My Tweet To Modi: Making Sense of Business by Violence #ViolentGujarat

My Tweet To Modi: Deconstructing the Business by Violence Phenomenon

Yesterday, I crafted a tweet that took me through several iterations of refinement. What started as raw frustration evolved into what I hope was a more analytically grounded critique of contemporary governance. The tweet read:

"Dear @narendramodi & 90M Followers, surprise! Your Gujarat Model isn't original —it's a 'rentier state' model copied from Dubai, not Gandhi's vision —but a Sultanate. Nano farmers, Bilkis Bano, Medha Patkar, face state suppression. Opaque Vantara, Adani ₹3,900cr —#ViolentGujarat"

This wasn't just political commentary—it was an attempt to articulate what I call the "business by violence" phenomenon, a pattern where economic development becomes intertwined with systematic suppression of dissent and democratic accountability.

The Rentier State Framework

The comparison to Dubai wasn't casual. Both the Gujarat Model and Dubai's development strategy exemplify what economists call "rentier states"—economies that derive substantial revenue from external sources rather than productive domestic activity. In Dubai's case, it's oil wealth and strategic geographic positioning. In Gujarat's case, it's the strategic cultivation of business relationships with major industrial houses.

This creates a particular kind of governance structure: one that prioritizes the smooth functioning of these revenue-generating relationships over broader democratic participation. The state becomes less accountable to its general population and more focused on maintaining the conditions that keep the rents flowing.

The Sultanate Analogy

I struggled with how to characterize this governance pattern. My initial draft used harsher language, but I settled on "Sultanate" for specific reasons. Historical sultanates were indeed centralized power structures, but more importantly, they operated through patron-client networks rather than broad-based democratic legitimacy.

The sultanate model creates what scholars call "vertical accountability"—the ruler is accountable upward to key stakeholders (in historical cases, often external powers or merchant classes) but has limited horizontal accountability to the broader population. This fits the pattern I was trying to identify.

The Fundamental Shift: From Citizens to Tenants

To understand the business by violence phenomenon, we must recognize the foundational transformation it requires: the conversion of citizens with fundamental rights into tenants with only obligations. This isn't merely authoritarian—it's a complete restructuring of the citizen-state relationship to serve business interests.

In this model, citizens become revenue streams for private interests, managed through state power. Consider the Adani electricity case: citizens have no recourse to inflated bills, no democratic process to challenge rates, no fundamental right to affordable power. The government forces payment to the private company, and resistance becomes "anti-national." Citizens are reduced to captive consumers, tenants in their own democracy.

This tenant-state model explains why "there is no corruption in Gujarat bureaucracy" can coexist with systematic extraction. Individual corruption is messy and unpredictable. Systematic extraction through state-guaranteed private profits is clean and efficient. The bureaucracy isn't corrupt—it's captured, restructuring citizen-state relations to channel wealth from public to private hands through legitimate state power.

The "Anti-National" Industrial Complex: Defending Rights Becomes Treason

Once we understand the tenant-state model, the systematic targeting of dissent becomes clear. In this system, anyone asserting fundamental rights isn't just a political opponent—they're a structural enemy of the entire model. The "anti-national" label isn't random political abuse; it's the precise identification of those who refuse to accept tenant status.

The Logic is Systematic:

• Real journalism requires holding power accountable, defending citizens' right to information
• In the tenant-state: Citizens have no right to accountability, only obligations to pay
• Therefore: Journalism itself becomes structurally anti-state

This explains why even factual reporting on business dealings becomes "anti-national," why investigative journalism is treated as terrorism, why asking questions about governance becomes sedition. "Godi media" isn't just biased—it's the only permitted model, reinforcing tenant status rather than asserting citizen rights.

The Pattern Across All Targets:

• Protesting farmers: Defending land rights → "Khalistani anti-nationals"
• JNU students: Questioning policies → "Tukde-tukde gang"
• Investigating journalists: Exposing corruption → "Urban Naxals"
• Opposition leaders: Defending constitutional rights → "Breaking India forces"
• Environmental activists: Protecting communities → "Foreign-funded anti-development"

They're all committing the same fundamental "crime": treating citizens as having rights rather than just obligations.

Political Leaders as Structural Enemies: This explains the systematic targeting of leaders like Rahul Gandhi (disqualified from Parliament for asking about Adani deals), Mamata Banerjee (Bengal's resistance to central business capture meets constant agency raids), Lalu Yadav (imprisoned while Mallya escapes), and Uddhav Thackeray (systematic destruction when he opposed business interests).

Their crime isn't corruption or incompetence—it's insisting on fundamental rights. Electoral victories don't protect them, parliamentary privilege doesn't shield them, constitutional positions offer no immunity. In the tenant-state model, defending citizen rights becomes treason.

The Violence: Systematic Elimination of Rights Defenders

The business by violence model requires the physical elimination or neutralization of anyone who asserts citizen rights. This isn't random brutality—it's systematic enforcement of the tenant-state model.

Documented Cases:

Nano farmers: The Tata Nano project required massive land acquisition in Singur. When farmers resisted, the response wasn't negotiation or democratic process, but displacement through state power. The human cost was documented: farmers driven to suicide as their livelihoods were destroyed for an industrial project that ultimately failed. The "business" of creating an industrial zone required the "violence" of overriding local democratic will, with fatal consequences.

