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Political funding's troubling sinkhole

Electoral bonds echo an old colonial playbook, and unless those issues are addressed, they will remain a gateway to corruption

Electoral bonds, political funding
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Illustration: Binay Sinha

Devangshu Datta
In 1798, Lord Cornwallis was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Cornwallis had displayed great financial acumen during his earlier tenure as Governor-General of India when he conceptualised the Permanent Settlement Act. That helped the East India Company and its successor, the British Crown, collect agricultural taxes via the zamindars for over 150 years. 

Cornwallis displayed financial creativity again in finding a novel way to mitigate Irish separatism. Ireland, which was majority Catholic, was a reluctant colony of neighbouring Britain (majority Protestant). There were periodic violent rebellions.

Ireland had its own Parliament, which kept passing inconvenient laws, and often raised the standard of
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