My Word
Clearance Sale
Politicians Going Cheap!
by Rajinder Puri
November 9, 2005
The
Mitrokhin Archives dealt with the Soviet period. The UN’s Independent
Inquiry Committee Report investigating corruption in Iraq’s oil-for-food
programme during President Saddam’s regime deals with recent events. The
three-man committee was chaired by Mr Paul Volcker who served two terms
as chairman of America’s Federal Reserve System
The report named Foreign Minister Natwar Singh and the Congress Party as
beneficiaries of Iraqi corruption. The Volcker Committee based its
report on four sources – Iraqi government records, UN databases and
records, records of financial institutions involved in oil financial
transactions, and records provided by parties involved in the purchase
of oil from Iraq. The report listed 119 prominent Indian firms supplying
humanitarian material to Iraq. These firms knowingly or otherwise paid
kickbacks to the Iraqi government. The biggest kickbacks were paid by an
obscure Indian company, Priyanka Overseas, which supplied tea, sugar and
a wide variety of material to Iraq. In this same report the names of Mr
Natwar Singh, the Congress and Mr Bhim Singh figure as beneficiaries.
Both Mr Singh and the Congress Party rubbished the allegations. If the
report has erred, Mr Volcker and colleagues will look very silly. On the
other hand if either Mr Singh or the Congress Party is found eventually
complicit in the oil-for-food programme, they will look more than silly
Mr Natwar Singh believes that the report targeted him because he opposed
the Iraq war. He said: “I opposed sanctions, I opposed the war, and I
opposed sending Indian troops to Iraq.” Mr Singh’s reasoning of why
charges are leveled against him may well be correct. On the other hand,
if it transpires that he profited from the oil-for-food programme, his
arguments would turn against him. People would reasonably conclude that
his vehement opposition to US policy was inspired less by conviction
than pecuniary advantage derived from Iraq. The media is hot on the
trail. Doubtless the truth will come out soon.
Political scandals are proliferating worldwide. These are due to the
greater height and reach attained by corporate business, the closer
interaction between nations in a shrinking world, and the vast accretion
of power to the agencies inhabiting the spooky world of espionage. Also,
the internet era gives the public much more information than was
available in the past. Transparency is becoming less a choice than
compulsion. In the Mitrokhin Archives the KGB is credited with the view
that corruption in India was so widespread that the country appeared to
be on sale. Corruption, at a time when terrorism holds the world in
thrall, has acquired a dangerous dimension affecting national security.
Probity in public life is not just a desirable norm. It has become a
security imperative. Vulnerability to blackmail is what conspirators
seek in victims they target. Corruption offers them just that. The
security risk arising from a permissive attitude towards observance of
law has a long and depressing history in India.
Even Pandit Nehru was not beyond reproach. During the 1962 China-India
war the government seized the accounts of the Bank of China in Calcutta.
It discovered an account in the name of Pandit Nehru not been declared
in his tax returns. The deposits in that account came from the Soviet
Union in payment for royalties of his books sold in Russia. Apparently
Pandit Nehru’s books were surprisingly popular among Soviet readers. Mr
Morarji Desai was the Finance Minister in 1962. Much later, this scribe
in a private conversation asked Mr Desai why Pandit Nehru’s undisclosed
bank account was not made public. “It was not in the national interest
to do so,” Mr Desai replied coldly. Before 1962 the Russians and Chinese
were close allies and Pandit Nehru had touching faith in both. But to
infer that his political ideology was influenced by the unseen pecuniary
and other advantages obtained from the communist block would be
uncharitable. Possibly, Pandit Nehru’s failure to declare his Bank of
China account to the tax authorities arose from forgetfulness similar to
what afflicted Mr Jagjivan Ram when the latter failed to file tax
returns for ten years.
Mr Krishna Menon’s infamous Jeep Scandal arose from the purchase of
sub-standard equipment from a British firm. Subsequently India steadily
purchased defence equipment from Britain. Sometimes, as in the case of
the Westland Helicopters purchased during Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as
Prime Minister, the equipment was so poor that even British forces
refused to use it.
More recently an unknown offshoot of the Bofors scandal could have been
the Jain Hawala Diary case. The police told the court that the illegally
obtained money from abroad distributed to over 40 national politicians
cutting across party lines was sourced to Mr Octavio Quattrochi, the
Italian businessman whose name also figured in the Bofors case. The
amount distributed to politicians in this case equaled the first known
kickback in the Bofors case, the equivalent of Rs 64 crores. The
politicians named in the Jain diaries were exonerated because the
Supreme Court in defiance of all logic found insufficient evidence to
proceed. By burying the case Kashmiri recipients of the money from the
same conduit in the same case never came under the scanner. One of those
Kashmiris was an obscure separatist, Salauddin, who later rose to become
the chief of the Hizbul-e-Mujahideen. He is presently based in Pakistan.
He deserves, of course, much more respect than India’s furtive
politicians who preferred to breach national security rather than admit
the truth.
Potentially the most deadly security risk arises of course from the
ongoing Telgi fake stamp paper scandal. The earlier fake currency notes
scandal inspired the technique employed in the fake stamp paper scam. In
the 1990s the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) replaced the highly reputed
machines that printed Indian currency notes by inferior machines which
had a suspect track record. This scribe petitioned the Mumbai court
arguing that this involved a national security risk. Fake currency notes
would proliferate and could finance terrorism. RBI conceded in court
that the new machines were inferior and could cause “teething troubles”.
Nevertheless the petition, again in defiance of all logic, was rejected.
Fake money flooded the market. According to official agencies it was
exploited by Pakistan’s ISI. In the course of a police investigation RBI
confessed its inability to distinguish fake currency from genuine notes.
Later the printing process for currency notes was quietly upgraded.
Inferior printing machines had allowed counterfeiters to produce fake
notes indistinguishable from genuine notes. In the stamp papers scandal
machines and dyes actually used for printing stamp papers in a
government press were illegally auctioned to print fake stamp papers
indistinguishable from the genuine article. Over Rs 30, 000 crores of
black money has been generated by this scam. Even a fraction of this
could finance an army of terrorists. The media basing itself on
unofficial police briefings has named a large number of prominent
political leaders cutting across party lines who were directly or
indirectly involved. The prime accused, Abdul Karim Telgi, claims he is
terminally ill and wants to confess revealing names of all politicians.
The police are reluctant to accept his offer.
The question arises: why were printing machines for currency notes
changed in the first place? Who inspired this move? While the change was
being contemplated several MPs wrote letters of warning to the Finance
Minister of the day. One of those MPs was Mr Somnath Chatterji,
presently Speaker of Lok Sabha. The former Finance Minister is the
current Prime Minister. Will Mr Manmohan Singh care to enlighten us even
today?
Such cases reflect the decline of democracy subverted by greed,
conspiracy and unprecedented wealth in the hands of the few who act on
the truism that money is power. This will change. Worldwide exposures
herald transition. Technology will ensure transparency. Democracy will
triumph over the conspirators who subvert it.
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The
Mitrokhin Archives dealt with the Soviet period. The UN’s Independent
Inquiry Committee Report investigating corruption in Iraq’s oil-for-food
programme during President Saddam’s regime deals with recent events. The
three-man committee was chaired by Mr Paul Volcker who served two terms
as chairman of America’s Federal Reserve System