Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 14, 2006
Some two decades ago, while setting a question
paper for undergraduates, a crusty Oxford don drew me aside and offered a
piece of advice. The purpose of an examination, he remarked, is to find out
what students know, not what they don't know.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is well past
the stage of writing examinations. Yet, if his performance as the head of
the executive is to be assessed, it is likely to pose a few problems for the
examiners. For the past three months or so, the country has been treated to
a dhobi list of subjects about which the Prime Minister knows nothing. First,
there was the Volcker Report and the oil-for-food scandal about which he knew
nothing and yet issued a certificate of innocence to the now-disgraced K Natwar
Singh.
Then there was the salacious phone-tapping
of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and, presumably, other Opposition leaders,
about which he was said to be completely in the dark. And now, we have the
curious case of the Prime Minister who was carefully insulated from dramatic
developments involving the Bofors case - arguably the most important political
corruption case since Independence.
The mystery of what Manmohan Singh does know
has deepened in the past week. The facts, as divulged by proverbial "sources"
are startling. The Crown Prosecution Service of Britain writes a routine letter
asking the Indian Law Ministry whether it wants the freeze on the London bank
accounts of Italian businessman Ottavia Quattrocchi, a prime accused in the
Bofors bribery case, to be maintained. The matter should routinely have been
left to the CBI which deals with these matters. Instead, Law Minister H R
Bharadwaj gets into the act, overrules the CBI and sends a law officer to
London to tell the CPS that Quattrocchi can have his money back.
The matter is simultaneously taken to the
Department of Personnel, which is under the Prime Minister. However, instead
of referring the matter to the Prime Minister, Minister of State Suresh Pachauri
and Bharadwaj together decide that there is no "evidence" against
Quattrocchi and he must be allowed to have access to his millions. Worse,
the Prime Minister apparently learns of this important political decision
while surfing TV channels.
To be fair, the reconstruction of events is
based entirely on "sources". So far, neither the Prime Minister
nor his official spokesman has responded to Arun Jaitley's advice that "if
he was unaware, then it is for him to introspect what kind of Government he
is heading."
The Prime Minister's silence is revealing.
That two important Ministers of the Government believe that it is unimportant
to keep the Prime Minister in the loop suggests either of two things. First,
that they don't believe his opinion counts one way or the other. Second, that
when it comes to a sensitive subject like an Italian fugitive from Indian
justice, it is the desire of the "friends" of Quattrocchi that must
entertained, even if it involves short-circuiting every rule in the book.
The identity of the all-powerful friends of
Quattrocchi is not exactly a secret, although it is being disingenuously suggested
that even they were unaware of what Bharadwaj and Pachauri were up to.
The delight of an extra-Constitutional authority
is that it cannot be pinned down. There are no tell-tale notings in the files
that can be unearthed through the Freedom of Information Act. Nor does anyone
have the gumption to say that they did what did in the belief that it would
please the invisible hand that controls the government.
The Government of Britain works on the quaint
principle that the Queen can do no wrong. In India, there is no formal monarchy
but here too the Queen can do no wrong. To uphold the principle, even the
Prime Minister has to end up openly proclaiming that he is a cipher whose
writ doesn't run in his own office. Even honourable men should not be devoid
of shame.
