The Pakistan government at the moment seems to be rejoicing Taliban victory in Afghanistan. The manner in which it wanted to exploit the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has rebounded threatening to reinforce religious fundamentalist inclinations in Pakistan itself. 

The Taliban's victory in Afghanistan may give Pakistan a choice to look at its relationships with its neighbours, not just from an anti-India stance as it tries to rein in and influence the Taliban to remain pro-Pakistan and not adopt an independent policy of their own.

However, the religio-politico situation of the region has increasingly shown a ripple effect in Pakistan, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains a prime example of such thinking.

Commenting on the evolving situation Ayesha Siddiqa, a geo-politics adviser at SOAS, UK, said that Rawalpindi invested primarily in the Taliban as it knew that the US would ultimately leave Afghanistan. Rawalpindi's prime desire was to ensure a friendly establishment in its north-western neighbouring nation, which doesn't get exploited against Pakistan's interests, especially by India.

While Pakistani fear that the Taliban victory may give a violent boost to the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban has close ties to their Afghan kin, and the TTP had started to be active again inside Pakistan even before the Taliban capture of Afghanistan.

The Taliban victory benefits from decades in which religious fundamentalism was woven into the fabric of Pakistani society as well as some of its key institutions. Siddiqa comments: "The fact remains that, notwithstanding the ambition to mellow the tone of religion in Afghanistan, Pakistan itself runs the risk of becoming more like its north-western neighbour more religious and more authoritarian."

Pakistan understands the complex situation very well and that's why it was pushing the Taliban to opt for a truly inclusive government besides broadening its contacts with other Afghan groups. A visit last week to the Pakistani capital by representatives of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and other Afghan politicians is a pointer in that regard.

In discussing the fallout for Pakistan of the Taliban victory, analysts have by and large focus on Pakistan as fertile ground for the spread of Taliban-style religious fundamentalism as well as concerns that it would enable TTP to rekindle their campaign of attacks in Pakistan.

The TTP is a coalition of Pashtun Islamist groups with close ties to the Afghan Taliban that last year joined forces with several other militant Pakistani groups, including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a violently anti-Shiite Sunni Muslim supremacist organisation.

"Pashtuns of the Afghan Taliban will, after a few years in power, find common cause with their Pashtun kinsmen in Pakistan... There are plenty of Pakistani Pashtuns who would prefer the whole of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province) to be part of a wider Pashtunistan," predicts scholar and former British ambassador to Pakistan Tim Willasey-Wilsey.

In fact, the events of the last 75 years confirm that the main focus of Pakistan's foreign policy has always been anti-Indian in tenor and practice. It became a fertile ground for Mujahideen in the 1970s, as it wanted to exert more influence on the Soviet state as compared to India besides stoking the fire in Indian Kashmir.

Later it allied with the US just in order to belittle India, but the reality is that Pakistan has always tried to be involved in Afghan affairs due to the economic gains also and this trend continues even now. The British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb, while in Pakistan last week, announced a doubling of aid to Afghanistan to 286 million pounds and released the first tranche of 30 million pounds of that to support Afghanistan's regional neighbours including Pakistan. Thus, in a way the foreign aid has not only lined the pockets of Afghan gang lords and politicians but even Pakistani generals and politicians.

This complexity in Afghan affairs and the recent announcements by senior Taliban leadership with regard to India puts Pakistan in a real quandary. Pakistan might also be concerned after a Taliban official Sher Mohammed Abbas Stanekzai declared in a rare statement on foreign policy that "we give due importance to our political, economic and trade ties with India and we want these ties to continue. We are looking forward to working with India in this regard".

Pakistan in today’s contest may be rejoicing the de-facto control over Afghanistan but it will be a sure suicide in long term, leading to the destruction of the modern nation that its founding father MA Jinnah has dreamt of.  

(The writer is Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief of The Opinion Express Group)

Covid-19 has struck people from every walk of life. It has shaken India’s vast population and affected the economy, education, health care systems and also day-to-day normal life for the last year. Similar to many countries, India too undertook various strategic steps to control Covid-19 and implemented many national and state-level Covid-19 control measures. India has efficiently and effectively managed the emergence of the first Covid-19 wave.  Although many epidemiologists and mathematical model experts predicted there could be a second or third wave of Covid-19 in 202 in India, political leaders and policymakers took such information very leniently and casually. The laxity to adhere to covid-19 protocols deviated in many situations across the country from the beginning of 2021. Critical analysis indicates that political and administrative machinery went into a certain type of overconfidence that India has achieved measures to control Covid-19. Such indications from political leaders have profoundly impacted the public and thus public diverged from adhering to covid-19 protocols. Recently, the top medical journal the Lancet wrote that Indian policymakers might have accepted the pandemic as an “endgame” in India once the first Covid-19 wave subsided.

Government machinery shall look beyond the political framework and political ideologies to face and manage national calamities and such pandemics. Political governments shall bring technocrats, political party leaders, businessmen, scientists, medical fraternity, bureaucrats, policymakers and public health experts together under one umbrella during this pandemic.  Such efforts are foremost important to tackle the pandemic. It is worth mentioning how global partnership and amalgamation brought countries and organizations together beyond boundaries and borders to develop vaccines on the fast track.  Collaboration between Oxford-AstraZeneca- Serum Institute of India, Pfizer-BioNTech and many others are some examples to mention about fruitful global collaborations. Although India has successfully made a couple of Covid-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin, logistic and vaccine drive did not catch the speed.  There has been a slow process in the vaccine drive in India. Although India got world appreciation for supplying vaccines to more than seventy countries, India’s mass vaccination effort didn’t meet the expectation.

Declining of Covid-19 surge and the initiation of vaccination at the beginning of 2020 might have pushed the political administration to take things unconcernedly. Even top scientific journals like Nature viewed that Indian political governance shall listen to the scientists, medical professionals and public health experts when such a pandemic afflicts the country. Strong political will and political wisdom shall emerge to take up such vaccine drive as the top national priority. All political parties should accept the certain common mandate that political processions, festivals and public gathering functions should not be held. They should collectively accept the vaccination process for the public as the country’s urgency and priority. If political party leaders raise concerns and differences of opinion on India’s vaccine drive and on vaccines, the public may get into confusion. WHO scientists recently pointed out that mass gatherings and social activities might have contributed to a such sudden surge of Covid-19 in India.  India began a vaccine drive on 16, Jan 2021 and countries might have initiated some weeks before that. After the vaccination drive began many political parties at centre and states started celebrating as India controlled the pandemic. After the onset of the vaccine drive, the drive began without acceleration. Emergency use of vaccines became non-emergency. Many other national and political issues became a priority over the vaccine drive. Notably, the Hon. High courts made a serious observation on election procedures in many states on violating covid-19 protocols.  Although such events may be unavoidable, political parties shall understand that vaccine drive for the public is the need of the hour and important for managing and controlling Covid-19. Each state has been playing a different modus operandi in attacking the centre due to political differences and managing vaccination processes.

Political party members should fully adhere to the Covid-19 protocol and should exhibit exemplary gestures to the public. When politicians speak, support and propagate political rallies and mass gatherings, how public could follow the rules and guidelines? Political machinery across the nation shall come together and merge to work in totality against the national pandemic. Politicians and policymakers are good at comparing and boosting small achievements of Indian initiatives on national and global platforms. This type of comparison may not pay any benefit during a pandemic. Similarly, they may also analyse how other countries speeded up their vaccine drive for the public by procuring vaccines from other countries. India is the capital of vaccine suppliers in the world. Surprisingly, Statista reports as on May 20 in India only 3% of people got the second dose of vaccine and 10.9 % of people received the first dose whereas these figures may be ten times more in many other countries.

India could have vaccinated more people above 18 years of age, which may be better than many other countries if the vaccine drive could have initiated more aggressively in February. Now CoWin app is like Tatkal and is available for just 1-2 hours per day for vaccine booking. The public is almost in a frustrating situation to get vaccine slots even after trying for weeks through CoWin. This won’t serve the purpose of mass vaccination in India for control of the pandemic. In many rural areas, a digital divide exists with poor digital literacy and internet connectivity. We have the best IT technology service providers in the world and the government shall take the help of IT sectors to develop alternative apps or measures to speed up the registration process to cover mass vaccination in a short period of time. The establishment of “walk-in vaccine centres “across India could be an option.

Management of the vaccine drive by the government for such a vast Indian population could be discussed with all political party levels, management experts and other technocrats with help of well-established defence organizations and the medical fraternity without political differences. The time has come for all political parties to join hands to face a such pandemic. Covid-19 may be a wake-up call for all political parties to remove their political barricades and work together to curtail Covid-19 pandemic.

(The writer is  Practicing Medical Scientist at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. The views expressed are personal.)  

