Author: Jaya Jaitly
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 21, 2007
From an accused Indian to a free Italian
Dear Mr Q, Pardon the familiarity in the mode
of address, but we Indians have become so familiar with you over the past
20 years that even our media often refers to you thus.
I am sure you are relaxing at your home after
your final 'release' from long years of 'political harassment', and your extended
holiday in South America, thanks to Interpol responding with undue alacrity
to an international red alert notice put out against you by our law enforcement
authorities. In the meantime, we Indians, who care deeply for our country,
are aghast at how the course of our justice system has been perverted at regular
intervals by your special friends in India for your sake. I must explain that
while friendships are personal, a country's institutions cannot be made subservient
to them.
You may wonder why I, of all people, am taking
the liberty of addressing you publicly. Allow me to enlighten you. I am a
fellow sufferer who has also been made a victim of our ugly habit of targeting
political opponents with accusations of having made money in defence deals,
whether true or not. I am, as you were till recently, a subject of the CBI's
attention. With me too it has been bound by the commands of powerful political
figures, while pretending to the world that they are India's premier independent
investigative agency. If you complain that it has pursued you purely because
of political reasons, I know for sure that in my case this is true.
Of course, you are a big fry in the business
world and so your purported deal involved the big Bofors guns (one must use
the words 'alleged' and 'purported' when accusations are not legally proved,
isn't it?). Since financially I am a no fry, my defence deal supposedly involved
only cameras and binoculars. Laughable? Perhaps. However, the CBI is trying
hard to please its political masters by looking for my involvement in much
bigger transactions, so I may be upgraded in the hierarchy of fries. However,
if the CBI took 20 years in getting nowhere with you, presumably I shall be
left in peace by around 2024, when I am 84 years old.
Your alleged crime is that you pocketed Rs
64 crore ($12,000,000) as commission for ensuring a speedy decision in the
purchase of Bofors guns. I am almost ashamed to say that in comparison my
supposed bounty is a mere Rs 2 lakh or $ 4,000. Yet, before the might of law,
especially Indian law, we are equal, aren't we? You were said to be very close
to the powers-that-be, meaning the Prime Minister's household, in those years
between 1984 and 1989. They say you used that special friendship, which no
one denies even today, to make that $ 12 million. I too am accused of benefiting
from being close to powers-that-were.
Your matter was in Indian and foreign courts.
Everywhere you were assisted by friendly prosecutors and the highest law officers
were flown to foreign lands to vouch for you. My case is in a crowded, stuffy,
special, but lower court. I am assisted only by lawyers who work for free,
and I bow to the majesty of law like everyone else. I assure you that the
atmosphere is open and everyone behaves in a perfectly civilised manner, and
if I should find that I am being dealt with unjustly, I have the right to
appeal. You are not unfamiliar with court procedures, I am sure, except that
you have ensured that you do not experience them personally in India.
You claim to love India, and I am sure you
enjoyed your fairly long stay here. Indeed, your connections of that time
are still strong. Details of your son's businesses in India were found on
a website, naming you as one of his main consultants. In fact, he was in India
when you were inconvenienced in South America, wasn't he? Does he maintain
your long-standing family friendships here as well?
I too love India above all else, and naturally
so, for it is the land of my birth, just as I am sure you love Italy above
all else, for it is the land of your birth, and not adoption. It is precisely
because I love India with all its faults that I have faith in its democratic
systems. This I call pride. If things are wrong I engage in every legitimate
and transparent way I can to correct them. This alone is my politics.
Do we have more similarities? Well, the Bofors
affair was revealed by Swedish journalists who belonged to a major, respected
newspaper called Der Expressen. They had papers, documents, and a whole lot
of other credible evidence. After much hue and cry, the then Prime Minister
in India set up a Parliamentary Committee headed by him to inquire about himself.
It cleared him. However, the people of India did not believe this, and, as
you know, he lost the general election that followed.
I will not burden you with subsequent events,
except to remind you that the next time the Government of your friends came
to power, you were assisted in fleeing to Malaysia, under the nose of the
same investigative agency, which has since then tried ineffectively and fruitlessly
to get you back to India to arrive at the truth. Money earned from the Bofors
deal was traced to you. Again, all the official documents are available with
Sten Lindstrom, Chief Prosecutor in Sweden who has crucial evidence. The Indian
authorities inexplicably remain deaf and blind to him.
Fast forward and we see your friends in India
in power again in 2004 and by 2006 your accounts frozen in London are unfrozen
by our Law Ministry. Your friends and our Government have now safely reunited
you with your money and your freedom from 'harassment', without requiring
you to step on Indian soil or face questioning, let alone the law here.
I too was supposedly exposed in a dubious
endeavour by persons of dubious antecedents claiming to be journalists with
hidden cameras. In fact, it was a set up to match your Bofors saga. But, my
friend, now our similarities dramatically end for we are no kindred spirits
or fellow sufferers. There is no money in my hands; there are no documents,
no evidence, no bank accounts, no friendships flaunted nor purchases made
on my supposed interventions.
Yet, I patiently subjected myself to a lengthy
Commission of Inquiry that was eventually aborted by your friends, not mine.
They have subjected me to the same CBI that you now mock so arrogantly from
the safety of your country. I go to court on every date of hearing, with faith
in eventual justice and in the truth of my innocence, shorn of political dirt.
It puzzles me, Mr Q, if you were innocent
why could you not have done the same? Your friends are here to protect you,
after all, and I can assure you, the Indian justice system would have treated
you decently. It is a shame you have not treated India the same way. Was it
not better to have faced the charges here boldly rather than misuse our Government
to evade them? Perhaps your friends share your lack of faith. Eventually,
Mr Q, all you have done is to reinforce the widespread belief that you are
guilty as charged.
With regards,
Yours sincerely,
Jaya Jaitly
Former president, Samata Party.
