Getting to the bottom of the Bofors scandal and more

Bengaluru: When the Bofors scandal came to light, the then prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, came across as a corrupt politician, much in contrast to how he portrayed himself, said Chitra Subramaniam, author of Bofors Gate: A Journalist’s Pursuit of Truth.

“Rajiv Gandhi’s denial of his or his family’s involvement in the Bofors scandal was an odd thing to say for a prime minister because there were no allegations. This triggered me to investigate the case further,” she said. 

Chitra is a journalist recognised for her work in the investigation of the Bofors-India howitzer deal, which ultimately led to the electoral defeat of Rajiv Gandhi. Chitra was in conversation with the journalist Vasanthi Hariprakash in the city on Saturday. “The documents were leaked to me in a period of about 10 years in the 1970s and 80s, when I was in Geneva,” she said. 

Chitra worked as a United Nations (UN) correspondent in Geneva when the Swedish State Radio reported that bribes had been paid to Indians for the sale of howitzers, by the Swedish arms manufacturer, Bofors. 

Sharing her personal experience of uncovering the reported bribery, she said, “It is not as though I knew everything about guns and everything. I was learning on the job. As much as I was learning on the job, I was writing these stories, I found that it was very difficult.” 

Chitra said that a decade after the scandal broke in 1987, Switzerland sent a box of “secret bank documents” to India along with bank account numbers, bank transfers, and names of people, to help identify the money trail.

However, she said that no Indian government has opened these documents yet, while adding that “money always goes from bureaucrat to bureaucrat.”