The Hits & Miss of Covid 19 in India: The WHO Representative to India, appreciated the response of the Government of India to the first wave of the pandemic COVID-19 describing the Lockdown Measures as "timely, comprehensive and robust". WHO has, however, cautioned that lockdowns alone would not eliminate coronavirus and India must take necessary measures to prevent a second and third wave of infections. The government failed to understand the gravity of the problem. Healthcare spending in India is abysmally low for an emerging economy with a population of 1.3 billion. The lack of the desired level of investment in the health infrastructure has so far resulted in the fragility of the Indian health ecosystem which posed a big hurdle in generating an effective response against the pandemic. It is, therefore, strongly recommended to the Government increase its investments in the public healthcare system and make consistent efforts to achieve the National Health Policy targets of expenditure up to 2.5% of GDP within two years as the set timeframe of the year 2025 is far away and the public health cannot be jeopardized till that time schedule.

The country has a poor state of primary healthcare, especially in rural areas. It is strongly recommended that the Ministry urgently increase its spending under the National Rural Health Mission to strengthen the delivery of healthcare services in rural areas, keeping in view the languishing health infrastructure and inadequate delivery of health services to the much-needed rural population. The country is ravaged by natural fury but our country has shown tremendous resilience to overcome the traumatic time. It is good to see that the Modi government has started the work on a war footing and the country is gradually limping back to normalcy. The most surprising sequence of the covid pandemic is the behavior of China. They have become aggressive at the border and started challenging the armed forces of the country by snatching land parcels. Even more surprising is the silence of our government on the Chinese intent, The entire world at G7 summit condemned China but the Indian leadership chooses to remain silent.

Rafale Ghost: In another development that will escalate demands in India for an independent probe into the controversial Rafale deal, a French judge has been appointed to lead a judicial investigation into alleged corruption and favouritism in the 7.8-billion-euro sale to India of 36 fighter aircraft, including the role of a middleman whose disclosures India’s Enforcement Directorate is reportedly aware of but has not bothered to investigate till now. Given the central role played by Anil Ambani’s Reliance group – Dassault’s Indian partner in the deal for the 36 aircraft – the probe is likely to also examine the nature of the association between the two companies.

India and Dassault had officially been negotiating terms for the purchase and manufacture of 126 Rafale jets right up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s publicly announced decision – on April 10, 2015 – to scrap that deal and replace it with the outright purchase of 36 fighters. In a sensational new revelation, “Documents seen by Mediapart show that Dassault and Reliance had, in fact, signed their first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – a document setting out broad outlines of an agreement – on March 26th 2015. That was 15 days before Modi’s announcement of the turnaround, and the exclusion of HAL, and begs the question as to whether the two companies had been informed of it in advance.”

“The two partners agreed on a maximum investment in the subsidiary of 169 million euros. Of that sum, Dassault, which held a 49% stake in DRAL, pledged to provide up to 159 million euros, representing 94% of the total, while Reliance would provide just the remaining 10 million euros. “This meant that Reliance was given the majority 51% stake in the joint venture in return for a relatively very modest sum. While Reliance brought neither funds nor know-how of any significance to the joint venture, it did bring to it its capacity for political influence. On November 9, 2015, Dassault CEO Trappier and Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani signed a “strategic partnership agreement”, which was a more detailed document than the previous March 26, 2015 MoU, for the establishment of a joint venture in India. While it detailed how Dassault would provide “technology and know-how”, “technical assistance” and “international marketing” capabilities, Reliance was expected to provide only “production facilities”, presumably land, and “marketing for programs and services with the GOI and other authorities in compliance with applicable laws”. Narendra Modi has to face a twin attack on Covid mismanagement and Rafale Ambani jugalbandi in the coming parliamentary session.   

(The Writer is the Editor-in-Chief of The Opinion Express Group)

Modi government's incompetence is largely responsible for India’s pandemic disaster, as infections and deaths mount at a terrifying pace in India, the prime minister’s team's culpability for the crisis has become startlingly clear. A literate leader might have saved India from this manmade disaster.

India’s healthcare system has collapsed under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country registered more than 3500 deaths and nearly 400,000 infections daily, off- course the official figures are always inaccurate. Videos of crowded mortuaries and funeral sites, and grief-stricken relatives outside packed hospitals are circulating among middle-class Indians on social media. This is after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory against COVID-19 in Jan 2021. Addressing a virtual summit of the World Economic Forum, he sought applause for saving “humanity from a big disaster by containing the coronavirus effectively.” Three months on, India is the epicenter of the pandemic and completely on its knees. The country’s health care system is on the precipice of total collapse, patients are suffocating to death, relatives are scrambling for beds, the most advanced hospitals have been reduced to begging the government for emergency supplies of oxygen, and crematoriums blazing nonstop have run out of hospital room and cremation wood. Social media is inundated with agonizing pleas for help, leading to a thriving black market for oxygen and essential medicine has emerged, and a nationally acclaimed in 2015 by the International Monetary Fund as an economic powerhouse poised to overtake China is now lobbying for emergency foreign aid.

India might have been spared this humanitarian crisis had Modi and his team not neglected their duties and vilified those who offered him, constructive counsel. He had the time, means, and access to expertise to prove the country against this inferno. As early as last November, a parliamentary committee had issued warnings of a second wave and urged the government to stockpile oxygen. But rather than bolstering India’s capacities, Modi used the virus to burnish his cult and pillage the country.

Last March, days after plunging India into chaos by announcing a nationwide lockdown with a four-hour notice, he sought tax-free donations for a fund called PM CARES to help the poorest of the poor, buy personal protective equipment and build oxygen plants across India. The equivalent of more than a billion dollars flowed into it during the first week. What did Modi do with all that money? Nobody knows and nobody is allowed to know. Because despite offering tax subsidies to contributors and using government organs to promote the fund, PM CARES cannot be reviewed by the state auditor because it is structured as a private trust.

As in so many of the pandemic’s worst-hit countries, this tragedy was avoidable and is largely the fault of a boastful and incompetent government. Yet, judging by the fate of other bungling far-right politicians such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the U.K.’s Boris Johnson, Hungary’s Viktor Urban, and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may well suffer few political consequences for his devastating misdeeds.

Like those other leaders, Modi has spent more time diminishing the pandemic’s seriousness than combating it. In early March, even as cases in India rose alarmingly, he again boasted that the country would serve as “the world’s pharmacy,” churning out vaccines for developing nations. His health minister judged India to have entered the “endgame” of the pandemic. In a new cricket stadium named after Modi, tens of thousands of largely unmasked people turned out to watch matches between India and England last month. Many more unprotected people turned out for Modi’s recent election rallies in the state of West Bengal, and an estimated 3.5 million people attended, with the encouragement of Modi’s Hindu nationalist colleagues, the Kumbh Mela religious festival.

The result? Faced with a crushing caseload and an acute shortage of vaccines, India has stopped exporting doses and is importing new jabs from Russia. Indian states are desperately fighting over the supply of something as basic as medical oxygen. He has also survived, already, blunders that would have wrecked any other political career: demonetization in 2016, hasty GST implementation and a botched lockdown last year that caused the biggest and most desperate internal migration witnessed in India since 1947.

The current crisis does seem more serious than others Modi has faced. Until now, his claims for instance, that Indian airstrikes in 2019 killed scores of terrorists in Pakistan or that withdrawing almost all currency notes in circulation punished corrupt businessmen with an exception of his favorite Gautam Adani could never be adequately tested against reality, especially because Modi skillfully constructed each time an alternative reality with the help of loyal journalists and social media trolls. The facts of extensive death and bereavement among India’s middle classes, and shortages of hospital beds and oxygen, cannot be denied so easily; they require no external verification. Even an illusionist as masterful as Modi will find it difficult to spin them to his advantage.

An ex-bureaucrat revealed his ‘control freak’ nature, his deliberate bypassing of his ministers. Modi soon sized up his secretaries, not necessarily correctly, and his permanent scowl started sending cold shivers. He then resorted to his unabashed mode of operating through favorites namely PK Mishra and Ajit Dowal, both bureaucrats gave cabinet minister status, which demoralized other equally or more talented officers. The latter had not crawled to ingratiate themselves. Lightning transfers became commonplace, and the PMO controlled every appointment to senior posts, as well as to boards and committees. Though inputs were taken from the RSS, the Intelligence Bureau and the spy chief, the NSA, mattered more. Stalinist shadows grew longer and the headless organization’s suffered when appointments took years. Babus and businessmen, however, learned to fake everlasting loyalty and started wooing Sanghis.

But no government could function with just handpicked cheerleaders, and experienced bureaucrats stopped sharing their lifelong experience, out of fear, and the political savvy of ministers was treated with contempt. Modi's brilliant idea of 75+ retirement to remove experienced politicians from active politics backfired. He can tolerate 75+ PK Mishra and Ajit Dowal but he has an aversion to 75+ politicians. As the Cabinet system crashed and responsibility became opaque, India’s performance ranking in all internationally comparable indices started tumbling, every year. And the inviolability of statistics disappeared, as fudging began. Officers realised that only style and spectacle mattered, not substance.

