Pragmatic Euphony  

The many fallouts of a lingering controversy.

In his weekly column in the Hindustan Times today, Vir Sanghvi makes a spirited case for finally burying the Bofors controversy. The main thrust of his argument is that it is a worn out issue, with no conclusive proofs and is brought out from the closet only to embarrass Sonia Gandhi by establishing an Italian connection between Quattrocchi and her. The details of the controversy are too well-known to be repeated here. Even if the complacency of the Congress governments can be attributed to complicity, the third front and the NDA governments did no better in their attempts to nail the guilty in the Bofors kickbacks. And the plethora of scams — from coffins to the Barak deal — have deprived the BJP of any higher moral ground on the subject. This point has been made in his recent book by DG Sundaram, the joint secretary (ordnance) during Bofors guns procurement.

So while Bofors is still a presumption, Tehelka (during NDA regime) has become a reality of corruption because of the visuals. [The Statesman]

Leaving the politics of the controversy apart, the real damage done by the endless pursuit of Bofors controversy was rather unintended. It made the politicians, bureaucrats and generals wary of taking a quick and timely decision on procuring any military equipment. The prevailing defence procurement procedures have become so sluggish and cumbersome that large capability gaps in defence preparedness have been created. As the Chairman of the parliamentary defence committee during the NDA regime said in Parliament –

Thanks to the Bofors controversy, officers are scared and are unwilling to take decisions.

While corruption in defence deals — however common all over the world — can’t be condoned, these delays cause far greater concern than kickbacks because they severely affect defence preparedness and the ongoing modernisation drive. Moreover, arms deals are, in effect, an instrument of foreign policy. Therefore, the spin-offs from these deals are not known to public and the media at large. Sukhoi aircraft deal signed by the lame duck Narsimha Rao government in 1996, with advances of around $350 million paid to Russia even before the final prices were negotiated, is perhaps the best example of the ubiquitous national interest.

Now the mystery of what exactly that “larger” national interest was that had led to such haste and a large advance payment in the last days of the Rao government. It seems that Yeltsin had told Rao that he, too, was heading for elections, that the Sukhoi factory happened to be in his constituency, was too broke to even pay salaries to its staff and if India could pay it that advance it would work like magic in his election campaign. That advance was, therefore, a political deal between the big boys, to be adjusted in the final pricing later. It was a conscious, diplomatic decision, cleared by Rao (who, in retirement many years later, confirmed this to me with a wicked smile), and executed by none else than the then finance minister, Manmohan Singh.

Now, go over this story carefully, underline the cast of characters: Rao and Manmohan, Vajpayee and Jaswant, Mulayam Singh Yadav — and you know why it is relevant today. Rao took an incredibly bold decision (given the Bofors background) which the BJP, locked in a bitter electoral battle with him, was suspicious of, but did not make an issue of, in the national interest. When the BJP found the real reason (the Yeltsin request) they kept quiet — they in fact said Rao’s government had handled it masterfully. Then Mulayam Singh, whose entire politics is based on anti-BJPism, was large-hearted enough to open the files to its leaders and take their advice, again in the national interest. In one story, therefore, you had the top leadership of all three major political groups — bitter enemies — involved. Yet they talked, shared confidences, and did the right thing by their nation.[Indian Express]

Every time it seems that the ghost of Bofors has been exorcised, it comes back to haunt the Indian defence services. The Swedish foreign minister has acknowledged the setback to the Indo-Swede defence relations due to the Bofors controversy.

That ghost (of Bofors) has been there for quite some time…It (the controversy surrounding the deal) was a very painful affair for both India and Sweden.[Hindu]

Finally, there was another fallout of the Bofors controversy. As explained by AK Chakraborty in his book Dismissal of the Naval Chief: Arms Deals Expose, the level of defence reportage — which was not very high even then — took a further hit. Arun Singh passed an order in 1988 to keep the defence journalists out of the defence ministry, with their passes restricting their access to five rooms of DPR. These orders have never been rescinded since, leading to reduced transparency — or is it increased opacity — in the corridors of the defence ministry. Those who blame the pathetically abysmal coverage of defence affairs in the Indian mainstream media could perhaps take a second look at the Bofors controversy in that light.

Well, this blogger agrees with Vir Sanghvi that the Bofors controversy needs to be buried. But not for the reasons of fatigue that he articulates. It is for the irreparable damage the unending Bofors saga has caused, and continues to cause, to India’s defence preparedness by bringing the defence acquisition process virtually to a halt.