Straight Face

Straight Face
Pamela Philipose

May the Bofors Be With You!

I have always believed that if we did not have the Bofors scam, we would have had to invent it. So it was with a tinge of sadness that I learnt the Berne court had ordered the delivering of the final set of papers relating to the case. This, I suppose, means our investigators are finally on the job and should wind up the case soon -- as early as the year 3001 even.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I do not wish this case to be solved. Like every right thinking, patriotic Indian, I too would like to get to the bottom of this scandal and clean up public life once and for all. But I wonder if we, as a nation, are psychologically prepared to contend with a time when Bofors disappears from the newspapers and TV screens. A time when Chitra Subramaniam will no longer inform us on the satellite phone from Geneva that the case is on the verge of being solved. A time when we will no longer be required to wonder whether Quattrocchi is spelt with two `t's or one `t', two `c's orone `c', and whether it should be pronounced Quattrochhee or Quattrokee.

Think about it. Can we as a nation, so perilously short of providing primary schooling for our children, afford to deprive ourselves of the free education that has come our way, courtesy the Bofors case, or that Zurich -- also in Switzerland -- has those banks (with those secret Bofors codenames) and Geneva -- also in Swtizerland -- is where Chitra Subramaniam (intrepid chronicler of the Bofors case) is located. Dubai, most children now know, is part of the UAE since Win Chadha (a Bofors beneficiary) is currently in residence there, and Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia (where Quattrocchi, another Bofors beneficiary, is sunning away his sins). And, yes, how many adults, let alone, children knew where the Channel and Canary Islands were without the tutelage provided by the aforesaid Quattrocchi (who is believed to have transferred his Bofors millions to banks there).

And it's not just geography, this Bofors mamla has donewonders to the nation's mathematical prowess. Now even a second standard child would be able to work out a simple sum like, if the Bofors contract to supply 410 155mm artillery guns worked out to Rs 1,437 crore, with kickbacks amounting to Rs 64 crore, how much did one gun cost? Or, if the kickback deal of Rs 64 crore was to be shared equally between Quattrocchi, Chadha and an unnamed NRI family, how much would the unnamed NRI family have made? Also, we got to learn about currencies and conversion rates. That SeK stands for Swedish Kroners and SF for Swiss Francs, and that hot money is usually converted into dollars.

As far as the teaching of history is concerned, again there is nothing quite like this case. It's all about how, in circa 1984 AD, when Empress Indira Gandhi occupied the throne in Delhi, a Cabinet Committee cleared the purchase of artillery guns in the FH778 B category from Bofors Sweden. How, in circa 1986, in the reign of her son, Emperor Rajiv Gandhi, the contract was signed. And how thisevent changed modern Indian history forever. It's a modern saga, of kings, queens and middlemen.

The case also introduced several important contemporary phrases into everyday conversation. If we did not have this scam to call our own, we may never have known what a ``smoking gun'' is all about, or what ``winding up charges'' and ``kickbacks'' really mean. And, yes, we may have been deprived of that classic line: ``Let the law take its course.''

But more than all these benefits, I believe Bofors provided us with better entertainment than anything Bollywood had to offer. It even starred Amitabh Bachchan. We broke our heads trying to figure who Q and R and W were in the Ardbo diaries. We sent hour trying to figure out how Quattrocchi could move his millions round the world. Then we cogitated endlessly about what the first set of Bofors papers contained and what, the second set, and who the mysterious NRIs were who kept figuring every now and then.

Think about it. Do we really want all this to end? I sayno, no and again no! As for me, my wish for this country in the new millennium is simple and direct (with apologies to the scriptwriter of Star Wars): May the Bofors Be With You!