Fleeing Billionaires: The Real Reason

R. Jagannathan in his article titled “Wooing billionaires & HNIs” published in Business Standard recently wrote that India needs “patient capital” or a booming plea for Indians and Indian Diaspora to invest in India. He asked, why do our wealthy continue to pack their Louis Vuitton luggage and say tata-bye-bye to Mother India? The answer isn’t rocket science. All it takes is a little honesty, a little introspection, and a little less finger-pointing.

Take the case of Salman Khan. Eternal bachelor, permanent controversy machine. In January 2014, just before elections, there he was — flying kites with Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad. Salman smiled, called Modi a “good man,” but stopped short of endorsement. Clever man. At that time, his hit-and-run case was hanging like a noose. In 2015, BJP in power, a sessions court gave him five years in jail. By the end of that year, Bombay High Court acquitted him. Coincidence? God’s grace? Call it what you will. But Salman never converted into a saffron brand ambassador. And for that crime of omission, look at his life now: extortion calls, gangsters circling the blackbuck case, even bullets fired outside his Bandra home. Security? This is not security. This is living with the Sword of Damocles — shiny, sharp, always dangling.

Shah Rukh Khan, our King of Romance, fared no better. His son Aryan Khan was paraded in handcuffs by the Narcotics Control Bureau in 2021. No drugs found on him, no evidence, and yet, 25 days in jail. The case collapsed, but not before the world saw the might of the state flexed on a 23-year-old boy. Later it emerged the NCB officials themselves were accused of corruption and extortion. But the damage was done: every father in India shuddered, and every son was reminded what it means to be the child of the wrong man at the wrong time.

And Deepika Padukone. Not Muslim, not a troublemaker. A Hindu superstar with mass adoration. What was her crime? Visiting JNU in January 2020. She didn’t shout slogans, didn’t give speeches — she just stood silently with students who had been beaten by masked goons. That silence was enough. Trolls howled, hashtags screamed “Boycott Chhapaak,” ministers mocked her as “paid.” A film about acid attack survivors became collateral in a political war. Message delivered: even if you’re Hindu, even if you’re a darling of advertisers, one step out of line and you’ll be dragged through the mud.

So when the Prime Minister turned 75 and the internet turned into a circus of Bollywood blessings, you could almost smell the fear in the air. Shah Rukh gushed about Modi’s “youthful energy,” Alia Bhatt cooed her best wishes, and somewhere a filmmaker announced a biopic titled Maa Vande. It was less a birthday celebration, more a loyalty parade. A frantic scramble to stay in the good books, to avoid being the next Salman, the next Shah Rukh, the next Aamir.

And that, my friends, is the answer to Jagannathan’s riddle. Why are the wealthy fleeing? Why do our stars whisper instead of speaking? Because when you live under constant threat — gangsters here, trolls there, and government agencies lurking in the shadows — you start dreaming of exits. Money cannot buy peace of mind. Fame cannot buy dignity. Without freedom, wealth is just gilded captivity.

That, is why our HNIs and our heroes alike keep an escape plan ready. The world outside India may not be perfect, but it offers what we deny them here: the simple right to breathe without looking over your shoulder.

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