The intention clearly was to keep Rajiv bottled up in his home

Kasi Anandan explained: “I went to Shri Rajiv Gandhi with the purpose that he may support for a separate Eelam. He did not tell that he will support Eelam. I did not insist for his promise for a separate Eelam. Till that date I knew that he was opposing to Eelam.”

Indeed, if Rajiv had wanted Eelam, why should Prabhakaran have wanted to kill him?

The third of the “Jain Jumble” series highlighted Rajiv Gandhi’s letter to Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar on February 13, 1991 in which he was quoted as saying: “I would be very reluctant to accept any more protective measures.” The sentence has been torn completely out of context. What Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar had proposed was merely some civil works on the periphery of 10 Janpath. Rajiv Gandhi pointed out that much of the civil work already undertaken was “superfluous” and “adds little to security”.He asked, therefore, that before any additional civil works were undertaken, “I would be grateful if they can be discussed with me.” What he wanted to ascertain was whether the proposed civil works would, in fact, “be tailored to meet only the very essential needs of security.” (Both letters have been reproduced at Vol XII, pages 282-284).

Justice Jain says that in the Chandra Shekar government “the threat scenario during his period had drastically changed and required a complete streamlining of the security arrangement for Shri Rajiv Gandhi, which was not contemplated at all.” (Vol.IV, page 341).

Indeed, Sivarasan, the LTTE assassin who was allowed by Karunanidhi to escape to Jaffna after massacring EPRLF leader Padmanabha and 15 others in June 1990, and returned to India to kill Rajiv Gandhi, was sighted in Madras in April 1991. This was reported to IB. Justice Jain says, “even in such a scenario Shri Chandra Shekhar’s government did not care to provide the needed protective cover to Shri Rajiv Gandhi either in the form of SPG by effecting amendment in the Act or in any other form by providing protective cover of some other force comparable to SPG.” (Vol.IV, page 313-314).

The inescapable conclusion to which one is led by any objective reading of the Reports of the Verma and Jain Commissions is that while the security arrangements at 10, Janpath were relatively satisfactory, they were impregnated with danger when Rajiv Gandhi was on tour. The intention clearly was to keep him bottled up in his home in Delhi so that he could tour the country only at immense personal risk. As Leader of the Opposition, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s national duty to travel the length and breadth of the country whatever the risk to his person. Equally, it was the duty of the government of the day to provide him full protection wherever he went. The Governments of V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar failed in their duty. Rajiv Gandhi had to pay with his life for exercising his fundamental right as a citizen of India to participate in the political life of the country.

Instead of persisting with this futile endeavour at discrediting the Jain Commission Report, what the Express ought to be doing in the interests of objective journalism is asking some hard questions of those whose cause it is espousing.

For instance, should not the Express confront Chief Minister Karunanidhi with his deposition of February 21, 1997? (Vol.V, page 63). On oath, Karunanidhi said, “The training was for self-defence.”

Perhaps the Express could confront P Chidambaram with his sworn testimony that “he was not aware of any training imparted to the Sri Lankan Tamil militants by the Indian Army.” (Vol.VII, page 915).

And the Express could also perhaps ask pro-LTTE Tamil Nadu leader, P Nedumaran, whether he did not inform the Jain Commission that the LTTE had refused “to join the training programme along with other groups” and whether he did not pass on to the Commission Prabhakaran’s remark in this connection that “even if the heaven comes, we will not take it?” (Vol.V, page 56).

And should not the Express be asking V P Singh to confirm the fact that before the Jain Commission “the veracity of the Intelligence reports during the period of Shri V P Singh have not in any way been disputed or challenged by Shri V P Singh”? (Vol.VI, page 671).

And, finally, instead of feeding sycophantic questions to Murasoli Maran, should not the Express have asked him why he refused to go before the Jain Commission to corroborate V P Singh’s wholly bogus claim that he was told by Maran that “Rajiv said he would secure Eelam for Prabhakaran”? And whether it was not true also, as Director Intelligence Bureau in his memorandum of 26.6.89 had stated: “Tamil Nadu has, in a sense, become a clandestine rear base for the LTTE… DMK ministers, other party functionaries and state government officers have been extending covert and not so covert support and patronage to the LTTE… LTTE elements have also been in contact with the Chief Minister… It is Murasoli Maran who is mainly orchestrating various moves on behalf of the DMK administration.” (Vol.XIII, pages 77-83).

Coomi Kapoor replies:

As The Indian Express interview with Murasoli Maran indicates, Rajiv Gandhi vacillated on his stand towards Eelam.

In fact, Kasi Anandan in the letter he delivered to Rajiv shortly before his death asked for Rajiv’s support on securing the LTTE objective of Eelam. He is unlikely to have given the letter if he felt that Rajiv was totally opposed to the concept. Kasi Anandan in his testimony has in fact said that Rajiv asked him to find out from V Prabhakaran what he wanted of him.

Justice M C Jain and Mani Shankar Aiyar are highly subjective in the manner in which they accept some testimony in the report and reject other evidence to support their own point of view. The lapses in intelligence gathering and security are of course a matter of great concern, the question is whether the blame has been correctly apportioned.

The constant harping on the theme that Rajiv Gandhi would have somehow been secure if he had SPG protection is mere wishful thinking. Even J N Dixit in his testimony to the commission acknowledged that there is no foolproof security system against a determined and suicidal terrorist attack. Maran did not choose to corroborate V P Singh’s testimony earlier since he was not summoned by the commission. Considering that former Prime Minister V P Singh was grilled by the judge and various hostile counsel for 22 days in a partisan fashion, obviously few would choose to appear voluntarily before the commission!