Sun, 10 May 2009
Benami Deals
The Internet is an educational place and today I learned the term benami land deal. It's a term in Indian law for a sham real estate transaction, where one person buys land with the money of and for the benefit of another. And it's against the law in India. I don't think it's illegal in the United States, here you would just get a commision and a writeup in the local paper.
I read in the Indian press that the Tibetan monastaries of McLeod Gang, which is where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile are located, are accused by the Indian Income Tax department of benami land deals and that the monastery the Karmapa is living in has been raided by agents looking for evidence. This would not implicate the Karmapa, since he is a guest in a monastery owned by the Gelugpas, the Dalai Lama's school of Buddhism. This is a poin the author of the article misunderstands. The article also darkly hints at Chinese involvement. It's widely held belief that the Karmapa is a Chinese mole, sent to India to lure the Himalayan regions into his control and then render them over to China. It's a rdiculous idea, but when it comes to geopolitics, people are often paranoid.
There's plenty of money flowing into Tibetan monasteries from devout Buddhists in the West and China. I suspect it's this money which is buying the property and not the funds of some shady Indian tychoon. And the raid on the monastery the Karmapa is living in is the result of the grudge that some persons in the Indian government have toward him.
