Until the early 1990s, Indian media drew a fat red line between the business press and general interest newspapers, preventing both from reflecting all of reality. The business side was obsessed with wheat, wine and oil, happy to ignore politics. General papers obsessed on politics and sport, cramming economic, financial, trade and corporate news into a single page. Meanwhile, society was divided into a minority that appreciated the connections between business and politics, and the vast, clueless, well-meaning majority.
Media reflects the nation, whose schizophrenia ended after liberalisation made economic issues mainstream and growth became an election issue. About that time, Dhirubhai Ambani backed a newspaper that gave both worlds equal weight right in the masthead. Now, as the Hindenburg Research saga enters its second innings and the short-seller moves the crosshairs from the Adani family to the Buch family, from targeting buccaneering in business to impropriety in regulation, we are all older and know politics is just business as usual.
Despite pious protestations of innocence, Indian business and politics have always been bedfellows. Harshad Mehta brought Sebi into headlines and also infamously gave PM P V Narasimha Rao a suitcase with no key to open it with.
Now, Rahul Gandhi speculates Modi’s government would fall when his pal Gautam Adani’s transnational empire collapses. But after Hindenburg 2.0, the dominos could fall another way. By attacking the credibility of the regulator, the activist short-seller based in New York could do more damage to the political administration that backed her than to the business environment.