The View | Adani Group’s woes deal a blow to Modi’s dreams of a strong, self-reliant India

Short seller Hindenburg Research recently published a scathing report on India’s Adani Group, posing 88 questions for the conglomerate to answer. Soon after, the stock prices of all the Adani companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange crashed, dragging down the share prices of several nationalised financial institutions – and sparking fears of a banking-sector collapse.

Adani withdrew its share sale and subsequently, Credit Suisse and Citibank stopped accepting Adani company securities as collateral for margin loans. While these concerns made headlines and were the topic of debate on prime-time television networks, several geopolitical and geoeconomic undercurrents have largely been neglected.

For a start, in response to the accusations of fraud and stock manipulation, CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh dismissed them during an interview as an attack on Adani and notably, on India. With an Indian flag in the background, there was no shortage of props to whip up nationalistic fervour among Adani supporters.

The Indian government has drawn in its indigenous conglomerates with generous subsidies, through production-linked incentive schemes among others, to aid the rapid national transition towards renewable energy, while simultaneously reducing dependence on China for the raw materials that go into them.