The “BOFORS” election
Five years ago Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own Sikh body-guards. Scant hours later, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was sworn in as India’s sixth Prime Minister (and third from the Nehru Clan). Riding on a wave of sympathy and bolstered by a “Mr Clean” image, Rajiv almost decapitated the Opposition in the ensuing elections. Surrounding himself with bright young corporate executives in his own Yuppie-image, the pilot grand-son of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised to be a fresh wind that would overcome the layers of narrow-minded hate and petty jealousies compounded by Hindu class composition and an indolent bureaucracy. The nations on India’s periphery looked forward to a less hegemonistic approach.
Today both the Aruns, Lal and Nehru, one of them Rajiv’s own cousin, who symbolised the fresh corporate approach, are in the Opposition. His estranged sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi, who opposed him in the Amethi constituency in 1984, is still at loggerheads, though mindful of the powers of incumbency has this time around chosen a safer seat to contest. His close confidant and former Finance (and later Defence) Minister VP Singh is now his chief opponent. Opposing him in Amethi is a namesake, Manmohan Gandhi, exploiting the name of another equally renowned grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. Even Khalsa Babbar, widow of one of Indira’s assassins, Beant Singh, is given an even chance of being elected to Parliament.
With all its organisational machinery, Congress-I is always highly dependent for victory on the vote-getting potential of its primary leader. Unlike the last time around when the sympathy vote post-Indira assassination propelled Rajiv to the PM’s chair, the main contention this time will hinge around whether the smear campaign ladled on Rajiv a la Bofors will stick, or other positive issues will overcome the negative campaign. It now seems certain that the latest revelations are conclusive evidence that Mr Gandhi has been caught red-handed pocketing a fair portion of the Bofors kickback. The opposition is united on one issue alone, the removal of the ruling monarch of the world’s largest democracy, either Rajiv becomes PM or he goes to jail, thus raising the stakes considerably. This is indeed a sorry pass for the Nehru clan and takes the lustre out of India’s spectacular economic achievements post-1982.
In 1978 Indian planners, during the first and only short-lived non-Cong government in India, realised the potential of opening up the Indian economy in contrast to the social experiment of three decades. With gradual liberalisation and reduction of taxes the process started in earnest in 1982, being accelerated in the hands of Rajiv’s whiz-kids since 1984. Since 1987, the consumer boom has really taken off, fully 12 million middle-class Indians are petty shareholders in business, almost 2 per cent of the population. The money input has created dynamism in the economy on an unprecedented scale, the upper middle class has been the recipient of maximum benefits. A vast moribund economy, overpopulated by people, has been rejuvenated. Traditionally, Indians have been excellent businessmen, during the last 10 years they have more than proved that.
The booming consumerism notwithstanding, at least four hundred million Indians live below the poverty line with severe inflationary tendencies besetting the economy. This is the India with little or no electricity, gas and water, bereft of schools and colleges, an India of hunger and disease, of deprivation and want. More Indians live in misery than proportionate populace percentage-wise in any other nation of the world. The pavements of all major cities, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, New Delhi (indeed all major cities and towns) are open-air bedrooms to a nightly population, seen to be believed. In contrast to this are the billions of US dollar spent on modern armaments, among them nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, etc, the trappings of Super-Power status. In the presence of 400 million destitute, this expenditure is a crime against humanity, every time any Indian leader speaks of peace, it is a sham, an utter lie, sheer hypocrisy.
In this great hell-hole stalks the arrogance of corruption. While smuggling, theft and tax-evasion are familiar litanies to the Third World as are nepotism and fraud among its ruling elite the image of Rajiv Gandhi pocketing commissions on armament purchases has been shocking, not only to the world at large but to the vast populace of India. While it was common knowledge that most Indian politicians were corrupt, the sheer vastness of India has been held together by common acclaim for the Nehru Dynasty, in the eyes of Indians they could do no wrong. As the evidence has mounted and former associates crossed the fence, Rajiv has resorted to dirty tricks domestically and regionally, initiated by the omnipotent Research & Analytical Wing (RAW). Whichever way he has twisted and turned the nemesis of VP Singh holding aloft the “Bofors” sword confronts him. The latest revelations, coming on the homestretch to the elections have been particularly damning, it seems that finally his fingerprints are clearly discernible on the smoking gun of corruption. Corruption in high places is difficult to prove, evidence is hardly left lying around.
