The debt scenario in India
9 December 2022
by
Sushovan Dhar

Sushovan dhar presenting the Indian debt scenario at the 9th CADTM South Asia meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on the 2nd of December 2022
Sushovan Dhar, CADTM delegate at the 9th CADTM South Asia meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2-4 December 2022), spoke on 2 December at the conference on South Asian private debt, financial institutions and the role of social movements.
After analysing the Indian debt situation and detailing how the country’s banking system is working, Sushovan Dhar drew up a list of demands :
- Recovering the damage caused by the capitalists at the expense of the public banks, from the overall wealth of the major shareholders of the groups in question;
- Refusing to make taxpayers or depositors, 92% of whom have savings of less than 1,00,000 rupees), bear the burden of the clean-up;
- Prosecute the top managers of the offending banks and
the beneficiaries; - Prohibit public banks from engaging in speculative operations, marketing derivatives
Derivatives
A family of financial products that includes mainly options, futures, swaps and their combinations, all related to other assets (shares, bonds, raw materials and commodities, interest rates, indices, etc.) from which they are by nature inseparable—options on shares, futures contracts on an index, etc. Their value depends on and is derived from (thus the name) that of these other assets. There are derivatives involving a firm commitment (currency futures, interest-rate or exchange swaps) and derivatives involving a conditional commitment (options, warrants, etc.).
, and granting credit to private companies above a certain amount, and oblige them to devote credit to the needs of households, the public sector, small and medium-sized enterprises, the peasantry, artisans and other independent workers;
- Compel all banking institutions, whether public or not, to promote transparency in their accounts and, as a corollary, abolish banking secrecy;
- Compel the RBI to ensure comprehensive in situ controls to put an end to recent years’ practices to rely on private audit firms and to carry out remote controls on the basis of evasive reports
provided by the banks. - These are emergency measures that should pave the way for the full socialisation of the Indian banking sector.
