Bofors jinx finally broken, but not its crippling legacy

Thank God, the Bofors jinx has been finally broken. Hopefully, the Bofors ghost, that has been haunting Indian politics for the last thirty years, has also been exorcised. The Indian Army has ultimately decided to purchase 155 mm howitzer artillery guns from the US and the guns reached India on May 18. This is for the first time in the last thirty years that the Indian defence establishment has dared to purchase a howitzer gun after the Bofors gun deal with a Swedish company in the mid-1980s.

Bofors, too, was a howitzer gun and its purchase was ordered by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But the deal proved to be badly jinxed for both Rajiv and the Congress Party as it continued to haunt both for decades. No Prime Minister since then dared to purchase a howitzer gun until the Modi government recently decided to bury the Bofors ghost and go in for the much-needed howitzer guns for the India Army.

But, what was so horribly wrong with the howitzer guns that every prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi shied away from purchasing them? Indeed, there is a tale that hangs by the Bofors gun deal that not only destroyed Rajiv Gandhi but also dramatically changed the course of Indian politics entirely that no politician even tried to touch a howitzer gun even with a barge pole.

The Bofors gun deal is the most dramatic story that launched a storm whose side effects India is still suffering from. The story needs to be retold for lessons to Indian liberals who walked into the Bofors trap and ultimately ended up delivering India to the right-wingers like the BJP and the Sangh on a platter.

It so happened that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi struck a much-needed howitzer gun deal called Bofors with a Swedish defence company in March 1986. The terms of the deal included a clause making it mandatory on both the parties that there would be no middlemen in the Bofors deal. But, soon afterwards, a Swedish Radio disclosed that middle men were involved in the ill-fated deal.

Oh, my God, this news led to a political storm of a nature that I have not witnessed during my over three decades of journalistic career. But, before we discuss the storm, let me recall how Rajiv Gandhi was doing as the prime minister at that point of time when he bought Bofors guns for the Indian army.

Rajiv Gandhi was then the darling of India who had succeeded his dynamic mother Indira Gandhi, after her brutal assassination in 1984. You could guess his popularity from the fact that he won a whopping 410 Lok Sabha seats for the Congress Party in the 1984 parliamentary elections—a majority that no political leader, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, could ever match.

Frankly, India was in love with Rajiv Gandhi at that point of time. He was young, bursting with energy and his dynamism evoked hope among the young and the old alike. He had no political baggage of any sort. He was called ‘Mr Clean’ as no charge could stick on him.

Obviously, it left Rajiv’s rivals literally breathless. They were licking their wounds after the massive 1984 parliamentary victory of the Congress party under Rajiv’s leadership. Imagine, BJP then had just two MPs in the Lok Sabha, and neither of them was from the Hindi belt. The entire Opposition was not just defeated but was also clueless on how to deal with Rajiv Gandh, who was riding at the peak of his popularity in 1985-86. Naturally, the defeated and demoralised Opposition was waiting for something to clutch at to take on Rajiv.

In such moments of desperation came the news of middlemen being involved in the Bofors gun deal. It was godsend for the entire Opposition, which was still struggling to be relevant to the Indian politics. It so happened that a little before the Bofors disclosure Rajiv’s trusted aide and then Defence Minister VP Singh resigned from the Rajiv’s Cabinet and was itching to make a place for himself in the Opposition ranks.

VP Singh too had managed to craft the much-needed image of an honest politician for himself. The alleged involvement of a bribe in a defence deal proved a boon for the entire demoralised and dispirited Opposition, including VP Singh who was also a part of it now.

The entire Opposition ganged up putting up a new ‘Mr Clean’ VP Singh against Rajiv Gandhi, who was—in an organised campaign—now labelled as ‘Mr Dirty’. They went in for the kill and used every weapon in their armoury against Rajiv.

A new political party called Janata Dal led by VP Singh was formed. Imagine, Janata Dal in its anti-corruption campaign—that was weaved around the Bofors gun deal—was publicly supported by both the rightists as well as the leftists. The Janata Dal was the only party that came to power with the dubious distinction of both the Communists and the BJP support.

VP Singh, with his Janata Dal, managed to defeat Rajiv Gandhi in the 1989 parliamentary elections. The Bofors guns boomed all through the election campaign. Singh ultimately took office of the prime minister with both the Left and the right supporting him from outside. But, this alliance of all shades of political parties, was an obvious marriage of convenience meant only to get rid of Rajiv Gandhi from power.

Once Rajiv was out of power, the glue that brought in the entire Opposition together was gone. Differences started becoming public on the share in the power structure; Chandra Shekhar and Devi Lal, two other contenders for the prime minister post, aired their differences on the very day when Janata Dal elected Singh as its prime ministerial candidate. Ultimately, his own colleagues pulled the rug from under VP Sungh’s feet who resigned as the Prime Minister barely eleven months after assuming office.

Remember, all this political jugglery was conducted around the Bofors gun deal. But, the Bofors gun deal was not only used by a defeated and demoralised Opposition to destroy Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress Party. But it was also craftily used by various hues of Opposition groups for their own ideological and power games. And, all these petty games created such a havoc on Indian politics that India is yet to recover from its impact.

Well, when the VP Singh Government was tottering because of internal party troubles, it dusted out the Mandal Commission recommendations which had granted 27% reservation to the backward castes in government services and educational institutions; and he also implemented it. It caused a storm in Indian politics. The established social order felt threatened which led to a sort of caste war between the forwards and the backwards leading to the emergence of leaders like Lalu, Mulayam and Mayawati in their own states.

Once the backwards got the Mandal platform, the rightist BJP took up the ‘Kamandal’ to create their own space which led to the rise of Hindutva politics in a big way in India for the first time. Now, LK Advani riding a rath went on to campaign to build Ram temple on the now demolished Babri mosque in Ayodhya. The ‘masjid versus mandir’ controversy led to a massive Hindu-Muslim divide that ultimately paved the way for the rise of Narendra Modi in Indian politics.

To cut the long story short, it may be said that the Bofors gun deal led to shrinking of the Congress Party and the vacuum was filled by both the caste-based political parties as well as the majoritarian party like the BJP. The liberal and centrist space in Indian politics is now at a discount giving rise to Hindutva forces which are now out to change the entire paradigm of Indian politics towards the extreme right.

Ironically, no wrongdoings have been proved against Rajiv Gandhi who was given a clean chit by the Delhi High Court after his tragic death in 1991. Yet, the havoc unleashed in the aftermath of the dirty Bofors politics in still haunting India. India now stands divided both along caste and communal lines. No one really knows when the madness that gripped India in the aftermath of Bofors politics will really come to an end.

Well, the moral of the Bofors story is that a false corruption campaign can lead to an unexpected disaster, which can play havoc to the country, as it happened in the case of Bofors politics. Ironically, politicians seemed to have not learnt the lesson of the Bofors kind of politics which is again at play with Opposition leaders are now being charged with a scam every day.

India may have to pay a heavy price yet again as it did after the Bofors controversy.

Zafar Agha is the Editor-in-chief of Qaumi Awaaz, a sister publication of National Herald