In the case of Bofors, the Swedish Government has become helpless because of (1) the freedom of information and (2) the rigidity of the laws as applicable to any citizen. Essentially Sweden is not saying that any Indian is to blame for taking a kickback of US$ 30 million as “winding-up” charges, they are saying that the giving of any kickback by any Swedish individual or entity is illegal according to Swedish law and as such despite their best efforts to avoid embarrassing India and lucrative sales of over US$ 1.5 billion, they have been forced into one disclosure after another. Theories even abound that the late PM Olaf Palme may have been murdered to avoid his giving the correct evidence.
India in the past few years has attempted to become a regional colossus on its way to becoming a superpower. Very much like superpowers are inclined to do, India interceded in the Maldives, the tourist and fishing island republic. The Indians were not accidental tourists and it was a very fishy story, all in all. In Sri Lanka, the Indians fomented the bloody Tamil problem and then sought an intermediary role through its so-called Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF), an adventure that has become a living and dying nightmare for them (and for the paradise that once was Sri Lanka). Bangladesh has been flooded or starved of water depending upon the season and Indian obduracy about catchment dams, an economic blockade of Nepal in utter contempt of international norms continues. The Indian High Commissioner as far afield as Fiji has been declared persona non-grata for undue interference in Fijian internal affairs. In Pakistan, the problems in Sindh have been helped along by bloody incidents having the same hallmark of RAW as in Sri Lanka.
Within India while the intelligentsia has been aghast at this whole-hog reversal of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings, hard-core Hindu Chauvinism has lapped up, visions of Hindu supremacy (Ram Rajya) over the whole of South Asia were annunciated by Rajiv Gandhi himself in his inaugural speech as he kicked off the Cong-I election campaign only 6 kms from Ayodhya, Babri Masjid being a symbolic flash point for Hindu-Muslim controversy. While appealing for the Muslim vote he is also hypocritically accusing the Opposition of doing what he himself is brazenly suggesting. Large-scale Hindu-Muslim riots have erupted all over in India, as the Elections Day approaches this is getting from bad to worse. These riots were intended to drive the Muslim vote into the Cong-I camp but this strategy may boomerang, given the call of the Imam Shahi Masjid in Delhi to Muslims to support Rajiv’s opposition. Rajiv’s ploy of having our own Prime Minister Ms Benazir visit India before the elections would have given him a boost in the Muslim vote, that soft-soap scenario failed because our PM was correctly advised that it would be more expedient to remain political neutral in Indian internal affairs. In the face of the blood of Muslims being spilt in India she has now come out in strong condemnation, visits to India may well have to wait.
It all boils down to the corruption tacked onto Rajiv Gandhi’s image versus the economic bliss and Superpower dreams acting as an aphrodisiac for the peoples’ aspirations. From time to time Cong-I reminds the masses of the debacle created by the Opposition’s infighting the last (and only) time they won national elections. In essence these are the issues, and in more than 400 seats it is more or less a straight fight between Cong-I and the Combined Opposition. While the East will go the way of the Opposition, the great Indian heartland (including Maharashtra and Rajputana, normally safely Cong-I) is evenly balanced depending upon the Muslim swing vote which may help the Opposition to defeat Rajiv. The South is leaning slightly in Rajiv’s favour, given crucial alliances for Cong-I could very well still be marginally in Rajiv’s favour if a large number of Muslims abstain from voting. At this moment, the best tally gives Cong-I about 255 seats, if they get less than 200 seats then Cong-I will fragment into two or three pieces.
According to political pundits Cong-I may well lose the elections but one still believes that given the evidence at hand the prognosis is mixed at best. All the South Asian countries (including India) would certainly be better off having anyone but Rajiv as head of Indian Government, but given the powers of incumbency one believes that it might be that we have to live with a Cong-I government having a truncated majority, may be even a coalition with the communists. This would be far worse than a powerful Rajiv, because the wounded of the political species is more dangerous, he will be more inclined to try and prove his manhood in the adjacent region with military adventures to shore up his domestic position.
India will be unstable in the near future with either a weakened Cong-I or a mixed pot-pourri of Opposition parties likely to form a new Government. This region (and particularly Pakistan) will have to learn to live with danger.
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