More sting than scam

Third, only 20 per cent of the contracted amount was ever paid. Even this payment was made not before but after the cancellation of the contract.The CBI chargesheet glides over these questions. Yet, the answers might hold the key to what might have really happened. This line of enquiry best begins with the Ardbo diaries. Martin Ardbo, one of the accused in the chargesheet, was the chief executive of Bofors. His diary was seized by the Swedish police during the course of theirinvestigation. The relevant extracts were scooped by this newspaper. Ardbo refers to a “Gandhi trust.” Someone claiming to be a lawyer for this non-existent trust appears to have been the moving force behind the sting. Strangely, the CBI, in a decade-long search investigation, does not appear to have even tried to trace the trust or identify the “lawyer” who approached Ardbo.

It would appear that those who set up the sting did have access to the inside track, because the Bofors-AE contract was axed on Bofors being awarded the contract before March 31, 1986, the last day of the financial year. A massive contract entered into before that date could be reflected in the budget. It was not astrology or insider trading but the facts of fiscal compulsion which seem to have dictated the deadline.

It was also important to the sting that Ardbo be persuaded not to approach the Indian authorities to confirm whether or not the payment being demanded by AE was, in fact, on behalf of an authority like the PrimeMinister. Q’ was one such person who, because of his much vaunted proximity to the Gandhi family, could pose as an authorised representative. But someone within the government was necessary to know what was happening in the inner councils.

That person could be the Nero’ or N’ of the Ardbo diaries. The CBI does not appear to have even begun to establish the possibility of such a link, and its crucial component — the identity of N’. Could N’ have been the insider? Yes, that is possible. The Indian Express documents show that the Swedish Ambassador in Delhi was being summoned and ordered around by at least one minister of the Rajiv Gandhi government who had nothing officially to do with the Bofors gun deal. It is also well-known that the person concerned was reputed to be a leading fund-raiser and closely associated with Quattrocchi.

As a confidante of the Prime Minister, N’ could have known of the naive and futile attempts being made by a government of boy scouts to eliminate the mostinsidious element in any defence deal — the middleman. He is also likely to have been in the know of key parameters of the deal in the offing. First, that the elimination of known agents from the final stages of negotiation would clear out all rivals. Second, that a cut-off date had been set within the government for completing the negotiations. And, third, that the sudden development of heat-seeking radar by the Americans and its unanticipated acquisition of by the Pakistanis had decisively altered the security parameters of the defence decision in favour of Bofors.

It was not the price but the technical requirement of “shoot-and-scoot” that brought up Bofors from behind. This is not even touched upon in the chargesheet. Intelligence about Pakistan’s acquisition was received by the government in the last half of 1985. It was at the same time that Siachen had emerged as the scene of hostilities between India and Pakistan. The following year, 1986, was going to see the most massive military exercise everundertaken by the Indian armed forces — Operation Brass-tacks. It could – and, indeed, did — bring India and Pakistan to the very edge of war. It was also clear that with the Americans determined to worst the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Americans would only welcome any military advantage that Pakistan obtained against India. That advantage could be neutralised only by the Bofors gun. That is why the present government has decided after Kargil –quite rightly – to induct over a thousand Bofors guns and equip every one of our artillery regiments with this exceptional weapon.

The outstanding technical quality of the Bofors gun might today be a matter of public knowledge, but in the last half of 1985 it was a top defence secret, known only to Gen. Sundarji and a chosen few. Among those chosen few was, of course, R’ — but could also have been N’. Based on this inside knowledge, it is possible to hypothesise that between them N’ and Q’ could have set up the sting. They could have invented a Gandhitrust.’

AE Services might be a shadowy firm but it was by no means new to the military intelligence business. Reports published in this newspaper on October 13, 1989, reveal two fascinating clues. One, the Agreed Summary of Discussions in September 1987 between Indian and Bofors officials, show that Bofors had described AE Services as a firm they had retained in several other countries earlier. The authors of the sting would, therefore, have known that AE Services would be one of the most reliable conduits for squeezing a little juice out of Ardbo. Knowing that other agents had been eliminated, knowing that it was beyond Ardbo to conceive of a bribeless defence deal, knowing that there was a cut-off date, knowing that heat-finding radar and shoot-and-scoot had skewed the technical parameters in favour of Bofors, and knowing that in the price negotiations Bofors would cut its profit-margin to the bone to secure the biggest-ever single deal in its history, the circumstantial evidence suggest that the stingwas brought into operation as soon as the Swedish government had confirmed that steps had been taken to eliminate all other contenders from the scene. Hence the intriguing date of the conclusion of the contract and the assurance with which those setting up the sting could assert that their commissions would be due only if Bofors were awarded the contract by a particular date.

And if a connection can be established between the fall of the minister concerned from the cabinet and the cancellation of the Bofors-AE contract, perhaps some light would begin to be shed on why Q’, N’ and AE were content with a mere seven million dollars when their contract entitled them to 35 million.— Aiyar is a Congress MP but these views are his own