B is for Bofors, Q is for farce

Why should we pay for the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) to travel to distant lands in search of Quattrocchi when we know that if they caught him by mistake they would probably let him go? What was the point of sending a CBI team to Argentina when their efforts at nailing Quattrocchi were so pathetic that the Argentine court ordered the CBI to pay his legal bills for the harassment caused to this honest, upright man who has never explained why he ran away from India like a thief in the night the day it was revealed that Bofors bribes had been traced to his Swiss account?

If there was any chance of Quattrocchi being brought back and tried, it was when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister and mysteriously nothing happened. The Bharatiya Janata Party appears to have done its best to protect him, so can they stop making a noise now that there is no chance of his being brought back? Why should anything happen now when Quattrocchi’s ex-best friend, Sonia Gandhi, is the most powerful political figure in this government.

It’s time to forget Quattrocchi but we must never forget Bofors. It was the first time that corruption at the highest levels of the Indian government came to light and so Bofors must be remembered as an important milestone in the decline of Indian public standards.

Since then corruption in high places has reached such heights that it’s almost funny to think we got so upset over a paltry Rs 64 crore going missing.

Is there anything we can do to halt the decline? Yes. If we can make the justice system function as it should the decline will grind to an instant halt. When people in high places realise that they can go to jail for their misdemeanours, they start to behave. But, how can we expect important political figures to be brought to justice when anyone with enough money can manipulate the course of the law?

... contd.