In the same way, investment by the Swiss banks and others would also be substantial if the investment possibilities in the Indian economy showed promise. Since presumably, going by Mr Advani’s logic, that is funded by huge hoards of black money — and I have no doubt that to some extent that is true — it makes enough reason to offer investment avenues for private equity and venture capital to pour money in. That, in turn, can be easily furthered by putting in a massive range of infra-projects that do not just remain as plans but become on-going projects with clear deadlines.

These arguments should not come as a complete surprise to

Mr Advani. After all, Mr Vajpayee did not bother with this issue, and instead pushed the investment plank. It paid more dividends in terms of returning black money.

In the 58 years since India became a republic, we have tried all the other popular options. The government in the ’70s imposed a punitive level of income tax hoping that would do the trick. It did, sort of — it created the most sizable rise in the amount of black money recorded. Since then there have been two specific schemes to get black money back into the “mainstream” — the bearer bonds floated in the ’80s by the then-finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and the more recent attempt by P. Chidambaram, known as the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme. Compared to the less-than Rs 10,000 crore generated by both schemes, the flow of actual investment into the economy through just the Mauritius route has been $4 billion in 2007-08.

... contd.