Covid 19 broke the spine of an already badly slip-disced economy. Just because the home minister was/is Modi’s most trusted factotum, all decisions, even those well beyond its limited competence, were decided by the lathi-wielding home ministry, not the health ministry. Regular imperious edicts flowed, without consultation. Relief work has always been an integral part of Indian administration, but since the two leaders maintained an eerie silence on the plight of migrant workers, no relief camps came up to alleviate such an enormous human tragedy.

While every sensible nation planned the production, import and distribution of vaccines and oxygen several months ago, India's illiterate leadership backed by mediocre RSS ideological guidance woke up to issues like pricing, supplies and international obligations only a couple of months ago. Even simple arithmetic of supply versus demand was hardly understood, advice from specialists received lower priority and the regime let its defenses down.

The invincible ‘spell’ is finally breaking, but what we need immediately is a fire-fighting and imaginative response, not vengeance.  Today, India has become the new global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with daily infections surpassing 400,000 per day and the official death toll—likely a massive underestimate—nearing a quarter of a million people. Hospitals are being overrun with patients, and the crisis is exacerbated by a devastating shortage of oxygen. The Indian judiciary has gone as far as threatening capital punishment for anyone caught trying to divert shipments of oxygen from around the country to affected areas. There have been dozens of deaths documented directly tied to a lack of oxygen. So, what happened?

Modi government suffered from “arrogance, policy paralysis, incompetence, and no efforts to learn from the past year.” A government with a religious fundamentalist ideology that has taken aim at minority groups and elevated a form of mediocre fascist Hindu supremacy has failed its people spectacularly.

Modi has also refused to negotiate with tens of thousands of poor farmers who began a mass occupation on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi last year in protest of new harsh privatization farm laws. While the number of farmers protesting declined during the annual spring harvest as they returned to pick crops on their farms, an estimated 15,000 still remain, and many more are ready to return if needed. “What choice do the farmers have at this point?”. “The farm laws will kill them in the next few years, and, heaven forbid, if the virus comes, it will kill them quickly. So, death is on both sides.

In spite of being the world’s largest manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccines, India has exported far more doses to other nations than were deployed internally. Modi has been accused of engaging in “vaccine diplomacy,” giving away millions of vaccines to other nations to shore up his international support. The “vaccine has been put on the open market with limited provision from the government to inoculate citizens.” In other words, poor Indians have to wait far longer to obtain the vaccine compared to wealthier Indians who can walk into a private clinic and purchase a dose.

In the meantime, Indians continue dying in numbers so large that the capital New Delhi glows at night from the fires of mass cremations. The state governments have let down the country badly. Health is a state subject, yet ordinary leadership largely propelled by the Mandal commission's aftermath with zero competence fueled the disaster. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh (post-Panchayat Elections), Rajasthan, and Gujrat state leadership remained clueless despite there being a gap of 14 months between the first wave and second wave. Delhi Joker's Chief Minister was crying for oxygen and medicine when the people started dying on the street. As the hashtag #ResignModi began trending to new heights, at least, Modi to save his face must sack his cabinet and PMO to bring fresh faces to tackle the crisis with a new approach and perspective. However, the narrative has consolidated with the large section of Modi supporters that “the government has failed on all accounts.”

(The writer is Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief of The Opinion Express Group)

Modi government and several state government's incompetence is largely responsible for India’s pandemic disaster, as infections and deaths mount at a terrifying pace in India, the prime minister’s team's culpability for the crisis has become startlingly clear. A literate leader might have saved India from this manmade disaster.

India might have been spared this humanitarian crisis had Modi and his team not neglected their duties and vilified those who offered him, constructive counsel. He had the time, means, and access to expertise to prove the country against this inferno. As early as last November, a parliamentary committee had issued warnings of a second wave and urged the government to stockpile oxygen. But rather than bolstering India’s capacities, Modi used the virus to burnish his cult and pillage the country.

Last March, days after plunging India into chaos by announcing a nationwide lockdown with a four-hour notice, he sought tax-free donations for a fund called PM CARES to help the poorest of the poor, buy personal protective equipment and build oxygen plants across India. The equivalent of more than a billion dollars flowed into it during the first week. What did Modi do with all that money? Nobody knows and nobody is allowed to know.

Like those other leaders, Modi has spent more time diminishing the pandemic’s seriousness than combating it. In early March, even as cases in India rose alarmingly, he again boasted that the country would serve as “the world’s pharmacy,” churning out vaccines for developing nations. His health minister judged India to have entered the “endgame” of the pandemic. In a new cricket stadium named after Modi, tens of thousands of largely unmasked people turned out to watch matches between India and England last month. Many more unprotected people turned out for Modi’s recent election rallies in the state of West Bengal, and an estimated 3.5 million people attended, with the encouragement of Modi’s Hindu nationalist colleagues, the Kumbh Mela religious festival.

COVID-19 has shown that we have underestimated the insidious nature of and the menace posed by biological weapons to humanity. It is difficult to anticipate new, highly infectious, and deadly bioagents like COVID-19. The absence of immediate bio-defenses and the time-lag in finding treatment(s) and vaccine(s) enables the invisible enemy to inflict high morbidity and mortality. The latency period and mutation into virulent and different strains, along with the chances of a recurrence in waves, make disease detection and control more challenging.

Mass contagion and efforts to contain it, including through the Great Lockdown, have brought even the most powerful countries to their knees and economies to a grinding halt. It has pushed robust democratic societies into turmoil and has led governance into crisis. The pandemic has generated a psyche of fear, uncertainty, and helplessness among people everywhere.

Wish the ruling class in India should be literate enough to understand the scientific inputs rather than the usual election dynamic of dividing communities into communal, caste, and class lines.

The writer is Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief of The Opinion Express Group) 

Whenever debates on criminalisation and its link with politics, memories will resurface about the not yet fully published Vohra Committee Report of 1993. Actually, the 12-page report prepared by Home Secretary NN Vohra names only fugitives Dawood Ibrahim, first parked in Dubai and now in Pakistan and late Iqbal Mirchi parked in London, and then talks about criminalization of politics in Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh without any naming any politicians. It also talks about the role of the narcotics trade, film world mafia etc without naming anyone in the signed first 12 pages of the report. It is well known that Vohra who later enjoyed post-retirement life of more than 25 years up to Governorship has annexed many unsigned intelligence reports, newspaper clippings and sensitive letters of many which name many big names.

Many portions of this unsigned annexure naming important politicians (one recently died) basically from the Western region and their involvement with Dawood Ibrahim, narcotics gangs, and hawala rackets are still available. Generally, the media avoided publishing due to its sensitive nature and this annexure is unsigned. Many Editors lost jobs for bringing out some of the portions of this annexure. A classic case was the termination of the late Editor Vinod Mehta for naming a big politician from Maharashtra for his links with Dawood Ibrahim. Not only Vinod Mehta lost his job, the newspaper owned by Times of India also closed down after this incident. We leave it to the guess of readers about the name of the politician, still controlling the affairs of Maharashtra.

Basically, criminalization of politics starts from election-winning techniques like booth capturing and retaining power by terrorizing the people to ensure the money collection. “In certain States, like Bihar, Haryana and UP, these gangs enjoy the patronage of local level politicians, cutting across party lines and the protection of governmental functionaries. Some political leaders become the leaders of these gangs/armed senas and, over the years, get themselves elected to local bodies, State Assemblies and the national Parliament. Resultantly, such elements have acquired considerable political clout seriously jeopardizing the smooth functioning of the administration and the safety of life and property of the common man, causing a sense of despair and alienation among the people,” narrates Vohra Committee Report.

The Report goes on: “An organised crime Syndicate/Mafia generally commences its activities by indulging in petty crime at the local level, mostly relating to illicit distillation/gambling/organised satta and prostitution in the larger towns. In port towns, their activities involve the smuggling and sale of imported goods and progressively graduate to narcotics and drug trafficking. In the bigger cities, the main source of income relates to real estate – forcibly occupying lands/buildings, procuring such properties at cheap rates by forcing out the existing occupants/tenants etc. Over time, the money power thus acquired is used for building up contacts with bureaucrats and politicians and expansion of activities with impunity. The money power is used to develop a network of muscle-power which is also used by the politicians during elections”.

The above two paragraphs of the Vohra Committee Reports neatly narrate the role of criminalization in Indian politics. Now let us back to the electoral violence. Since the introduction of the Electronic Voting Machine, booth-capturing violence is not happening since 2000. Thanks to maverick former maverick Election Commissioner late T.N.Sheshan for forcefully implementing Electoral Identity Cards and Electronic Voting Machines.  But politicians are not fools. They devise new methods to grab power. Violence is perpetrated using the local anti-social elements to fear the electorate to stay away from voting, and money pumping to bribe voters still going on.

