bring about clean Governance and work culture in politics. This is because transparency instilled in the working of Government brings about accountability with public getting know details which are otherwise not disclosed and hidden from them.
BJP Government devises a way to obtain crores of funding with donor details kept a secret to the public
For ex, Governments need to disclose their public funding details fully, especially when it comes to their electoral funding and donations they receive from the public. However, the Indian Government administered by the current BJP dispensation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, found a way to obtain electoral funding without revealing the identity of the donors.
Wow!!!
Let’s examine how electoral Bonds scheme turned out to be an untransparent mechanism through which the ruling BJP party managed to raise an enormous amount of funding that was kept secret from the public and opposition political parties.
The scheme ensured that BJP administration was able to know all the donor details which was otherwise hidden from everyone else. The BJP-controlled Government then pressured Corporate entities to donate crores of funding to them!!
After this we can ponder as we did in my last article if Blockchain has a solution to enable transparent funding.
Secret funding powered by electoral bonds benefited just one political party – BJP
The Electoral Bond scheme which was introduced in 2017 by the ruling BJP Government was recently repealed by the Supreme Court of India, declaring it as unconstitutional.
The main issue was that the electoral bond scheme was opaque, with the public being denied their right to know the details of who all are providing electoral funding to political parties which goes against their fundamental Right to information that every Indian Citizen are entitled to under Article 19(1) of the Constitution.
Governments are elected by Citizens to make public policy so Governments are accountable to us tax-paying Citizens and are obligated to reveal to the public details of their electoral funding.
It’s come to light that from 2018 till April 2023, out of electoral bonds worth 12,979 crore that were available to be purchased by donors, 6566.12 crore worth of funds were donated to BJP with the main opposition party, Congress receiving just 1,123.29 crore of funding!!
So, more than 50% of funding was procured by BJP, with the ruling party receiving more funds than the combined amount of funds other political parties received.
If we consider the funding figures from 2018 to April 2022 also BJP managed to bag 53% of funding from the electoral bonds scheme.
In charts: BJP received more money from electoral bonds than 30 other parties combined
Secret funding from Corporate Entities promotes crony capitalism!!
The most purchased electoral bonds were of 1 crore denomination, so mostly rich individuals and Corporate Entities made purchases of these electoral bonds.
This is significant because if that’s the case, the Government in turn for receiving funds would in return do special favours for the donor Corporate enterprise, encouraging crony capitalism.
This principle is referred to as “quid pro quo”, where in return for funds donated, the Government makes policies favoring the donor Company which may not be in public interest. It’s almost like legitimizing bribes of enormous amount and all this will anyway remain a secret!!
The danger here is of Corporate Entities influencing public policy, and also electoral results instead of Government making policies for public welfare in an unbiased way and getting elected in a fair manner. All political parties need to have a level playing field, without any party getting super extra powers to influence outcome of elections in their favour, unfairly.
Secret, unlimited, and tax-free Corporate funding made possible through Electoral bonds
Electoral Bonds allowed Corporate enterprises to make unlimited donations to political parties which is exempt from taxation. However, for this to be legitimized, BJP had passed a financial bill amending the Companies act of 2013.
Electoral funding norms for corporates eased
Earlier this law put a cap on the amount of donations Companies could make to political parties with Companies permitted to donate up to 7.5% of their average net profits from the last 3 fiscal years
Donation particulars had to be furnished on their balance sheet, disclosing the amount of donation given, the recipient political party details to their shareholders.
Electoral bond funding is one way through which BJP has become India’s richest party!!
Image generated using https://www.freepik.com/ai/image-editor
Ultimately, the ruling BJP party benefited from Electoral bonds procuring an exponentially large share of the funding. No wonder, BJP has managed to become India’s richest political party ever since electoral funding began pouring through the electoral bond scheme since 2018!!!
According to Bloomberg, BJP has more than double amount of assets than India’s top 4 political parties combined.
Oooops…
Consider this, electoral bonds have funded one major Lok Shaba election on 2019, making Narendra Modi the Prime Minister again for the 2nd consecutive term establishing BJP as the ruling party administrating the Government again.
Abp news reported that BJP’s assets in the financial year 2019-2020 were Rs 4,847 crore, with the main opposition party Congress possessing assets worth Rs 588 crores. There is clearly a huge disparity in money resources with BJP having 156% more financial resources for all its political activities than its main opposition party Congress!!
BJP India's Richest Political Party In 2019-20, Congress Slipped To Third: Report
BJP gets rich by applying coercion tactics on Corporate entities forced to make hefty donations!
Newslaundry's investigation report reveals that companies donated crores of funds to BJP after they were raided by Government controlled central investigative agencies, the Enforcement Directorate(ED), the Income Tax agencies!
This implies that companies were coerced to donate funds to BJP with the Government central agencies under the control of the ruling BJP party.
Part 2: 30 firms who donated Rs 335 cr to BJP were also stung by I-T, ED
Ha!! All is fair in love and war, maybe, but not in a democracy, where we expect fairness and accountability, transparency from our elected Government. I used to think Web3 principles were inspired by democratic values, but now I feel the political landscape should embrace public Blockchain and just get transparent and thus prove they have the intent to be accountable to the public!
In Web3, community stakeholders can be part of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations(DAO), where they get to vote and decide on funding proposals. I wonder if such practices can inspire actual real-world political Governance.
One can club this with Decentralised identity(DIDs) usage, than force citizens to use National Identity cards like Aadhar card, that is known to be easily hacked, with personal data of people stolen and leaked.
Hypocrisy of Indian Government, wanting privacy but denying Citizens their right for Financial privacy
The current Indian Government under BJP is not crypto-friendly. They tried to ban cryptocurrencies, declare it illegal, finally settled on giving crypto holders a harsh treatment of taxing them 30% along with 1% TDS charges straight on profits instead of on capital gains, as if crypto people are gamblers and super-rich people!!
Reasons for Government being crypto averse, were earlier related to their concerns related to BTC being used to launder money, fear of BTC threatening the financial stability of the Government by challenging India’s national currency; Rupee, INR.
However, the Government themselves are procuring money from public to fuel their political pursuits in hidden ways as explained!!
Blockchain harnessed by Governments for evil not for doing public good!!
We hard working Citizens, are not permitted to have any financial privacy. There is KYC formalities for us for everything. For instance, Government can easily find out who are donating to independent press media who report the true news about the Government actions because our payments are made from our bank accounts and banks have all our identity details.
One can argue that Government should not be allowed to know details of people who contribute money to support independent journalism, because those donors may be harassed tomorrow and made to stop extending support to independent journalism, that believes in giving news that’s fact-based, even if it's critical about the Government policies and actions
Why should we accept Government to have financial privacy when that’s denied to us?
Now, Governments are using Blockchain to track our every financial transaction, pushing with their CBDC measures!!
Public Blockchains should be used by Governments so Citizens know and get to see how Government manages public finances and accounts. This is because Citizens pay taxes and fund the government for all its work! However, the Government has no intention to be transparent and accountable to public.
It’s only fair to expect Governments to embrace public Blockchain infrastructure for all it's financial dealings it does with public finances which would reduce corruption and usher in practices of clean, honest politics.