Not enough: Robert Vadra and the Imelda Marcos syndrome

In 1986, when a ‘people’s power’ revolution in the Philippines toppled Ferdinand Marcos from power, ending a 21-year dictatorial reign, the dirty unwashed masses, who had been robbed blind by Marcos’ corrupt ways for a generation, got a chance to see what had been going on behind the high walls of Malacanang Palace.

They learnt, for instance, that during those 20-plus years in power, he and his diva-esque wife Imelda Marcos had embezzled public funds running to billions of dollars and channelled them into accounts and investments in Switzerland, the US and elsewhere.


While that was, of course, scandalous, it merely validated long-held suspicions – and, to that extent, did not induce much of a shock.

What did, instead, induce shock – and a sense of puzzlement – was the realisation, when the wide doors of the palace were pulled down, that inside the gilded palace in which she lived, Imelda Marcos had stashed away 2,700 pairs of shoes.

Even today, it boggles the mind why anyone who is not into monomaniacal acquisition of fetishist footwear would want 2,700 pairs of shoes. As Time magazine columnist Lance Morrow observed at that time (after doing a bit of mental arithmetic), if Imelda Marcos had changed her shoes three times a day, and never wore the same pair twice, it would have taken her more than two years and five months to work through her shoe supply, as it existed on the day she fled Manila. “And since she undoubtedly would continue to buy new shoes even while trying to do justice to the old supply, it is clear she could never wear all of her shoes.”


Much the same can be said of the frenzy of land acquisition by our politicians – and, at least in one case, a politician’s son-in-law – the sordid details of which have been tumbling out of cupboards in recent days.

In almost all the cases that have come to light, the modus operandi for instant fortunes is simple: corner large plots of agricultural land, bought on the cheap from farmers, change the land-use pattern (which those in positions of power can get done in double-quick time), and sell it to real-estate developers for windfall profits. It’s the alchemy of the new age, only it comes with infinitely better return on investment.

Of course, if you’re someone as privileged as Sonia Gandhi‘s son-in-law Robert Vadra, you don’t have even have to make the initial investment: an excessively generous  real-estate developer like DLF will lend you the money for the land purchase – and buy back the land at many multiples of the purchase price. And governments in States under the rule of the party that your saas lords over will grease the tracks for your personal fortunes to grow at exponential rates – without doing a stroke of honest work.

The latest revelations of Vadra’s land purchases in Bikaner in Rajasthan (another State that is under Congress rule) are illustrative of how breezily the land deals were consummated – and windfall profits were made. From all accounts, Vadra acquired large tracts of land in places where he (being who he is) had inside information on upcoming industrial projects. And once the projects were announced, and land prices shot up, he booked supernormal profits – up to 40 times the purchase price – in just a matter of months.

It’s a classic example of what stock market regulators call “insider trading” or “front-running“: of undue benefits being derived from privileged access to information, in the way that Robert Vadra had.

In his case, Vadra had it even better: the Congress government in Rajasthan actively directed investments to the areas where Vadra had bought land. As Devi Singh Bhati, six-time MLA of Kolayat where most of the land deals in Bikaner took place, told DNA newspaper: “Vadra clearly misused his position as the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi. The land was purchased either in the knowledge that industrial projects would be announced, or circumstances were created to bring projects to the area.”

The oil baron J Paul Getty, who was in his time the world’s richest private citizen, used facetiously to describe his formula for success: “Rise early, work hard, strike oil.” On the strength of available evidence, Vadra appears to have worked out an even better winning formula, which does away with the element of luck you need to strike oil: buy land, using money that was gratuitously lent to him because of who he is, and set off a self-propelling series of land transactions, whose land-use could be changed virtually overnight because of his political influence.

Of course, more recent revelations show that it isn’t just Vadra who has  leveraged this banana republic’s status as a  ”land of opportunity”. But it’s fair to say that in terms of political influence to get governments to fast-track applications for land-use pattern change, and get the entire Union Ministry to cover for him when embarrassing details surface of his business fortunes built on gratuitous interest-free loans from corporates, Vadra is uniquely placed.

But when will this perpetual motion machine that feeds off shadowy land deals, this ceaseless accumulation of unearned fortunes, this gluttony of easy riches built on influence-peddling and insider trading, end? When he looks at a map of India, does Vadra only see a prime bit of real estate that he can buy – with unsecured loans – and sell  for 40x?

There’s no knowing how many more pairs of shoes Imelda Marcos would have accumulated if she hadn’t been hounded out of Malacanang Palace. Likewise with Vadra, if he cared to peep beyond the palace walls, he will see the enraged dirty, unwashed masses standing outside with pitchforks. And the hinges on those gilded palace doors are fast coming loose.