Elimination of political rivals

Elimination of political rivals is the worst in Indian politics, where Left parties have a say. This intolerant barbarism happens in Left controlled areas like Kerala and West Bengal and Maoist infiltrated areas of central India. Sadly though Left parties are sidelined in West Bengal politics, in the Trinamool Congress regime also this violence and elimination of political opponents are happening. It must be interesting to note that such barbaric methods are not happening in areas where BJP and Congress are strong. So we can attribute the origin of elimination of political enemy methods to Left parties which once even passed a resolution (famously known as the Calcutta Thesis) justifying the need for the elimination of “class enemies”.

There is another kind of violence still practiced in India. This is the violence or elimination of enemies within the party. Here comes the real role of the usage of mafia elements by politicians to eliminate their rivals within the party. Even terrorists, mafia underworld and ultra-Naxal gangs were used to eliminate the rivals within the party. Unfortunately, probes in these cold-blooded murders never proved due to the professional killings and alibis deployed with complete precision techniques. So still general beliefs on these murders remain as hear says without any proof. The famous film ‘New Delhi Times’ narrates this kind of elimination of political rivals from within the party. 

Another such incident of big violence erupted inside DMK. In a tussle to become the party’s No: 2, supremo Karunanidhi’s sons Stalin and Alagiri went to street fights leading to the murder of Stalin’s supporter MLA Tha Kiruttinan in 2003. The brothers’ fight for supremacy in the party ended up in the burning of nephew Maran brother's newspaper office and burn to death of staffers. Alagiri lost his temper when Marans’ newspaper published a “survey” saying people want Stalin as the leader. After this violent incident, Karuanidhi ordered Dayanidhi Maran to resign from Union Cabinet in 2006.  

Other crimes

Many big crimes involving politicians, and agencies are literally tied to their hands. Police are forced to act when public anger goes bigger. Many sleazy stories, and blackmailing also involved in the politically linked murders. These were many times stories for many action-thriller movies. Aspiring lady politician Banwari Devi murder, activist Shehla Masood murder, and journalist Shivani Bhatnagar murder cases are such full of sleaze involving many political leaders.

Sunanda murder case exposes the intricacies of politicians and IPL betting rackets. Sunanda was found dead in seven-star Hotel Leela within a few hours when she was going to expose her Husband Minister Shashi Tharoor and his IPL controversies in January 2014. It took more than a year for Delhi Police to register FIR and forced to chargesheet Tharoor only in 2018. Actually, Delhi Police was forced to act after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy approached Courts while all in politics and media were keeping criminals silence.

Smuggling, Narcotics rackets and Politics

Smuggling rackets and politicians are closely associated from time immemorial. From Mumbai underworld dons to fugitives to the latest Kerala’s UAE Consulate involved gold smuggling are the telling examples of this big syndicate. The government can if they want to curtail this smuggling and narcotics syndicates. But no one wanted and that is why India’s Customs Department is known as the most corrupt department. Corruption in Customs Department is always so bigger than in Police and other money-spinning departments and it is well known that politicians routinely get their cuts from these dreaded rackets which are capable of eliminating the people who stood against them. Smuggling is basically due to the Government’s hyped taxation and when the tax terrorism ends smuggling will be hit hard. 

“The big smuggling Syndicates, having international linkages, have spread into and infected the various economic and financial activities, including havala transactions, circulation of black money and operations of a vicious parallel economy causing serious damage to the economic fiber of the country. These Syndicates have acquired substantial financial and muscle power and social respectability and have successfully corrupted the government machinery at all levels and wield enough influence to make the task of Investigating and Prosecuting agencies extremely difficult; even the members of the Judicial system have not escaped the embrace of the Mafia.

“Certain elements of the Mafia have shifted to narcotics, drugs and weapon smuggling and established narco-terrorism networks, especially in the States of J&K, Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The cost of contesting elections has thrown the politician into the lap of these elements and led to a grave compromise by officials of the preventive/detective systems. The virus has spread to almost all the centers in the country; the coastal and the border States have been particularly affected” narrates Vohra Committee Report on the role of big smuggling and narcotics trade syndicates,” narrates the Report.

Detailing the role of smuggling rackets, Vohra Report goes on: “It has been suggested that the menace has first to be tackled at the local level where the agencies of the State and the concerned Central Enforcement Agencies like Customs and Excise, Income Tax etc. would be required to take effective action. In cases where a crime Syndicate has graduated to big business, it would be necessary to conduct detailed investigations into its assets, both movable and immovable. It has been stressed that when such action is not timely and effectively taken, the lower functionaries of the concerned State and Central Departments/organisations start overlooking the activities of the crime Syndicates. To elucidate this point, the Director CBI has given the example of IQBAL MIRCHI of Bombay who, till the late 80’s, was merely a visitor to passenger and carrier ships to obtain liquor and cigarettes for selling the same at a profit.

“In the last 3-4 years, MIRCHI acquired real estate valuing crores of rupees; he has many bank accounts and has been paying lakhs of rupees to his carriers. The growth of MIRCHI is due to the fact that the concerned Enforcement agencies did not timely take action against him and, later, this perhaps became difficult on account of the enormous patronage that he had developed. If MIRCHI is investigated, the entire patronage enjoyed by him and his linkages will come to light. Director CBI has observed that there are many such cases, such as that of MIRCHI where the initial failure has led to the emergence of Mafia giants who have become too big to be tackled.

“Director CBI has stated that the main mode of communication/contacts of the Mafias operating at the international level is through telephonic communications. Referring to the useful leads emerging from the investigations into the activities of Dawood Ibrahim, a Mafia leader, the director CBI has stated that the effective monitoring of the telephone calls made from India/received from abroad would yield useful information and, for this being done, Government may grant sanction to monitor certain telephone connections”.

Role of Banks

Banks are always hesitant with the probe agencies in sharing details of the money movements. There are even instances of the Enforcement Directorate, DRI which are under the Finance Ministry complaining to the Ministry for resistance of the State Bank of India in sharing details. See, all these organizations come under Finance Ministry. This is the system created and the political boss is the sole answerable. We have seen former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley venting his anger against CBI when it charged top bankers for fraud. What poor probe agencies and their good officers can do in such Catch 22 situation? Many whistle-blower officers were kicked out and got all kinds of service punishments and some were even jailed for concocted cases.      

“The assistance of Banks is an essential input. The Bank Managers can be placed under obligation to render reports on all heavy transactions and suspicious accounts to the Enforcement agencies. Such a practice obtains in UK,” said the Vohra Committee Report, which is not yet implemented for the past 28 years.

Trial Stage

Rarely do big cases came up before the trial. Many cases landed before the Courts due to maverick officers. But here come the problems in the trial. Many big cases fail in the trial due to bad prosecution and corruption in the judiciary. There is a bizarre incident that must be referred to here. One smuggler and his brother now running India’s big law office in handling smuggling and tax evasion cases. The smuggler was caught and jailed at a young age and from jail, he passed LLB. Now he is running a big law firm handling such cases and a few years ago he was caught flying with the country’s Attorney General to Dubai.

Suggestions

From the above-mentioned incidents, how the system can be cleaned up? The only answer is for the electorate to select ethical political leaders who have the desire, capacity, and moral integrity not only to root out systemic corruption and break the nexus between politicians, officials, and criminal elements, but also to fully support whistle-blowers, worthy officers, and prosecutors in order to ensure justice is delivered at all costs. And there is a responsibility for the electorate while select credible leaders and to be vigil always.

(J Gopikrishnan is a senior journalist working with ‘The Pioneer’ newspaper)

THE MAHA BLUNDER: Many political leaders, who were in influential positions in Maharashtra and Gujarat during 1990s had developed close relations with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his henchman Iqbal Mirchi. This assertion was officially put down on paper when the N.N. Vohra committee submitted its report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 5 October 1993, roughly three months after it was established on 9 July 1993 in the aftermath of 12 March 1993 Bombay bomb blasts. While the contents of the report, which was subsequently made public on 1 August 1995 in Parliament, were only limited to 11 pages, it is a part of the government’s own records that the finding of the report, in total, was close to 100 pages. It is these 100 pages that were never made public, that have now become relevant, almost 26 years after they were brought into existence after Union Home Minister Amit Shah highlighted the issue on the floor of the parliament. The 100 pages with annexures, which are the most vital part of the report, according to old Intelligence Bureau (IB) hands, contain the names of leading politicians and bureaucrats who helped Dawood and Mirchi from the 1970s till 1993 and beyond.

However, there is strong hope among former Intelligence officials that the present dispensation at North Block will now be able to gather the courage to make 100 pages of the report public, especially with the BJP now raking up the issue of the connections between politicians and Dawood. The matter has taken a serious turn in the present context when Pakistan is using Dawood & Co extensively to sabotage the progress of India. The terror attacks, gold smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering is extensively pushed by the Dawood network to weaken the Indian state on the behest of hostile neighbor Pakistan, a proxy controlled by China.      

