Remember nemesis

Comrade Cupid’s dottiness can be safely ignored. His Prime Ministers thought him a bit of a loose cannon, and we can safely follow their lead. But Leftist cooing aside, what are the facts? On November 7, 1997, Justice Ajit Bharioke gave the green signal to a request from the CBI. He permitted the agency to send Letters Rogatory to the Channel Islands (UK), the Bahamas, Luxembourg and Panama. They requested details of the account-holders inthese tax-havens who had received money from a Swiss bank.

Not just any old Swiss account, mind you, but one in the name of Ottavio Quattrocchi. The very account, in fact, in which fifty million Swedish Kroner had been deposited from the Bofors kickbacks. And that was the money which was sent forward to the accounts in the four places named above.

Within 48 hours of the CBI getting permission to send the Letters Rogatory the Congress lashed out wildly. On November 9, 1997, the Jain Commission’s Interim Report became an all-consuming issue. Fresh polls were inevitable.It was always a safe bet that the noise and confusion of an election campaign would drown out the sober facts, and this is precisely what has happened. Other than Sonia Gandhi’s impudence at Bangalore — never repeated, please notice! — Bofors has been largely ignored by the media.

To go back a little, the late Rajiv Gandhi declared in Parliament that neither he nor any member of his family was the recipient of bribes. He also exculpatedall Indians, but said nothing about other nationalities, notably Italians…

But by February 1990, V P Singh had come in riding a wave of disgust against corruption, largely symbolised by the Bofors deal. When the CBI finally started making genuine enquiries, they came across an account in Geneva in the name of the infamous "Mr Q". But V P Singh did an excellent job of destroying himself, and the Congress was soon back in the saddle, and the probe in cold storage. Despite desultory progress, some people were worried enough to litigate against the Swiss disclosing anything. In July 1993, these litigants were identified as Win Chaddha and family, the Hindujas, and Quattrocchi. (The Hindujas say they had nothing to do with Bofors. But the Swiss account has records of other deals which they would rather not disclose.)

Quattrocchi denied that he held this account, and then sneaked out of India. Nobody has explained how he was allowed to leave. The then Director of the CBI maintains he had sent the file on "MrQ" to the then Minister of State for Personnel, Margaret Alva. Alas, following Sonia Gandhi’s example, she offers no explanation (And unlike the Rajmata, no apologies either!).

In January 1997, the CBI finally received the documents. At that point, the officer in charge of the investigation was from the Karnataka cadre. Prime Minister Deve Gowda, to put it mildly, wasn’t the most popular man at 10, Janpath!

The papers revealed that Quattrocchi was the true power behind the mysterious AE Services, a firm floated exclusively to get a commission from Bofors. Its contract with the Swedes said it would get no money unless Bofors swung a deal with India before March 31, 1986.

It was this mysterious provision and the hurry in high decision-making quarters that led the CBI team to conclude that there was a conspiracy. The relevant file was put up to Rajiv Gandhi, then doubling as Defence Minister, without going through the office of his Principal Secretary, Sarla Grewal.

The officers who did so were GopiArora (then boss of the PMO) and S.K. Bhatnagar (then Defence Secretary). The CBI team has concluded that both should be prosecuted, and Madhavsinh Solanki besides. He, as you may recall, was Narasimha Rao’s first External Affairs Minister. He went to Davos in that capacity, and gave the Swiss a letter asking them to go slow on the Bofors probe.

When Sonia spouts treacly rubbish about nothing coming to light after ten years, remember how Congressmen like Solanki did their best to derail the probe. Remember too that every government but those of V P Singh and A B Vajpayee was either a Congress administration or one resting on Congress backing.

The sole difference, if you want to call it that, is that where Congressmen actively hindered the investigation, the United Front was content to wallow in inertia for the most part. Though documents were received from Switzerland in January 1997, it was only in September that the CBI’s political bosses allowed it to approach the courts for the LettersRogatory.

Incredibly, another of the CBI’s requests is still pending. The agency had requested the declassification of 52 files, all necessary to prove the conspiracy aspect of the Bofors case. Given Prime Minister Gujral’s view on "witch-hunting", it is no surprise that permission hasn’t yet been given.

But blackmail and threats are double-edged swords. If the Congress could suspend a Damoclean blade over the UF, others could do some arm-twisting of their own. Was there, perhaps, a hint of this in the Westland helicopter deal?

These British helicopters are so dangerous that Rajiv Gandhi once declared India wouldn’t take them even if they came free. A single meeting with Margaret Thatcher changed his mind. The Channel Islands, where Quattrocchi sent the Bofors funds, are British territory. Just coincidence?

Let me be frank: as long as certain powerful Indian citizens try to hide the truth of Bofors, they are vulnerable to blackmail from external powers. And that is not a healthy sign forIndia.

Watergate was said to be the attempt to cover up the original crime which undid President Nixon. You could say much the same of Bofors. The original crime was "merely" corruption, now it is an issue of national security.

Worship Eros if you will tonight, but remember a different deity when you vote: Nemesis!