Brazen Corruption Is About To End

Brazen Corruption Is About To End

There is an uncanny resemblance in the political trajectories of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto. Both were hereditary scions of the top political dynasty of their respective countries and young prime ministers at the same time in the now distant eighties.

Both had spouses who were allegedly corrupt, and not much interested in the welfare of the people, but wielded great influence over their spouses. Asif Ali Zardari, a feudal lord, earned the notorious sobriquet of ‘Mr. 10 per cent’; and ‘Mr. Clean’ Rajiv Gandhi, was brought down from the greatest parliamentary majority this country has ever seen, by the squalid Bofors scandal.

It involved the purchase of some excellent Swedish field guns, 38 in number, some still serving the Army after all these years. The gun purchase involved unproven but smoking gun payola for Rajiv Gandhi and his family with bank accounts code-named ‘Lotus’. It also involved, mysteriously, close family friend, the Italian company representative from Snamprogetti in Delhi, the infamous Octavio Quatrocchi.

The scandal broke in Sweden, rather like the Augusta Westland helicopter scandal of recent times, that broke in Italy; and once again featured the self-same Quatrocchi, albeit out of reach this time.

The Indian government did not prosecute Quatrocchi in the eighties, and not only let him leave the country without hindrance, but years later, absolved him of any wrong doing, and gave him access to all the money allegedly obtained as commission from the Bofors deal, stashed safely in European and British banks. 

There was a clumsy investigation than meandered on for years, involving many foreign trips for officials of the government, with clear intent to be an eyewash. So nothing was ever proved against the Gandhi family, or anyone else, including the Hindujas, Quatrocchi, agent Win Chaddha, and many others who were duly investigated.  This is in keeping with most ‘for show’ government probes including two that examined the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984. Still, it did Rajiv Gandhi and his reputation in. Soon after losing power, in the wake of the Bofors scandal, Rajiv was dead, killed on the campaign trail, blown up by Tamil terrorists in Tamil Nadu.

Evidence of Zardari’s immense wealth sprouted in the form of palatial homes in Britain, Dubai and the United States. He, like the widowed Sonia Gandhi, who soon took over the Congress Party here, became President of his PPP in Pakistan, immediately after Benazir was gunned down by Islamic terrorists in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, during her attempted comeback in the end days of the Musharraf presidency. He then did more than a single term as President of Pakistan as well. 

Sonia Gandhi’s wealth, has allegedly grown manifold over the years, from the ‘64 crore’ Bofors Scam days. It now reportedly runs into many billions of US dollars stashed in two banks in Switzerland and one, till lately, in the Vatican, Italy. The Vatican deposit came to light because she allegedly withdrew $10 billion at a go, because new banking norms in the Catholic citadel and ‘God’s Bank’, now involve disclosure of the names of account holders.  

The much read US website Huffington Post also suggested in a sensational report a few months ago, before  it was taken down abruptly, probably to avoid litigation, that Sonia Gandhi, is now amongst the richest women in the world, richer by far than the Queen of England.

Rajiv’s only son Rahul and Benazir’s only son Bilawal, are in the process of inheriting their respective political legacies, but coincidentally again, both are weak leaders, with little gift for sub-continental politics. They are also, by default, extremely wealthy. Ambivalent, misfits, with rumoured dissolute lifestyles. Both have made half-hearted netagiri efforts, but neither has been able  to    make his mark.

In India, Rahul’s sister Priyanka, likened by some, rather hopefully, to grandmother Indira Gandhi, is  seen as a possible alternative. Priyanka is also the mother of two children, unlike the as yet bachelor Rahul. But the stink of corruption in several highly lucrative land and property deals hangs in the air. Robert Vadra, Priyanka’s husband, seems to have benefited from the misuse of influence through Congress Chief Ministers in Haryana and Rajasthan, and prominent real estate giant DLF Limited. DLF, now one of India’s biggest private sector companies, in fact got started on its real estate development work in Gurgaon thanks to Rahul’s father Rajiv. It is, in a very real sense, a very small world.  

Congress lawyers cum spokesmen are loudly proclaiming that Vadra has broken no laws, because such massive influence peddling is not the same as specific legal infraction. Nevertheless, the flamboyant and colourful Vadra, once a handicrafts dealer and brass artifacts exporter, is cited nationally and internationally as the beneficiary of sudden and substantial wealth. Wealth of an order, acquired in a manner, that another person in his place could not have come by it with such consummate ease.

As a consequence, Priyanka’s poll prospects are considerably dented, at least till public memory fades.  In the meantime, she can certainly console herself that the Vadra family have become dollar millionaires many times over, thanks to the power of her Gandhi family, and her husband’s prowess at exploiting it.

In this election season, when the Gandhis in particular, and the Congress Party in general, have been extraordinarily vitriolic and harsh in their casting of aspersions and name-calling directed solely at Narendra Modi, they now find that it all seems to have boomeranged. Modi is going from strength to strength while the Gandhis, with no political traction, seem to be in terminal decline.   

The Congress problem is that there is absolutely no corruption to point to in Narendra Modi’s life, career or circumstances. In response to the hullabaloo on Congress corruption however, Modi has pledged to investigate expeditiously when the NDA government is formed. The stress however will be on preventing such rampant corruption in future, even as the law will be allowed to take its course on the tainted from the past, and in a time bound manner. 

Modi himself intends to keep his singular focus on development, because it is the only way to change the destiny of this country, mired in poverty and backwardness for a good third of its population.

The change coming up is indeed authentic, much desired by a people who have been let down for decades. Modi is a genuinely poor man made good, a workaholic determined to serve the nation. This has not escaped the notice of the voting public, who have noted the contours of this unique leader, and are responding with the Modi Wave engulfing the nation.  

(1,098 words)

April 23^rd, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee