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Reveal Bofors

I know this is not the right time to talk about Bofors. There is an undeclared war on at Kargil and the media has already announced that the Bofors guns are the new heroes at our frontiers.

While all our other guns have reportedly let us down, these 150 mm howitzers are apparently going great guns. Or so says the media. Not being an expert on armaments I refuse to get into an argument over that but I am still convinced, in my own blundering way, that if India is to be strong in the battlefield it must also be strong and transparent on the negotiating table.

You cannot let our brave young men die defending the frontiers while our politicians and arms dealers strike sleazy deals under the table and stash away purloined cash in secret Swiss vaults.

Corruption in defence deals is the most dangerous thing in the world. You can compromise your national security and, above all, risk the lives of those who are defending you against terrific odds. It is difficult enough protecting a porous border. It is doubly difficult when that porous border is infiltrated by waves of armed terrorists who believe that they are fighting a holy war against you and are, therefore, ready to risk their lives in the onslaught.

When these highly charged terrorists are backed by a wicked and unscrupulous neighbour hell bent on creating trouble, who does not believe in the institutions that you have enshrined in the name of democracy and secularism, you are indeed in very deep trouble. It is like fighting Mike Tyson with your hands tied behind your back.

That is why I am raising Bofors again. I know it is dull and boring and overdone but Bofors is not just Bofors, the 150 mm howitzers that we are using at the border to defend ourselves.

Bofors is synonymous with bribery, corruption, misuse of power. It is synonymous with influential people getting away without paying for their misdemeanours. It has taken more than a decade for the Central Bureau of Investigation to reach this stage where it has identified some of the accomplices.

You have Win Chaddha, an obnoxious and crusty old man who cannot answer a question without spitting out obscenities. You have, cheek by jowl with him, Ottavio Quattrochhi, a suave, slippery carpetbagger from Milan who set up shop in New Delhi during the Indira years and became invincible during Rajiv's time.

A braggart and a broker of multimillion dollar deals, Quattrochhi was so close to Rajiv and Sonia that no one dared to get in his way whenever he bid for any big government contract. So he managed to set his own prices and grab orders for anything that was being was bought or sold in those Camelot years. Including the Bofors guns, if the CBI is to be believed.

You also have S K Bhatnagar, a powerful if somewhat rapacious bureaucrat whose name cropped up again and again in connection with various shady deals during the Rajiv years. He is now retired and living the good life but, hopefully, the CBI will be able to drag him out of the shadows.

Also reportedly in trouble is the man who was once Rajiv's ears and eyes. The indefatigable Gopi Arora. A clever civil servant who proved to be far too clever for his own good. He was rewarded with some of the most envied assignments for his loyalty to the Gandhi family.

If the CBI drags him out of his retirement and puts him on trial that will be a spectacle well worth watching. For the low-key Arora is quite capable of opening a few closets and allowing the skeletons to tumble out. He has nothing to lose any more.

But the excitement will reach its apogee when the needle of suspicion swings towards Rajiv himself. For that is when Sonia will have to make up her mind. She will have to decide whether she wants to play the pativrata wife ready to defend her dead husband irrespective of whether he was guilty or not. Or whether she will play the astute politician and remove herself from the scene of crime.

She can get away with both, given the long time it has taken the investigating agencies to identify the guilty. Public memory is proverbially short and an entire generation has already grown up who do not know much about Bofors. Nor do they care. So it will be that much easier for Sonia to escape the onslaught of public opinion. Plus, there are enough contemporary scandals to keep the press occupied.

If that happens, however, we will compound the tragedy. For, here, we have the perfect opportunity to see a case of corruption through to its bitter end and punish those who were guilty of bribery and skullduggery.

If we allow the matter to drift, as every regime that followed Rajiv's did, India will be the loser. For we need to quickly set an example to the nation. The caravan of corruption that has rolled on since the Rajiv years must be stopped in its tracks. Or at least slowed down.

The Congress are past masters at the game. Be it HDW or Bofors, Westland or Karsan, they have flaunted the fact that they can get away with anything. It is they who have set new benchmarks in bribery and corruption while offering the people of India what they describe as a stable regime.

If stability means a regime of shameless venality, the Congress can indeed claim it for they have the sole distinction today of watching their former party chief and prime minister appearing in court to defend himself against charges of bribery. He is the same man who had to announce to the nation, like Tricky Dick, that he was not a crook. That he did not take a suitcase full of five hundred rupee notes from Harshad Mehta ostensibly for funding his elections.

But we are not here to try Narasimha Rao. Luckily for India, he is politically disgraced. So are his sons and that cabal of wheelers and dealers who hung around him, swinging million dollar deals from 7 Race Course Road.

An otherwise brilliant man, Rao was so shamelessly corrupt that he openly cavorted with the likes of Chandra Swami and Adnan Khashoggi and did not even hesitate to bribe tribal Members of Parliament to keep himself in office. It is a tragic reflection on Indian politics that such a man remains outside jail. In any other nation, he would have been lynched.

To return to Bofors, the danger is that history has this curious habit of repeating itself. If we do not now lay the ghost of Bofors, it will continue to haunt us forever. We will have more and more scams, more and more scandals. More and more sleaze in public life.

Corruption and crime will reach such an awesome level that all of India will begin to look like Laloo's Bihar. Do we want that to happen? Do we deserve that? Will future generations forgive us if we allow this so that Sonia can get away with Bofors?

The answer is no. We as a nation must not forget Bofors, we must not forgive those who compromised our national security, cheated the exchequer, risked the lives of our brave young jawans so that they could make money.

It does not matter who they are and however powerful they may be, we must hunt them down and punish them so that never again will any politician, any bureaucrat, however important, however influential, dare to fool around with India's security concerns.

If this hurts Sonia, so be it.

Pritish Nandy

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