Journalist killings: From Gauri Lankesh to Danish Siddiqui, the systematic elimination of journalists represents the methodical destruction of democratic oversight itself. The pattern extends beyond individual murders to the imprisonment of Kashmir journalists, the targeting of investigative reporters covering corporate-government nexuses, and the economic strangulation of independent media outlets.

Manipur's ethnic violence: Documented mass killings, sexual violence, and displacement of entire communities, followed by media blackouts and internet shutdowns. The state's economic and strategic interests required violent suppression of ethnic communities while democratic accountability was prevented through information control.

Kashmir deaths: Systematic suppression combined with economic control, where resistance to business interests or assertion of political rights meets fatal state response.

Bilkis Bano case: Legal accountability becomes a casualty when maintaining political narratives becomes more important than justice. The systematic undermining of her case—including the premature release of her rapists—signals that violence will be overlooked if it serves political objectives.

The Business Protection: Systematic Extraction and Fraud Shield

The tenant-state model enables unprecedented business extraction while providing immunity from accountability. Citizens become captive revenue streams while business interests enjoy state protection from consequences.

Documented Examples:

Mallya's Great Escape: While small borrowers face brutal collection, a major debtor who defrauded banks of thousands of crores was allowed to flee the country. The differential treatment reveals the system: harsh enforcement for tenants, protection for business allies.

Adani Electricity Bills: Citizens forced to pay inflated rates with no recourse, no democratic process to challenge pricing, no fundamental right to affordable power. The state guarantees private profits while making resistance "anti-national."

Ambani Systematic Favors: Regulatory capture, contract awards, and systematic state support demonstrate how business interests receive preferential treatment while citizens bear the costs.

Russian Oil Deals During Ukraine War: Business profits prioritized over international law and ethical considerations, showing how commercial interests override even foreign policy principles.

Chinese PayTM Investment: National security subordinated to business interests, allowing strategic competitor access to financial data while critics are labeled "anti-national."

The Democratic Capture: Elections, Parliament, and Institutional Violence

The business by violence model requires the systematic capture of democratic institutions to prevent any avenue for citizen rights assertion.

Vote Manipulation: Electoral violence to ensure business-friendly outcomes. When citizens can't vote out the tenant-state model, elections become theater while real power remains with business interests.

Parliamentary Censorship: Opposition speeches on Adani and Ambani deleted from official records. Even legitimate democratic discourse about business dealings is violently suppressed through institutional manipulation. Parliament itself becomes a tool for protecting business interests rather than representing citizen concerns.

Judicial Subordination: Courts that might protect citizen rights face systematic pressure, while business-friendly outcomes are ensured through various mechanisms.

COVID Death Cover-up: The massive underreporting of COVID deaths—requiring a Supreme Court-ordered Special Investigation Report—represents business by violence on a genocidal scale. Maintaining narratives of effective management required suppressing documentation of mass death, prioritizing political capital over citizen lives.

Rule by Loud Noise: Information Control and Democratic Silence

The business by violence model requires constant aggressive noise to drown out democratic deliberation. Noble silence—which would allow space for actual democratic discourse—becomes impossible because it would expose the systematic extraction and violence.

Media Capture: "Godi media" isn't just bias—it's the systematic conversion of information systems into noise machines that prevent democratic reflection. Citizens are bombarded with manufactured crises and celebrations while real issues are buried.

Information Violence: Beyond killing individual journalists, the system requires the death of journalism as an institution. Media outlets face economic strangulation, government advertising becomes a control mechanism, and legal harassment through agencies eliminates independent investigation.

Parliamentary Theater: Even in Parliament, real debate is prevented through systematic noise, walkouts, and censorship. Democratic institutions become performance spaces for business by violence rather than venues for citizen representation.

Gandhi's Alternative Vision

The contrast with Gandhi's vision wasn't just rhetorical flourish. Gandhi's concept of swaraj emphasized decentralized economic and political power—village-level democracy, cottage industries, local self-reliance. This was explicitly designed to prevent the concentration of economic and political power that enables the business by violence phenomenon.

The irony is profound: a state that claims Gandhi's legacy has moved toward precisely the kind of centralized, opaque power structures that Gandhi's philosophy was designed to prevent.

The Democratic Challenge

This analysis raises urgent questions about whether Indian democracy can survive the systematic implementation of the business by violence model. The documented evidence—from farmer suicides to journalist killings to mass death cover-ups—suggests we're not dealing with isolated policy failures but with a coherent system of governance that requires violence to function.

Can genuine democratic institutions coexist with a model that systematically eliminates democratic oversight, suppresses dissent through fatal force, and treats mass death as an acceptable cost of maintaining political narratives? The evidence from Gujarat to Manipur to the COVID cover-up suggests the answer is no.

Moving Forward

My tweet was an attempt to compress these complex and deadly dynamics into a form that could spark broader discussion. But the documented evidence—the suicides, the killings, the cover-ups, the systematic destruction of democratic institutions—demands more than just discussion.

What would genuine democratic development look like in a context where the current model has produced mass death and institutional collapse? How do we rebuild democratic institutions that have been systematically destroyed? How do we create accountability for a governance model that has treated human life as expendable?

These questions matter not just for Gujarat, but for the survival of Indian democracy itself. The business by violence phenomenon isn't just a policy choice—it's an existential threat to democratic governance. The conversation starts with recognizing the lethal pattern. The real work begins with resistance to it.