The growth of Dawood and Mirchi was due to the fact that the concerned enforcement agencies did not timely take action against him and, later, this perhaps became difficult on account of the enormous patronage that he had developed. MHA was given all kinds of information, in volumes of pages, which were ‘ultra-sensitive’ in nature. This information clearly showed how politicians were on the payroll of Dawood and how they were acting as his servants. Much of this information was produced in the Vohra committee report, in the portion which was not made public. We can understand why it was not made public before, but now, there is no political compulsion as such. It should have been presented before the public to show the deep nexus that existed between the politicians, police and criminals. All the recent developments in Maharashtra related to Vazegate and his handlers rouge police commissioner Paramvir Singh, NCP & Shiv Sena political leadership are known to the entire country. It further establishes the fact that nothing has changed on the ground when it comes to the criminal synergy between the various stakeholders.        

Syndicated crime has dented the prosperity of the country and it has infected the system from top to bottom. It is imperative that the present government must table the Vohra committee report on the floor of the parliament and expose the nexus between the politics, police, bureaucrat, and media linkage with the syndicated mafia to clean up the governance.  Narendra Modi has repeatedly promised corruption-free governance, and transparent society and his strong-willed home minister should take up the Vohra committee report seriously and the process to clean up the opaque corrupt system controlled by the mafia must end. The role of the state governments is critical to clean up the mess since law & order is a state subject. The roadmap set up by UP Chief Minister to clean up the syndicated mafia should be taken as a glaring example to set law & order right. Our country has limited resources and the scarcity is going to increase further, hence the distribution of available resources becomes key for the success of the nation. We need a coordinated effort from all the stakeholders to erase the mafia nexus so that the next generations can live in peace.    

(The writer is Prashant Tewari Editor in Chief)  

As a COVID-19-induced slowdown marks the Modi 2.0 term, there is a desperate need to get the economy back on track. The country urgently needs a revival of the spirit, ultimately it is a question of the survival of over a billion people. Next-generation reforms include opening most of the railways to foreign direct investment (FDI), allowing more private sector participation in coal production and FDI in construction projects, extending the validity of industrial licenses, removing the last 20 remaining protected sectors under the small-scale industries list, and deregulating diesel pricing.

Reforms noticeably slowed as the Modi 1.0 term progressed but the government managed to institute two key reforms by its mid-term; the goods and services tax (GST) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). By contrast, two years into Modi’s 2.0 term, only two reforms namely 25 percent corporate tax limit and the controversial Farm Bills 2020 were pushed by the government.

The compulsion to remain in power has refocused the government’s political energies on socio-political issues like ending the temporary special status of Kashmir, doing away with triple talaq, fast-tracking citizenship for regional minorities through the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and starting the Ram Mandir construction. Socio-political issues are popular but detract energy from taking steps to revive the economy. Reforms that can spur economic activity, boost confidence, and put people back to jobs are the real game-changers yet the focus is largely missing on economic management. The need for reforms, although ever-present, becomes even more critical in a COVID-19-induced slowdown. The government recently announced a slew of reforms that were akin to budget announcements, though implementation timelines are unclear.

Big-ticket and high-impact reforms are required. Lifting foreign equity restrictions in protected sectors and giving more autonomy to major ports can provide a quick bump in growth. Other reforms related to judicial reform, securing timely business licenses/clearances, and making land acquisition easier are long-awaited and can boost business and investor sentiment amidst a slowdown. Some reforms that made sense pre-COVID are even more relevant today, like creating a paperless court system, pushing e-governance, reducing the fiscal deficit, reducing oil imports and promoting clean energy sources to make the country self-reliant. Narendra Modi is blessed with a majority government and the present leadership must take urgent steps to bring back focus on the economic management of the country before it is too late.    

Prashant Tewari: Editor in Chief

The mayhem that took place in Delhi on R-Day has hurt the farmers as they have lost their bargaining power

After democracy was put to shame by unscrupulous elements in the garb of farmers and Nihangs (Sikh religious warriors) who hoisted the ‘Nishan Sahib’ on the Red Fort after laying siege to the iconic-building when India was celebrating its 72nd Republic Day, deep fissures have started to appear among different factions of the protesters who are now apparently pitted against each other. This means that the majority of the cultivators are not in favour of what happened on the fateful day when thousands of farmers stormed the Capital, vandalised public property, attacked policemen, ran amok on the streets and captured Red Fort. The protesting farmers allege that antisocial elements orchestrated the violence which was part of a “larger conspiracy” to derail the movement. With police hunting down the perpetrators of the violence, a name which is making the rounds is that of Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu who is being blamed for instigating the growers as well as changing the route. Sidhu is currently absconding.

The Bharatiya Kisan Union (Bhanu) called off its protest from the Chilla border connecting Delhi and Noida. At the Singhu border, the two farmers’ unions protesting from separate daises blamed each other for the violence. The Rashtriya Mazdoor Kisan Sangathan and the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lok Shakti) are also ending their protests against the farm laws. The unions have also called off the February 1 march to Parliament. As many as 25 cases, including those of rioting and criminal conspiracy, have been registered and arrests and detentions are the order of the day. The police claim that the protesters violated all conditions that were agreed upon by not following the predetermined route, starting the tractor rally before the scheduled time and by carrying firearms, swords and other weapons. With the widening differences and growing disagreements among the farmers, it is safe to predict that the protest will not last long and the farmers will have to return empty-handed. Although the Government has indicated that it will keep its communication channels open and its previous offer to put the three farm laws in abeyance for 18 months stands, right now it doesn’t seem to be a workable proposition for the farm unions who had rejected it earlier. With the growers’ unity in shambles, their leaders no longer find themselves in a position to bargain or exert significant pressure on the Government. And with that, a farmer’s movement which fought all odds for roughly two months now hangs by a thread, courtesy of the violence and mayhem caused by a select few who infiltrated their ranks. The real victims of the violence on R-Day are the farmers themselves and the movement that had united the country in their favour.

The Farm Divide

Whosoever wins this ‘war of prestige, the poor peasants will still remain at the receiving end

No matter who wins the tug-of-war between the farmer unions and the Government, the poor cultivators will continue to remain at the receiving end. Who are these tens of thousands of farmers protesting on Delhi’s borders for almost two months, demanding a repeal of the three new farm legislation and remunerative Minimum Support Price (MSP)? They certainly do not belong to the class of peasants that is neck-deep in debt and many of whom die by suicide every year as they see no option to bail themselves out of the vicious cycle of interest payments on loan by moneylenders. A majority of those camping at the interstate borders are big and upper-middle-class landlords from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh who are part and parcel of the strong arhatiya (commission agents) lobby, a community that drives the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee’s (APMC’s) mandis. These farmers constitute a sizeable chunk of the vote bank of various political parties who cannot afford to go against the populist stance taken by the community. Only the APMC-licenced traders are allowed to purchase produce from farmers within that particular APMC’s jurisdiction. This helps the cartel of traders and prevents the hardworking farmers from receiving a fair price for their produce. This is why, perhaps, the hectic parleys and several rounds of dialogue have yielded no result and the farmer leaders have even turned down the Centre’s offer to put the new laws on hold. The latest round of talks on Friday also remained inconclusive, with no date fixed for the next meeting. The growers remain adamant on the full repeal of the farm Acts and for enacting legislation on the MSP. The farmers have also raised doubts over receiving fair treatment at the hands of the members of the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee and termed it “biased”. On the other hand, the apex court has made it clear that the panel, tasked to submit its report after noting the farmers’ reservations, would proceed with or without their participation.

However, the farmers’ apprehensions cannot just be brushed aside. The NDA Government’s haste in finalising the three laws, the lack of consultation with stakeholders and the Bills’ passage in Parliament without thoroughly discussing and debating these ought to raise reasonable doubt over the Centre’s intention. Further, these laws were first introduced in June 2020 as Ordinances before being approved by Parliament in September by a voice vote. The farmers allege that the Centre has made laws for benefiting big corporate houses and is not concerned about the welfare of the peasants. It cannot be denied that by promoting private investment in the sector and allowing outside-APMC trade of farm produce, the Government will subsequently buy less from farmers, and it will eventually make the MSP system irrelevant. Further, there is no denying that India’s MSP system is the costliest Government food procurement programme in the world. It’s high time the Government and the farmers think about the pertinent issues impacting the agriculture sector. The Green Revolution has given us food self-sufficiency but chemical fertiliser-centric farming has also led to enormous health and environmental hazards, besides degrading the soil’s fertility. These harmful carcinogens have become embedded into our food web. Further, the introduction of hybrid and transgenic varieties of seeds and crops, just for the sake of increasing productivity and meeting the market demand, is a potent threat to indigenous varieties. These local varieties are naturally resistant to many diseases and pests, and are part of our rich genetic stock. Apart from focusing on eco-friendly agriculture, the Government must devise an effective policy to help the poor peasants who are in distress and who are always at the receiving end, no matter what.

