Rajiv Paid Heavily
Monday, 16. January 2006 - 8:54 PM
Or The Lesson Sonia is Refusing to Learn
Or The Phantom Returns
The Bofors is the first of the biggest political scandals and we’ve woken up each day ever since, to increasingly bigger ones. Yet there must be something in the spirit of the case that refuses to release its stranglehold on the First Dynasty of India. The case might pull the Dynasty further down in the Bofors Quicksand with the latest twist. Or it might take the time-tested route to oblivion. But the said twist raises hopes.
Arun Shourie in Rajiv and his Men writes about Rajiv’s penchant for having his word in every minute issue, matters where his word was let’s say, superfluous. This weakness ultimately led to his fall from power. And this weakness Shourie explains, was skillfully exploited by his courtiers in the Bofors scandal and the Shah Bano affair.
It is not far from truth to state that Sonia is treading the same path and is courtiered similarly.
Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote a shameless piece last year absolving Rajiv’s role in the Bofors case. He wrote this when much to his delight, the Delhi High Court “threw out the case against Rajiv” for not finding a “scintilla of evidence” and in the same piece assassinated PVN’s character. Today HR Bharadwaj the Law Minister, has taken over the mantle from Aiyar.
There’s a crucial difference in Indian politics between then and now. Rajiv’s days saw the beginning of the end of Congress monopoly over national politics. Yet, as long as he was in power, he got away with virtually everything he did. So did his courtiers. Now the Congress has to succuumb to the diktats of its allies. It has to oblige its own allies if they demand an “inquiry” into the present issue. One can argue that this is mere posturing but that’s not the point: the point is the Congress’ nadir, where allies with disproportionate representation can hold it to ransom.
The Dynasty is perhaps used to living under illusions starting with Indira Gandhi who lifted the Emergency under a chimera that her popularity had actually grown because she imposed the Emergency. Rajiv who laboured under the fantasy that the voter would brush Bofors or Shah Bano aside. It is Sonia’s turn now.
That the British government has de-frozen Q’s bank account comes as both a surprise and blow to the nation. It is therefore not difficult for Q to feign innocence and make claims about being victimised.
“I am the victim of a political campaign waged by a political party against the Gandhi family,” he said without elaborating.
The CBI might find nothing after (re)questioning Q: 20 years is ample time to wipe out evidence. Q needs nothing to fear either: he has a nation’s government bending backwards to shield his misdeeds. If nothing indeed comes out of Q’s questioning it’ll be fodder for the Congress to thump its chest that it has been exculpated.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court needs to be commended again.
The Indian government found itself in a bind on Monday after the Supreme Court asked it to ensure that the London accounts of an Italian businessmen accused in the Bofors payoffs scandal remained frozen.”This is in the interest of the nation,” a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice YK Sabharwal ruled on a public suit urging that Ottavio Quattrocchi’s accounts, into which part of the Rs.640 million (Rs.28 billion at 1987 rates) kickbacks are said to have been deposited, not be revived.
As I said, there might be some hope. Still.
17. January 2006 - 12:25 AM
Atleast when NDA was at the center, there was some shame and guilt attached to any scandals exposed. With Sonia and Gandhis at helm of affairs, there’s not a tinge of shame or remorse. There’s an all round brazen-ness and care-a-damn attitude,if you will, towards all this. I mean look at this. PM says he had no clue. Ok fine. Congress spokesman says, its not our look out what government department does.Wow!. Sonia is anyways not answerable to the media. How very convinient?
But thats not the best part. Except for a handful, none of the so called nantional dailies would dig further on this. Times of India does not bother to cover the story. NDTV anyways has selective amnesia. It roars like a lion only when BJP or Sangh Parivar is at the receiving end. And the less said about The Hindu, the better.
In any democracy, the nation’s main media takes up the ownership of keeping such issues on the front burner and keep it as a part of national discourse. Not in our ludicrous democracy.
In next general elections around 70% of the voters will be in age group of 20-35 years. This is an impressionable age in terms of voter education. This generation of voters will never be able to see the dark side of UPA or for that matter all these so called secualarists, simply because no one showed them. On the other hand the constant BJP-bashing by our media has already alienated the young voters away from Conservative nationalism.
Like how in last general elections the media drove the voters opinon away from NDA, 2008 won’t be different, unless the top 3 media houses that i mentioned, are sqaurely exposed in public.
17. January 2006 - 2:46 PM
Parimal Gupta You think this “yo!” generation will bother about nation? They have more information on tips about VJs and DJs than about our politicians and politics of our country. I nostaligically remember Rajeev Gandhi’s essential parts of speech, “Hum dekh rahe hai”, “Hame dekhana hai” and the then mainstream media added, “Aur Hum dekhte rahenge.”
I find the same attitude reflecting in our current generation.
17. January 2006 - 4:44 PM
Alka,
Your comment in one word is: perceptive. Without your conscious knowledge perhaps, you have echoed a gigantic symptom of all that’s wrong today. Didn’t see you here around for a long time. Welcome back
17. January 2006 - 10:31 PM
Alka, you said it. I know this “yo” generation is too far removed from any cultural nationalism; if it ever existed.
But i feel that if we had a balanced media, there would still have been some hope.
The media is so skewed and so much in love with Gandhis, it is almost ensuring a Rahul Gandhi coronation in 2008.
Ya, i remember those “Hume Dekhna Hai” days. If Rajiv G was still alive, i am sure some innovative chap from MTV would have made a bhangra or patel rap on that theme
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