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Commentary
Vol. 46, Issue No. 02, 08 Jan, 2011
Updated on 8 January 2011
Sumanta Banerjee

Breeding 'Black Sheep'

Whenever accusations of corruption are made and found to be true, members of the fraternity of the accused rush to defend them by saying that these are a few of the "black sheep". What is forgotten is that the black sheep have become powerful enough to take over important institutional structures and make them serve the private interests of an oligarchy of privileged members of political parties, bureaucracy, financial institutions, judiciary, and powerful industrial magnates.

COMMENTARY
Breeding ‘Black Sheep’ Sumanta Banerjee powerful enough to take over these institutional structures and make them define and shape public policies to serve the private interests of a corporatocracy (the oligarchy of privileged members of political

Whenever accusations of corruption are made and found to be true, members of the fraternity of the accused rush to defend them by saying that these are a few of the “black sheep”. What is forgotten is that the black sheep have become powerful enough to take over important institutional structures and make them serve the private interests of an oligarchy of privileged members of political parties, bureaucracy, financial institutions, judiciary, and powerful industrial magnates.

Sumanta Banerjee (suman5ban@yahoo.com) is a political commentator who is best known for his book In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the Naxalite Movement in India (1980).

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