Hari's Corner

There was a piece of news which caught my eye recently about private banks using goondas (musclemen) to recover loans from individual defaulters - (see here and here). Of course, it is nothing new in India. Admittedly loan recovery is a sensitive issue in a environment where there are plenty of defaulters and conscienceless swinders. But such cases of using brute force come to light only when the Supreme Court suddenly decides to take note of the issue.

My issue with these private banks is,

1. They bombard their customers with loan offers day in and day out through nuisance telephone calls/telemarketing and hand out loans without any discrimination or common sense. In such an environment, how can they ensure that every loan will be 100% recoverable? If they cite competition as the reason for being so aggressive in pushing people into debt, they will have to accept the risk of not being able to recover some of those loans, surely.
2. They use their muscle power only against those people who cannot retaliate in kind. Would this private bank have sent its goondas to the house of a politician or even a rich businessman with high-level political connections? I don't think so. Only those who cannot strike back (the salaried middle class) are targetted regularly for such tactics.

Using illegal methods to extort money from people has a different connotation in society. Only repulsive school bullies indulge in such criminal methods. The problem is that the public has such a short memory that the bank in question will continue doing business as a "respectable" institution.