Bofors Fallout, Round Two

The other actor in the drama, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, must be wondering whether she did right to jump into the political fray. Her decision is now unlikely to prevent the Bofors secrets from coming out. She will lose the chance to remain aloof from the consequences of the revelations, since by joining politics, she has inevitably placed herself in the eye of the developing storm. Mr Kesri wanted to bolster the chances of the Congress by using the charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Now he will be on the defensive trying to prevent the party from being severely harmed by the Bofors fallout.

 

In the quickened pace of events, two non-issues have come to the fore, hiding the real issue. One is the propriety of the CBI leaking the contents of politically sensitive probes to the press before the politicians have had a chance to strike deals over them. The chief investigator of the government of India should not run to the press at the earliest opportunity, but politicians have little right to keep the results of investigations secret or to leak them selectively at their convenience. The other non-issue is that of parliamentary privilege. Parliament should indeed be the first to know what the government is up to. But equally, parliamentary privilege should not be invoked as a pretext for suppressing the findings of an investigation.

This brings us to the real issue at stake. In the current political uncertainty with a leading member of the prime ministers own party suggesting that his post has become ceremonial the way independent India has been governed is coming unstuck. Politicians in power have survived by either suppressing the findings of the CBI or using them to blackmail their opponents. In 50 years, only one politician has been brought to book and that was in 1952. Politicians wish to retain the right to bargain with each other over information about each other, and they do not want investigations and the law to take their own course. Mr Joginder Singh is an accidental player in a historical process which is changing India, probably for the better.