Protesting farmers enter Red Fort, man climbs flagstaff to hoist flag

Deviating from the designated route for the proposed tractor parade, a section of protesting farmers entered the Red Fort on Tuesday and hoisted flags from some domes of the iconic monument in the national capital.

Pushed back by the police form the ITO in Central Delhi a section of the protesting farmers drove their tractors to the Red Fort complex.

The crowd swelled at the monument as some protesting farmers and 'Nihangs' (traditional Sikh warriors) were seen entering the Red Fort and hoisting a flag from the staff from which the prime minister unfurls the tricolour on Independence Day.

Earlier, a clash broke out between police and protesting farmers after the latter reached ITO and tried to push towards Lutyen's Delhi, prompting the force to resort to lathicharge and use tear gas shells against them.

The farmers who began their march from different border points, much before the time permitted to them for their tractor rally, reached ITO in Central Delhi despite the force denying them permission for it.

The Delhi Police had given permission to farmers protesting the three farm laws to hold their tractor parade on selected routes only after the official Republic Day parade on the Rajpath concludes.

However, chaos ensued as the farmers were adamant of heading towards central Delhi. 

(Courtesy – The Pioneer)

The chaos and confusion, allegations and counter-allegations, and social media war are the new order of the day. On every contentious issue, citizens are on roads to settle their grievances. The redressal mechanism through the courts has become extremely weak and our country is under seizure for the entire year. Farmer’s protest in India’s national capital has created headlines globally but why the farmers are protesting, what is controversial in the contentious farm laws is hardly known to the majority of the people. The situation worsened further on republic day as a section of protesters reached the Red Fort on their tractors and stormed into its ramparts. The protesters climbed onto the ramparts of the Red Fort and waved their religious flags. One of them even climbed the flag post where the Tricolour was hoisted by the Prime Minister of India on Independence Day and replaced it with a religious flag there. Later, the police resorted to mild lathicharge and removed the people from the red Fort premises. It is imperative to fix the responsibility for this grave security failure that has led to the shaming of 1.3 billion people living in India. The weakness shown by the government will prove extremely costly in the times to come.

Farmer leaders have clearly stated that the agitation would continue till the farm laws are repealed. The entire confusion is fueled by the exit of NDA partner Akali Dal from the government in protest of the passing of the Farm Bill 2020 without enacting the MSP clause in the final draft of the Farm Bill 2020. It is fair to suggest that the Narendra Modi-led government being in the absolute majority is ignoring the sentiments of its allies since their absence has no impact in the lower house of the parliament for the government's survival. But as rightly suggested by Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amrinder Singh that anti-national forces are looking for an opportunity to penetrate any controversial movement to destabilize the country. Failed Khalistan push by overseas forces may trigger confusion in the minds of the sulking farmer community of Punjab to misguide them on the pretext of ethnic-religious divide hence the government of the day must remain vigilant and the requisite concessions should be extended to the farming community to defuse the unnecessary bitterness and heartbreak between the government and its people.

The government is lacking in communication skill set hence on every contentious issue - strikes and lockdowns are setting in. Lastly, the uncalled international intervention by certain groups and foreign leaders in an internal matter of the country is highly deplorable and it must be condemned in the strongest words. The government must defuse the crisis at the earliest and restore normalcy to accelerate the pace of developmental work that has suffered due to the Covid lockdown. The budget presented has a long-term vision and the government must focus on economic rejuvenation without any manmade disruption.

(The writer is Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief, Opinion Express)

Amateur, inexperienced and perhaps innocent late Rajiv Gandhi was crucified by a powerful cartel of middlemen leading to the destruction of India’s oldest political party. The present government and the proactive courts must order a re-investigation of the BOFORS SCAM to focus on exposing middlemen rather than the past ruling establishment because we felt that the Bofors scam triggered birth to a new class of “dalals” in India and they overpowered the crucial institutions, establishing India as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.  Though we are fortunate to have fiscally clean Prime Minister in the last few decades yet corruption is rampant in the country. Where it went wrong? The answer is simple, the country is held hostage at the mercy of middlemen operating in politics, bureaucracy, legal and media. The country is bleeding from corruption and the common man's misery continued unabated.  

Against this backdrop, it is vital to explore the Bofors scandal that changed the politics of the country some 33 years ago in 1987. With revelations in 1987 by Swedish Radio alleging kickbacks in the purchase of guns for the Indian Army tremors started in Indian polity and press that shook the roots of the Congress regime under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Unfortunately, there were several bigwigs cutting across party lines with incriminating links to this scam and they colluded to sabotage this case allowing several culprits to escape public scrutiny and legal prosecution.

Part 1: Background

A healthy democracy evolves through the legislature, executive, judiciary and media. The Bofors scandal in 1980s set in motion a process of decay in all the organs of democracy whereby they were compromised to save the guilty that were among the country’s powerful elite. It may well be that the allegedly guilty leader of the then-ruling party was beguiled by his cronies for their own vested interests. It is also true that propriety demands that a dead person should not be accused since he cannot respond and clear his name (We will strictly follow the convention). However, the country has a right to know the whole truth once it was established that money exchanged hands in the deal. Corruption in the defense establishment should be treated as treachery against the nation and it must be investigated under IPC and stringent NSA guidelines. In 2005, the Delhi High Court quashed charges against all other people who were accused in the Bofors case, including the Hinduja brothers who were also accused of being middlemen in the deal. The CBI plea against the High Court verdict was filed in February 2018 after an extraordinarily long delay of 13 years; it was rejected by the SC. The Court should have taken note of the fact that UPA I & UPA II were in power from 2004-2014, hence the question of an appeal in the top court during this period would have been impossible.  However, one ex BJP worker and Advocate Ajay Agrawal had filed an appeal against the Delhi High Court judgment in 2005. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Agrawal's plea and the case is currently pending in the court. The Supreme Court told the CBI that it could make itself heard during the hearings on Agrawal's plea. Will the CBI under the BJP regime now file an Intervention Application (IA) in Ajay Agrawal’s case?   

Background: Mohan Guruswamy wrote investigative reports on the case to know the scam's political background and the business nexus behind it. Olaf Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden was an influential and respected name in world affairs and had strenuously opposed the US war on Vietnam. He inspired Rajiv Gandhi to take the initiative on nuclear disarmament. The quid pro quo for facilitating Rajiv Gandhi's easy entry to the global high table was the purchase of the Bofors FH45 Howitzer. Palme was also facing re-election and his party's coffers needed topping up. The Indian Army’s Howitzer order would do the trick. The competition was shortlisted in to M/s Sofma of France, M/s AB Bofors of Sweden, M/s International Military Services of the United Kingdom, and M/s Voest Alpine of Austria. In the first six evaluations, the Sofma 155mm TR howitzer, with its extended range, was decisively preferred to the Bofors gun. Financial considerations also gave the French manufacturer what seemed to be an unbeatable lead. The donation by the Bofors Foundation at Karlskrona to the Swedish SDP is solid proof.

Losing this lucrative order made the Arun Nehru-led Austrian competitor Voest Alpine furious since it was confident of bagging it, largely because its product was the best gun and preferred choice of the armed forces technical committee.  Austrian leader Eisenberger told the parliamentary committee that the funds they wanted accounted for were paid to the Congress party and that a kinsman of the Indian Prime Minister had received them. The Austrian government then advised the Indian government to have this money returned and close the matter. This was the first time the new Indian Prime Minister heard about the dirty game played by his known set of close people. He was furious. A very powerful Minister in his government was summarily sacked. Now a way was sought to set this account right. Bofors were required to close this hole. This was being arranged via a Swiss banker Francis Laffont. The route went like this. Bofors pays Laffont, Laffont pays Voest Alpine and the money already paid in India stays where it is. Eisenberger alleged that Voest Alpine's representative in Delhi, a man called Unterweger was Ottavio Quatrochhi's neighbor in New Delhi. Being expatriate businessmen, they became good friends and both were good friends of Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia Gandhi and her sister Anushka’s then-husband Walter Vinci. It is a well-documented fact that Vinci was in the group of Rajiv Gandhi’s delegation which signed the Bofors deal. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy many times petitioned to Central Governments on probing the role of Vinci who got a major cut in the deal and later buzzed off from Sonia’s family. 

