Mediating Bofors: A Presidential Recollection

Swedish national daily 'Dagens Nyhetter' Editor-in-Chief Peter Wolodarski was barely eight years old when the Bofors deal was struck in 1986, the same year that the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who wrangled the deal thanks to his friendship with his Indian counterpart Rajiv Gandhi, was killed.

By the time he was 12, Wolodarski was a journalist. Or so, the Wikipedia page on him claims. This prodigal journalist was probably touring India for the first time, but he was certainly interviewing the President of India for the first time. And, certainly, for the last time.

Interviewing the head of a state is an important assignment. You are expected to take it seriously. You are expected to prepare yourself seriously. Wolodarski, now 37, did neither. http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/bofors-was-a-media-trial-says-president-of-india/

If at all, the interview illustrates his unexplained cynicism and a puerile attempt at portraying the President as a political person, on the eve of the latter’s visit to Sweden – the first by an Indian President. Believe me, this person wouldn’t last a week in an Indian newspaper! Can you imagine him asking Mukherjee what he thinks of Putin!

My brief on Wolodarski’s subjectivities will remain unjustified till I quote from a portion of his article where he trying to make the Swedes understand Mukherjee. He writes:

“Pranab Mukherjee is the opposite (to PM Narendra Modi): he is a veteran of the Congress Party, which dominated Indian politics, and which Olof Palme’s Social Democrats had close cooperation with. President Mukherjee has belonged to the country’s political elite since Indira Gandhi’s days. Since the early 1970s, he has occupied just about every governmental position that one can imagine – except for one, Prime Minister. But for the Nehru-Gandhi family’s total dominance in the post-war India, Mukherjee might have also managed to lead the government.

Instead, he became president three years ago, a role that is essentially ceremonial.”

Even a primary school student would say, correctly, that Wolodarski, came to the interview with a premeditated political mind.

He then asks Mukherjee what “he hopes to achieve” in Sweden. The President says,  “to strengthen the relationship”. He mentions several areas, but certainly, and specifically, not defence.

Yet, Wolodarski thinks he has reached a right point in his article to recall the Bofors scandal, gives a brief summary and writes:

“In New Delhi, we are skilfully assured that “The Bofors ghost” is buried, and perhaps that change in particular has contributed to the state visit.

I didn’t plan on taking up the old armaments corruption scandals, but rather on asking a question about how new Bofors affairs with the accompanying corruption can be avoided, especially if trade between Sweden and India is to increase.”

Then, he notes:

“At this point, President Mukherjee becomes animated:

- First of all - it is yet to be to be established that there was a scandal. No Indian court has established it, he reminds us.

- I was the defence minister of the country long after Bofors, and all my generals certified that this is one of the best guns we are having. Till today, Indian army is using it.

- The so-called scandal which you talk of, yes, in the media, it was there. There was a media trial. But I’m afraid, let us not be too much carried by publicity.

So it was a media scandal? (this is the sub-heading)

-I do not know. I’m not describing it, you’re putting that word. Don’t put that word. What I am saying is that in media it was publicised. But up to now, no Indian court has given any decisive verdict about the alleged scandal.”

Wolodarski does not explain what exactly led to Mukherjee becoming “animated” with reference to Bofors.  And the President’s wouldn’t tell, would he?

His remarks were bound to attract attention from the very Indian media which probably faced the stiffest silence from the country’s political leadership – read primarily as the Congress leadership -- in its attempts all these years to unravel the final truth about the Bofors scandal.

The issue trended in the social media platforms as well. But no one was willing to say what he or she truly felt, no one willing to share any ounce of information he or she still possessed or had access to. They had the right excuse this time – how can one comment on what the First Citizen of this country said?

But why did Mukherjee say what he said? The utterance is such that it lacks the sophistication of an innocent remark. I do not want to disrespect the President in any manner, but that is the sense I get.

We are a democracy, we have an independent media, and short of imputing motives we have the right to ask:

1.Was it a redemption of a political debt to the first family of the Congress?

2.Would his silence to the question have been more meaningful?

3.Is it believable that Bofors was only a media trial and there was nothing more to it?

4.Was that an attempt to re-write history and if so, whose?

Having said that, to be fair to the President, should he have instead said, yes, it was a scandal? Would that have enriched the image of his and the country’s stature on the eve of his visit to Sweden? No. It would have ended up embroiling the President’s Office in a scandal. It would have led to an embarrassing moment in Indo-Swedish relations. When asked a direct question, I do not think the President had much room to maneouvre to avoid saying anything that could be construed as inappropriate and politically incorrect. His statement does not take away even an inch from the Indian media its insistent efforts to bring the Bofors culprits to book howsoever high they might have been. I don’t think no journalist is seriously hurt by the use of the phrase, “media trial”. That’s the media’s bread and butter!

The world has moved on. India revoked the Bofors blacklisting when there was a sudden demand for the gun’s spare parts during the Kargil war. Since, AB Bofors has changed owners so many times it’s quite complex to recall here. Most of the dramatis personae of the scandal are dead. The Swedes are desperate for defence ties with India, what with their companies bound to get their balance sheets hurt if they don’t get a part of the big Indian defence slice. No wonder that they vociferously support the Make In India campaign – so long as they get the contracts to help Indian companies set up defence manufacture in India. Recall the Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week, which began to focus on Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Vidyarthi themed on “Sweden Made in India: Co-creating the Future”, organized by the Swedish embassy in India. Sweden expects a big fillip to trade tries following Mukherjee’s visit and they are leaving no stone unturned to make the visit memorable. In spite of Wolodarski.

Parting nuggets:

• The most famous of the many owners of Bofors was none other than Alfred Nobel, who owned it from 1894 until his death two years later. The credit of turning Bofors from an iron and steel producer to manufacturer of cannons.
• Three members of the same family, all of whom became PMs of India, went to Sweden, within a gap of nearly 15 from each other! Nehru in 1957, Indira Gandhi in 1972 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1986 and 1988.
• “Kroners for Cronies” was the phrase – alluding to the friendship between Rajiv Gandhi and Olof Palme – that rang through the world media in the early days after two Swedish Radio reporters first talked about the scandal in their bulletin on the morning of April 16, 1987.
• VP Singh came to power by campaigning against the scandal – his references to the Lotus account, his popular act of taking a small calculator out of his pocket to tell crowds in 1989 that it contained the Swiss Bank account number – but did nothing to solve the kickbacks mystery.
• George Fernandes talked about exposing the kickbacks accounts and Ram Jethmalani asked Rajiv Gandhi 10 questions a day, but nothing happened when they became defence minister and law minister, respectively, in the Vajpayee government. Jethmalani would go on to represent the Hinduja brothers win their way out of the courts in 2003.
• One man who made his mark was an emerging brilliant lawyer, Arun Jaitley. VP Singh appointed him Additional Solicitor General in 1990 and he pursued the case with great vigour.