George's 1001 nights

George's 1001 nights
Mani Shankar Aiyar

One thousand and one nights ago -- or thereabouts -- the prime minister took the extraordinary step of naming as the nation's defence minister a man who had spent time in jail on a charge of naked terrorism. True, this was the same prime minister whose first act as minister had been to endorse a cabinetdecision to direct the allegedly independent Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) to withdraw the case it had filed against George Fernandes. And true too that a prime minister in our system has the exclusive prerogative of choosing whom he wants to man which post he will in the council of ministers. Yet that only aggravates Vajpayee's responsibility for the decision he took.

It was Raksha Mantri George Fernandes who chose, or approved the choice of, almost all the senior armed forces officers and civilians mentioned inthe Tehelka tapes for postings at headquarters. He too bears the responsibility for not changing the tainted officers appointed before his time. Moreover, he had all of three years to effect the systemic changes needed to make defence procurement more honest. Now he blames the failure of Intelligence to trap the Tehelka boys. Why did he not set Intelligence on to officers connected with defence purchases? Why did he not check whether Intelligence was tailing these officers? Why did he not probe their character credentials before appointing them to these sensitive posts? And if he did, who but him is responsible for naming so many crooks to so many positions of privilege?

As for the lady he startled his own party with by getting her named president, surely he cannot escape the responsibility for her actions. She was staying at the Raksha Mantri's residence. She ran her office out of that residence. Given that she was both personal companion to, and party president of, the Raksha Mantri, what ground rules did the Raksha Mantri lay down for arms dealers and intermediaries visiting his home? If he did not lay down any rules, why not? And if he did, how come the Tehelka boys so smoothly made their way in? And how come once their purpose was made known to Madam, she did not chuck them out -- or, better still, call Military Intelligence to arrest the two impostors?

To my mind, the least important part of the story is whether the Tehelka cameras caught her or Samata Party minister Sreenivasa Prasad pocketing the money. The key question is why she was entertaining in her home the likes of Major General Murugai, the just-retired additional director-general of weapons and equipment? Were it a social call, who could possibly object? But when he comes with a problem pertaining to the very department in which he had worked till the other day, and in which capacity he could not but have been well-acquainted with the Raksha Mantri, why did she not just take him aside and tell him to remove the two arms dealers and their resident agent from her august presence? Why instead did she go on and on, in front of two declared arms dealers (with ``bloody deep pockets'', as the no-nonsense Gen Ahluwalia would have said), about how she had to devise ways of coming up with fifty per cent of the expenses for a party convention? Was that not an invitation to cough up and/or a long-windedexculpation for grabbing what was on offer?

If the Raksha Mantri had ordered Intelligence surveillance of his own home, he would have long discovered what was going on. The nation suspects he did not need Intelligence to tell him what was going on. He has the requisite intelligence to know very well what was going on. And knowing all about these shenanigans, Fernandes did nothing, in terms of policy or practice, to curb it. That is the gravamen of the charge against the defence minister and the rotten, stinking establishment he ran for one thousand and one nights. Two bogus arms dealers, armed with nothing more than bogus visiting cards, enter the defence minister's home with a bogus compliant about a bogus arms deal and, instead of being thrown out on their ear, end their visit with a promise of ``justice'' from the companion and party president of the defenceminister! Nothing much wrong with that, one might say, but for the little matter of the nexus between that promise and a mere two lakhs to see the good lady through her party convention. It is this that retired Justice Krishnaswami should be probing.

Instead, what he will be probing is whether there is any truth to the empty boasts of those two braggarts, RSS veteran Raj Kumar Gupta and Samata Party national treasurer, R.K. Jain. Is it the integrity of these two self-confessed liars that is at issue? Or is it the integrity of those in public office who draw their sustenance from the likes of Gupta and Jain? Had Bangaru Laxman bum-rushed the two impostors round the corner from his Ashok Road office to the Parliament Street police station, R.K. Gupta's vain claims would have claimed no one's attention. And who would have wished to listen to R.K. Jain's tiresome tales if Jaya Jaitly had displayed on screen the tiniest modicum of integrity?

The fact is the Tehelka cameras have caught the system at work. It is George's system, George's party president, George's national treasurer and Vajpayee's hand-picked party chief we have seen and heard. But neither Vajpayee nor Fernandes is paying the price. One remains head of the NDA government; the other remains head of the NDA coalition. Over endless years and times out of number, we have suffered in Parliament these two Giants of Morality go down their standard list from the Mudgal case to Lal Bahadur Shastri's resignation over Ariyalur to Feroze Gandhi's denunciation of the cheats in his father-in-law's establishment, to rub in the point that Caesar's wife must be seen to be above suspicion. Now George's czarina has been seen on videotape in a million homes with her exquisite little hand caught firmly in the till.

What then are these gentlemen doing clinging like limpets to the very summit of NDA governance? For a retired judge to tell them that Jain and Gupta got the details wrong? Or that the Tehelka sting has got the essence right?

Bogus arms dealers get a promise of `justice' from the companion and party president of the defence minister! It is this that Justice Krishnaswami should be probing.