As was the well-established practice then, Unterweger also cut a deal with Quattrocchi. What Unterweger did not know was that Quattrocchi had similar deals cut with Bofors and Sofma, the French howitzer manufacturer. When the Voest Alpine deal collapsed, Quattrocchi was required to close that account, as did the Congress party. So one more payoff stream was organised by Bofors to Quattrochi to close this hole. The Hinduja brothers took this to the next level. People like the Hindujas have friends in all parties and many countries. Lest we forget, it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee who wrote to then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao seeking closure of the Bofors case against the Hinduja brothers. And it was Srichand Hinduja who accompanied Vajpayee’s Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra to his meetings with then-British PM Tony Blair and then-French PM Jacques Chirac after the nuclear tests in 1998. Vajpayee and Mishra were actively canvassing for approval of the controversial proposed Hinduja power plant at Vizagapatam. Not surprisingly, even today the plant is under tremendous debt burden and the public sector banks are at high risk of losing tax payers money. Adding to the trouble, there is a massive litigation going on between the state government, state power regulator and the Hinduja’s.

So far, the Indian Government has been given two names by the Swedish journalists who are involved in the story. One is Win Chadha, a Delhi-based arms dealer who represents a number of companies abroad, including Bofors. Chadha has denied that he received any payments and claimed that he stopped representing Bofors in 1985 after the agreement between Rajiv and the then-Swedish premier Olof Palme that no middlemen would be involved. A photograph published in several Swedish dailies, which elicited amused comment in Stockholm, was that of a jubilant Chadha celebrating with champagne, with Bofors officials, after the contract was clinched. The other name given is that of Commander M.R.A. Rao, who used to represent Bofors in the late '70s, but retired from the arms business after Chadha's appointment. Moreover, there is a big hidden aspect in this Bofors saga. The kickback money paid to Quattrocchi and Walter Vinci came from a shell firm AE Services. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who was also Law Minister during 1990-91 and saw many prosecution files and investigators reports, repeatedly stated that M/s AE Service was first promoted by Congress leader P Chidambaram’s elder cousin and industrialist AC Muthaiah. Swamy many times demanded a probe into Muthaiah’s role in Bofor's kickback arrangement. However, CBI even during the BJP regime from 1998 to 2004 and till now in 2020 has kept silent on this fact. Even BJP leader Arun Jaitley, whose career brightened as Additional Solicitor General (ASG) in charge of the Bofors case during VP Singh's regime, always kept quiet on this aspect due to his proximity with Chidambaram. Like Jaitley, all BJP leaders kept silent on the role of the Hinduja brothers due to the latter's proximity to Vajpayee. The worst role in the cover-up was that of the Law Minister Ram Jethmalani who handled the files of Bofors in the law ministry and later against all norms of administrative and political morality, became the advocate of Hinduja Brothers.  

Such is the sordid and nefarious saga of the Bofors case in which powerful businessmen and politicians cutting across party lines colluded to deceive the Indian public and nation.

Bofors Scandal – The murky tale of sabotage: Who are all responsible?

The real sabotage started in the Bofors case when the trial started in 2000. The corruption case came to light in 1987 and it politically finished Rajiv Gandhi though the subsequent investigation showed his innocence in person. The beneficiaries could have been his colleagues, close family acquaintances and surely the middlemen and corporate Dallas.

Part – 2

In 1997, Swedish Government submitted a box full of documents about the Bofors case to India. Journalist Chitra Subramanium, who first exposed Swedish Radio’s revelation of 1987 was present in the function of the box handed over to the Indian Ambassador by the Swedish Federal Bureau of Police along with other journalists. Defence Minister George Fernandez many times complained that Prime Minister AB Vajpayee never allowed him to touch this box or any of the Bofors files. Why? The answer is simple: the role of Vajpayee protégé Hinduja Brothers in the Bofors kickback would have been exposed. Now the question is where is the box handed over by Swedish Police to CBI? CBI never mentioned about this box in their charge sheet filed after five years.

Legal Battle: The charge sheet filed on October 9, 2000 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Delhi court of Special Judge Ajit Bharihoke, along with the detailed post-April 1987 record of the media investigation and other documents and reports to make two things clear. While there is nothing new in the claim made by the Hinduja Brothers about their "non-involvement in the Bofors case", a mass of multi-faceted documentary evidence and information gives the lie to this claim. On April 22, 1987, the respected Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), quoting highly placed company sources in an original report, identified the Hindujas as recipients of the "commission" paid by Bofors in connection with winning the Bofors-India howitzer contract of March 24, 1986. The first irrefutable documentary basis of the Hindujas’ involvement in the Bofors-India payoff scandal came in the form of six documents relating to the PitcoMoresco: 'Lotus', 'Mont Blanc', 'Tulip' accounts track of 'commission' payments, amounting to nearly SEK 81 million, published and analysed in The Hindu of April 22, 1988 and June 25, 1988. Especially important were three transaction documents which made the link, "Pitco, c/o Sangam Ltd" and "Pitco, c/o Mr G.P. Hinduja Sangam Ltd.," for 1982 and 1984. By June 1988, the independent media investigation had acquired and published a large number of authoritative Bofors documents that gave the lie to the 'winding up', 'no middlemen', 'no commission', 'no Indian recipient' story. By late1989, a great deal of further evidence and information, notably from the Martin Ardbo diary entries and notes for 1987 seized by the Swedish police and from The Hindu investigation's interaction with the Hindujas had revealed the involvement of the Hinduja Brothers as lead actors in the crisis-management and cover-up. In fact, these developments strongly indicated that the Hinduja's role in the Bofors howitzer scandal went deeper than the role of anyone.

After a regular criminal case was registered by the CBI in 1990, this strategy of blanket denial continued with S.P. Hinduja and G.P. Hinduja reportedly claiming to the CBI investigators, as late as 1991, that "our family has never dealt with Bofors" and S.P. Hinduja going so far as to assert, in a newspaper interview published on April 14, 1991, that "we are not an appellant before Swiss courts on the Bofors matter." This unsavory chapter should have come to an end with the incriminating documents received in December 1999 by India's premier criminal investigation agency from the Swiss authorities in the execution of the letter of rogatory of February 7, 1990. But during a phase of pre-charge sheet jitters, the denial continued with new variants of the falsehood in desperate attempts to block and even derail the lawful investigation. No longer was it possible to deny the fact of Bofors payments into the coded accounts opened by a Panama-based front spelled as M/s Mc Intyre Corporation and M/s Mac Intire Corporation, or ownership of this 'M...' corporation (by whatever name spelled) by the three Hinduja brothers, Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.

The Bofors case, as investigated by the CBI, is about criminal conspiracy, bribery, criminal misconduct by public servants, cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery for the purpose of cheating, and using as genuine a forged document in respect of the Bofors-India howitzer contract of March 24, 1986. The first charge sheet, filed in October 1999, was against the former Defence Secretary, S.K. Bhatnagar, Ottavio Quattrocchi, W.N. Chadha, Martin Ardbo, M/s A.B. Bofors for various offenses under the Indian Penal Code. The charge sheet against G.P., S.P. and P.P. Hinduja alleges that they were "party to the criminal conspiracy with Martin Ardbo and others during the period 1985-1987 and thereafter, in pursuance thereof, they also received commissions from M/s AB Bofors"; that the Swedish arms manufacturer paid the three brothers, through the 'M...' corporation, SEK 80.80 million; that although the Government of India had laid down a requirement of no middlemen and no commissions in the howitzer deal and Bofors had agreed, "in pursuance of the criminal conspiracy, the accused persons dishonestly led the government to believe that there were no agents and induced the government to part with" an amount that included "commissions," thus cheating the government and putting it to "a wrongful loss."

The supplementary charge sheet makes clear that in the CBI's professional judgment, there is abundant evidence linking the 'Arab-Tulip," "Lotus," and "Mont Blanc" coded payments (SEK 37.03 million, SEK 31.99 million and SEK 11.77 million) into three Hinduja Swiss bank accounts with the 1986 Bofors-India howitzer contract and the consequent payoffs. A CBI analysis of the nine discrete payments made by Bofors into the three coded Hinduja accounts between May and December 1986 showed that the payments were contingent on, and linked precisely to the advance paid to Bofors by the Government of India and the payments made on account of the actual delivery of the gun systems, ammunition and so on. The evidence is absolutely clear that these were 'commissions' in accordance with the 3 percent of the total contract value laid down in a Moresco-Bofors contract, as revealed to the Government of India by the Bofors officials.

