New voters were born when the Bofors investigation started. It's time they understood why an entire generation was obsessed with Bofors.
In 1987, the Swedish media disclosed that bribes were paid in the sale of the Bofors gun to India. Our ambassador to Sweden, Bhupat Ojha, wrote to the Indian government confirming this. After receiving his letter, Rajiv Gandhi misled Parliament to claim that no bribes were paid. This breached parliamentary privilege. He could have been expelled from Parliament. This lie also made him complicit in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the state.
The President of India was petitioned for permission to prosecute Rajiv Gandhi in a court of law. President Zail Singh did not grant permission. Instead, he played politics by threatening dismissal of the PM with whom he had differences.
V.P. Singh exploited the Bofors scandal to launch his own party. In the general election that followed, he defeated the Congress and became PM. Once in power, he forgot all about Bofors. When the Swedish parliament revealed that his cabinet colleague Arun Nehru had secretly negotiated with top Bofors officials in New Delhi, though he had no official responsibility to do so, Singh refused to question Nehru. He told a journalist: "Let the law take its own course."
The diary of the top Bofors executive, Martin Ardbo, was seized by Swedish authorities. It made references to R, Nero and Q. Critics suspected these referred to Rajiv, Nehru and Quattrocchi. The CBI was already probing Quattrocchi. It wanted to arrest him. But Quattrocchi was allowed to escape. Now, after 18 years, Quattrocchi's bank accounts in London have been 'defreezed' by our government. For 18 years, the media futilely speculated about who received bribes. It ignored clinching evidence of Rajiv Gandhi's complicity in the criminal cover-up of the case. Bofors, therefore, does not symbolise corruption. It symbolises cover-up.
Now the government has told Britain that there is no case against Quattrocchi. His bank accounts need no longer be frozen. This decision was defended by Union law minister H.R. Bharadwaj. After the Opposition uproar, the government said the PM had not been consulted. This was a tactical mistake. This admitted that norms had been violated. If the PM wasn't even consulted, he comes through as a non-entity. If he agreed to the decision to please Sonia Gandhi, he comes through as a puppet. So the PM must decide. Is he a non-entity or a puppet? In either case, does he deserve to stay?
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)
