Modern secular democracies are based on the notion that the state and religion must remain separate. In other words, people are sovereign and not subject to a higher moral or religious authority. This weakens the ethical foundations of the polity and gives rise to a political class skilled in exploiting the institutions and mechanisms of public life for its own interests.
Oppression and exploitation can then be carried out not outside the law, but under its protection through acts that are legally permissible even when they are morally indefensible. So, although on paper the state professes a liberal and democratic structure, the core becomes illiberal and undemocratic. In this ‘screensaver’ mode of governance (apparently liberal but actually majoritarian and dictatorial), accountability and transparency are among the first casualties.
Democracy itself is consequently weakened by the very separation of politics from the moral and ethical framework that was intended to keep the state free from religious control. A textbook case of demonstrating the above thesis is the PM CARES Fund in our country. The fund was back in the spotlight as the latest published figures presented a curious picture: while donations had fallen sharply and expenditure had declined to a five-year low, its accumulated balance had reached a record high. Specifically, donations to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) fell to ₹479.96 crore in the financial year 2024-25, even as its closing balance rose to an all-time high of ₹8,452.06 crores. The Fund’s expenditure during the year, meanwhile, declined sharply to a five-year low of just ₹87.85 lakh. Its closing balance increased from ₹7,173.03 crores at the end of 2023-24 to ₹8,452.06 crores at the end of 2024-25, marking an increase of 17.83 per cent.
Accountability Vacuum
At the core of the moral value of accountability lies the acceptance of submitting before a higher authority. For example, in Islam, there is the concept of an eternal life after death. Man being either condemned to Hell or blessed to enter Paradise, depending on one’s deeds in this worldly temporal life. Every person is accountable to God, before Whom he/she shall have to face trial about his/her good and bad deeds. In the same way, even in a ‘God-less’, secular democracy, the head of state is accountable to the people who elected him/her. The PM CARESFund violates this fundamental tenet and is designed to remain beyond the purview of democratic accountability.
The accounts of the PM CARESFund cannot be accessed under the Right to Information Act (RTI), nor can Parliament question and seek its details and neither can it be audited by the Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG). The government says that legally it is a charitable trust and hence the above forms of scrutiny do not apply. In the moral realm, intentions matter more than actions and hence hiding behind such naïve logic to evade accountability thoroughly exposes the moral fibre of those in the highest echelons of power.
Delay in Public Disclosure and That Too Incomplete
A logical outcome of the accountability vacuum is the elevated degree of opacity regarding the numbers of the PM CARESFund. To begin with, the audited statements covering 2023-24 and 2024-25 were released after a gap of two years. Moreover, 16 pages of accompanying notes to the financial statements were not uploaded along with the publicly available statements.
For example, the Fund reportedly received ₹324 crores as a ‘refund from implementing agencies’ in 2024-25. However, who will answer questions such as: (a) which implementing agencies returned the money, (b) why the money was returned, (c) what project or purpose it had originally been allocated for, and (d) whether the original project was completed, cancelled or modified?
Big Corpus, Little Expenditure
When it is established that the Fund is beyond scrutiny, its managers are bound to mismanage the funds and digress from all the expected norms of making good use of the monies received through citizens and organisations from both within and outside the country. As of March 31, 2025, the balance in the PM CARES Fund had reached approximately ₹8,452 crores, while expenditure during 2024-25 was only ₹87.85 lakh, or roughly 0.01% of the available corpus. The Fund was established to deal with emergency or distress situation, such as a public health crisis, and to provide relief to affected people. Does it mean that there were zero avenues for expenditure under the intended head?
Other questions that arise are: (a) Why is such a large amount being retained? (b) What is the policy governing the size of reserves? (c) What other emergencies or contingencies is the money being kept for? (d) Who decides when and how the corpus will be used? (e) Is there an expenditure strategy? (f) What criteria govern the selection of beneficiaries and projects?
Independent Audit Versus Public Accountability
The government claims that given the nature of the PM CARES Fund, it is audited by an independent chartered accountancy firm. The latest audit was reportedly conducted by a Mumbai based private accountancy firm KKC & Associates LLP. But an independent financial audit and a CAG audit or performance audit are two different things. A financial audit primarily examines accounts and financial reporting. Its focus is accuracy and compliance.
A performance audit can ask broader questions such as: (a) Was the money used efficiently?(b) Were projects properly selected? (c) Did the spending achieve its objectives? (d) Did beneficiaries actually receive the intended assistance?
Amanah
In Islam, public accountability is embodied by the concept of amanah, or sacred trust. The Qur’an commands those bestowed with authority to “render trusts to whom they are due and, when you judge between people, to judge with justice.” (4:58) Thus, Islam elevates accountability from merely a procedural requirement of governance to a moral obligation. One of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Umar ibn al-Khattab did not consider himself above public questioning. There is a famous incident in which a man questioned why Umar’s garment appeared larger than the share allotted to each person. Umar did not dismiss the question nor did he claim that he was not answerable. He calmly explained that his son Abdullah bin Umar had given his own share to his father.
Unfortunately, the situation in our country is quite the opposite to these noble standards set by Islam’s earliest pioneers (sabiqunwaawwalun). Thomas Paine best described our situation thus – “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”