The CBI charge sheet documents blocking maneuvers by the three Hinduja brothers in Switzerland, undertaken to prevent the Government of India from receiving the legal assistance requested under the 'dual criminality' provision. It also calls attention to the significance of the change of nationality by G.P. Hinduja in June 1998 and by S.P. Hinduja in April 1999; it found a direct link between these events and "the stages of execution of the Letters Rogatory in Switzerland. The charge sheet asserts that such conduct by the three Hinduja brothers "shows that they are also conspirators along with M/s A.B. Bofors." The three Hinduja brothers, two of whom have become U.K. nationals and the third has reportedly acquired Swiss nationality, have defied the CBI's summons and have, in effect, kept away from the law. They have been unable to come to India to attend to their substantial business interests and other matters because the CBI would, without doubt, have knocked at their door and taken whatever action, under the law of the land, that it considered appropriate in the interests of its investigation. However, they have cleverly put their fourth brother Ashok Hinduja to regulate the business interest in India. The CBI has also had a 'look-out' notice issued against the three Hinduja brothers which meant that had they landed in India; immigration would have alerted the CBI about their arrival. Once the charges are framed by the Special Judge and the action moves decisively to a trial, it could be a new and even more worrying ball game for the brothers from the standpoint of both personal and business interests. After the charges are framed, the CBI's leverage in making the intransigent accused submit themselves to the law of the land will increase considerably - with summons, warrants, legal sanctions against properties and business assets and extradition proceedings becoming theoretical possibilities and there could be a high cost to staying away notwithstanding the influence in high political places the Hinduja brothers are reputed to enjoy. It was during the UPA1 rule that Hindujas managed to kill the case in the Delhi High court. The Hinduja Brothers had access everywhere from Congress to BJP, to even regional parties like Samajwadi Party, too many journalists who purposely obscured their specific role and wrote only about unreachable foreign brokers.

In nutshell, Indian journalists concentrated on hazy, inaccessible foreign brokers and shut their eyes to the easily traceable links of Hinduja Brothers and AC Muthaiah’s role. It was somewhat similar to highlighting the responsibility of unreachable US citizen Anderson in the Union Carbide case while whitewashing the criminally negligent role of a local Indian group in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.  And, at last, CBI buried the Bofors case in 2008 by filing a closure report when Ashwani Kumar was Director, who was close to Sonia Gandhi and died recently by committing suicide in mysterious circumstances. He was earlier Security In-charge of Sonia Gandhi when working in the Special Protection Group (SPG). In 2008 Ashwani Kumar was brought in as CBI Director by Sonia Gandhi bypassing persons shortlisted for the post and having done his job, he got a reward from his ultimate patron Sonia: the governorship of a state as a quid pro quo after retirement from CBI.

The subsequent behavior of successive Governments did indicate that while there is something to hide, they were not in agreement on what to hide. The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The two roads crisscrossed and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course. And to add misery to the wound, the perpetrator has recently complained about the rotten system of India in an international magazine. It is clear that the middlemen have destroyed the transparency in governance and the system works according to the wimps and fancies of the “dalals”.

Opinion Express explained the players involved in the sabotages and why it is vital to expose middlemen and corporate Dalal’s and to delink politics from the subsequent investigation; it was an international conspiracy to desterilize the country via middlemen. The same practice is almost repeated in the Rafale fighter jet deal wherein the opponent pressed the accelerator to defame the government and the middlemen continued to enjoy the cream.

Part-3

The conspiracy, timeline & Road Ahead:

The special investigation team has said that 'Rajiv Gandhi’s name appears not as a beneficiary but because as Prime Minister and defense minister, as he was involved in one of the swiftest government decisions ever of awarding hefty defense contracts". One is at a loss to understand what was wrong with it. It was for the government and the defense ministry to decide how quickly they needed the equipment and simply because the government took a quick decision in clinching the deal, it does mean something was fishy about it. Generally, it is said that delay and red tape lead to corruption but here SIT people strangely took a different view. R.C.Sharma who succeeded Joginder Singh as CBI chief has publicly remarked, there is no evidence to blame Rajiv for the Bofor's pay-offs. The press has a view that Sharma was close to Congress in general and Sonia in particular.

Especially in arms deals, agreements are signed between two countries but it is common practice that it is helped along the way by some individuals called middlemen or brokers who are generally expert negotiators. It was Rajiv Gandhi who insisted with the Bofors that no middlemen should be employed and Bofors issued the 'no middlemen' certificate to India. Rajiv earlier in his talk with Olaf Palme discussed the no middlemen condition with him and the Swedish Prime Minister gave his word on it. Later Olaf Palme was killed under mysterious circumstances and Rajiv went to Stockholm to attend the funeral of Palme. Then the new Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson and told him that he had recorded his decision on the file approving the award of the contract for the Howitzer gun to Swedish company Bofors subject to certain certifications from the Swedish government regarding the financial terms of the contract. That all anybody received any money from Bofors, it was purely a legitimate business deal between that person and Bofors; and Rajiv was neither aware of it nor had he to do anything with it.

The Hindujas having a wide network of international business are also said to have a hand in the Bofors commission money. It was reported that the Swiss authorities have told CBI informally that the Hindujas made the mistake of channeling money from other deals through the same account into which the Bofors pay-offs were transferred. The Hindujas are worried that their Swiss account would expose many of their illegal gun deals in Iran and Contra Rebels. Therefore, since 1991, the Hindujas have been protecting their Bofors account by imposing legal hurdles in the form of appeals and so on.

From the maze of information available from the CBI investigations into the Bofors scandal, one thing becomes clear the Bofors paid money by way of commission or winding up charges to some intermediaries who had something to do professionally in such deals and the linking of Rajiv Gandhi's name in such transfer of money is a politically motivated attempt to tarnish his image and also to put hurdles in the purchase of necessary weaponry for the Indian Defence Services.

The Hindujas are among the alleged recipients of the pay-offs in the Bofors scam. The details of Hinduja's Swiss account were released by the Swiss authorities in the second installment of papers but it was followed up with no action. AB Vajpayee was alleged to have close links with the Hinduja brothers, and it is said they have done intense international lobbying for Vajpayee to project his image. Vajpayee was the guest of honour at the inauguration in Mumbai of the Indus-Ind Bank owned by the Hindujas. Earlier he had been a guest of honour at the Diwali banquet hosted by the Hinduja brothers in London. It was said Vajpayee often listens to Hinduja's advice on the formulation of India's economic policy. No one seems to be worried about such connections but everybody linked Rajiv Gandhi with the alleged receipt of money by Hinduja from Bofors. On the contrary, the probe should have also focused on Vajpayee Hinduja links to target Rajiv Gandhi. This relationship suited both: Vajpayee was politically rewarded and Hinduja got away from a confirmed corruption case conviction. The Bofors scandal was a political ghost created by the international destabilisers of India. Later, some Indian politicians and a group of sensation-mongering journalists gave it disproportionately demonic dimensions with a view to discrediting Rajiv Gandhi. The final conclusion is emerging from the investigation that the middlemen in the deal were acting as the double agent; this is the conclusive outcome of the investigation. They certainly made money in the transaction and then conveniently shifted to the other side to defame the political adversary by using selective leaks in the press from time to time and taking business advantages from their new political masters.

The road ahead: Unlike the old Atal-Advani soft BJP, the present Narendra Modi-led BJP government is relentless in dealing with white color criminals no matter how high and mighty. Apart from the Ram Mandir movement, people’s anger on the Bofors scandal and various scams of the Congress era was a significant factor for the surge of the BJP. Given its unquestioned commitment to bringing about a corruption-free India, it becomes the natural duty of this Government to undo the cover-ups in the Bofors case. And the present government must think of setting up an SIT to investigate all the defense deals and purchases during the UPA period 2004-2014 as corruption was rampant during that time.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeal of CBI in 2018 (citing the Swedish investigator’s revelations) with advice to club the petition with the pending Ajay Agarawal case. It is imperative for the present Government to investigate the matter without any political witch-hunting and delinking the name of Rajiv Gandhi from the process to avoid giving political colors to the investigation. The Bofors Scandal was exposed 33 years ago and Swedish Police gave a box full of documents 23 years ago to CBI. The country has waited for over three decades to know the truth of the matter that has ruined the political life of many prominent leaders and in the process has established new alternative leadership based on the “Bofors politics”. Today, the sanctity of the four pillars of democracy is in crisis because the process that started with the Bofors scandal has vitiated our democracy and spawned so many subsequent frauds and scams. One can't help wondering as to how many subsequent cases of corruption would have been avoided had the Bofors scam not provided a veritable template to the Kalmadi's and Rajas that followed. The pride of 1.3 billion countrymen, our defense forces and their valour, demand a just and definitive denouement to this protracted murky saga of treachery to the nation. It is high time that the CBI intervened in Ajay Agrawal’s petition in the Bofors case pending before the Supreme Court with complete details of documents in the box given by Swedish Police in 1997 to reinvestigate the case and bring guilty to books. India must eradicate and punish “Dalals” from the system to leap-bound herself at the global level and lead the new world order. The onus is on the present Narendra Modi government and hyperactive Supreme Court of the country to order reinvestigation in the case without any political overtone and present correct facts to undo the damage done by middlemen by giving them exemplary punishment for breaking the backbone of the vital institutions of this glorious country. It will act as a strong deterrent to the operating middlemen community and certainly, it will clean the toxic system.

By Prashant Tewari Editor in Chief of Opinion Express with India’s most well-known Investigative journalist J Gopikrishnan.