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Millions of his followers would like to see Lal Krishna Advani,
after the Delhi High Court verdict on the havala case, in the mould
of the classic hero who comes unscathed through a test by fire.
The all around euphoria the verdict has generated should be seen in
the light of the popular perception that the framing up of Advani
in one of India's worst seams is an attack on the entire saffron
brotherhood.
As amplified by a senior RSS functionary:
"The Rao government by implicating Advani in the seam, had actually
turned the millions of swayamsevaks into accused".
And for the same reason when Advani is vindicated exactly one year
after quitting his Lok Sabha seat to prove his innocence, the
celebration is collective, too.
The Delhi High Court has only upheld the ultimate sanctity Of
justice embodied in the immortal dictum that a hundred criminals
can escape but one innocent should not be punished when it decreed
in favour of V C Shukla and even the Jain brothers along with
Advani in the money laundering scandal.
The 70-page judgement of Justice Mohammad Shamim was unambiguous
when it said there was no evidence to prove that Advani had
accepted money from the Jains in return for any personal
gratification.
The High Court judgement has also knocked the bottom out of the
whole case when it decreed that the diaries and notebooks of the
Jain brothers, the sole 'evidence' on which the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) so assiduously built the entire edifice of the
case, had no evidentiary value in a court of law.
"At best," said the judgement, "the entries made in the diaries
could be a source of some information to initiate investigation. "
In other words, what the learned judge said was that the diaries
could not be converted into a legal evidence.
Given such categorical assertion of the judgement, the CBI's plan
to go in appeal to the Supreme Court is merely of academic
interest. The fact remains that there is no evidence or motive to
prove that Advani had received laundered money.
The havala seam had broken out when India's political life was
ravaged by a legion of corruption scandals: when India's ruling
elite were turning out to be ordinary thiefs, blackmailers and
forgerers: when the country's prime minister was wallowing in
personal corruption and political decadence.
The man who pretended to be the deliverer of India from a family
oligarchy was getting exposed as an undertaker ready to bury the
world's largest democracy under mounds of sleeze. The relentless
attempts by the political opposition led by the BJP to turn the
tide was no match to the man's Mephistophelean genius.
However, as it happens with all fall guys, Narasimha Rao's nemesis
came when his own partners turned against him, rendering the
seemingly invincible man totally defenceless.
Narasimha Rao decided to strike back and for a man who was neck
deep in sleeze, the only way to do it was to take his rivals down
into the same sleeze.
With a willing instrument like CBI, Rao crossed the Rubicon and in
a swift attack he hoped to bring down the entire spectrum of his
political opposition, which, by now, has included his one time
party colleagues.
Nearly 35 politicians and bureaucrats were named as the
beneficiaries of 65 crore rupees, all allegedly laundered and
distributed by the Jain brothers, as quid pro quo for "illegal
gratifications".
The scandal, considered the most sweeping in its reach and most
damaging for the public faith in the system, was expected to be the
coup de grace administered by Rao on his frustrated rivals.
It became evident, not before long, that Rao's main target was not
his Congress rivals but the BJP-led opposition which had by then
made corruption its main plank of attack on Rao.
In short, havala was Rao's way of turning the tables on his
opposition.
It was evident when the men got rehabilitated, one after the other,
by Rao himself.
But if the former prime minister's gambit appeared brilliant, his
end-game fell far short of expectations.
For instance, he did not anticipate how an inept CBI could spoil
the entire broth, how an independent judiciary could see through
the whole game and how, eventually, a politically wise and
democratically matured population could deliver the retributive
justice.
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