Author Ravi Subramanian’s book In the Name of God, which released mid-2017 is now making headlines for a bizarre reason. One of the main characters in his thriller is a jeweller called Nirav Choksi. Get it?
How did you decide on the name Nirav Choksi for the jeweller character in In the Name of God?
Ravi Subramanian: Oh, it was completely coincidental. Ever heard of a name creating a scandal? This is the ideal case of a frenzy erupting over a name. Strangely, people who have not read the book are talking about the book just because the name of a character in In the Name of God is Nirav Choksi. In the book, Nirav Choksi is a jeweller - rich, powerful and well connected. A rich jeweller was the need of the story. The jeweller happens to be connected to politicians, and influential people. Well isn’t that par for the course. In India all wealthy people (irrespective of line of business) have connections and are influential. And by the way, the book does not have any mention of anything even remotely like the PNB scam.
But it is an eerie coincidence that Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are the key accused in the PNB banking scam today?
Ravi Subramanian: It is a coincidence for sure. Albeit an eerie coincidence. When I used the name, the combo of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi was not on my mind. As far as “Why Nirav Choksi” is concerned, when authors like me name a character in the book, what we normally do is look around for names which fit the personality of a character. The character in my book you are referring to, is a very popular jeweller, who dominates his trade. Had to be a Gujarati, because most people in this trade come from that part of the country. So after a scan of Google, Twitter timelines, Facebook friends list and days of thought, I settled on a name, Nirav Choksi. The name sounds powerful, rich, stylish and is easy for the reader to remember.
Was your character is loosely based on Nirav Modi?
Ravi Subramanian: Not at all. My character is not based on Nirav Modi at all. In my book, the character is a jeweller who operates from a basement in Zaveri Bazar. Can’t think of Nirav Modi doing that. My protagonist’s wife is dead and he is a single parent to his daughter. He is not flashy. These traits hardly match Nirav Modi’s trait.
In a recent interview you mentioned that “the Nirav Modi affair is just a tip of the iceberg”, what did you mean?
Ravi Subramanian: What I meant was that most banking controls in our country are people dependent. This scam is a result of human tendency to commit a fraud. Greed coupled with disparity of income in our country is a deadly concoction. I say this because compliance and controls are weak the world over. They are to a large extent dependent on people running it. And remember a process is only as good as the people running it, so unless you choose your people carefully, you are exposing yourself to frauds. Can we today say with a reasonable degree of certainty that such problems do not exist in other banks? If we cannot, then we indeed are staring at the tip of the iceberg.
Sadly, this has deteriorated to a UPA Vs NDA battle...which, honestly, it is not. This scam would have happened irrespective of the government in power. A government cannot do anything if people down the line are corrupt or if laid out process does not get followed.
Based on your intimate knowledge of how banking systems work… how high would the rot have to go for such a massive fraud to have been carried out? Are we talking just big bank officials, or also bureaucrats and politicians?
Ravi Subramanian: I wouldn’t know this. But my experience in the banking industry tells me that such frauds, cannot be done without the connivance of senior bank executives.
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