Pub by: Juggernaut Books
When I picked up this book, I expected to read a heavy, intense document. I was prepared to pore over it and try to fathom the intricacies of the famous Bofors Gate, bracing myself for a herculean effort to decipher the figures and formulas involved.
But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Chitra Subramaniam has written a very engaging, not-dull account of the investigation which consumed her life wholly, threatening to blow it all apart. She does not gloss over the complexities of the documents she unearthed, nor does she downplay the enormity of the stakes. In fact, she lays bare the case’s intricacies, reflecting her dogged determination and the fears and risks she took to expose one of the biggest corruption scandals to afflict the Indian political scene in a very readable and absorbing manner.
The book begins with an introduction which gives a glimpse of the technicalities to follow. Then comes the first chapter, a refreshing, light-toned beginning before the seriousness sets in.
The Bofors saga unfolded in April 1987, when Swedish state radio broke the news that “Bofors won Sweden’s biggest arms export order by paying bribes to senior Indian politicians and key defence figures through secret Swiss bank accounts.” Chitra was holidaying in Italy then, and as she says, “our last vacation before Bofors entered our lives and vocabulary, and took over my life completely.”
The Government of India denied that any commission or bribes were paid by Bofors. But Chitra Subramaniam went on to prove the Government of India wrong, exposing document after document refuting their claims. With intense grit and frenzied dedication to unearth the truth, she established that Bofors had paid millions of dollars to secure the arms export order.
What seems overwhelming is that, in an age without internet, emails, or cell phones, she followed every trail, visiting offices and travelling across countries to understand, decipher, and bring to light all the secrets hidden between those pages. The only means of communication at that time was the rotary dial telephone, which rang at odd hours in her home, to which she was glued for hours in her zeal to reveal the truth.
“How far is too far when a mother works around a baby and who decides what that is supposed to mean?”
In her crazy pursuit of the facts, her guilt as a mother is sprawled across each page. Each day, each step forward was a conflict between her maternal instinct and her passion for uncovering the truth. Her turmoil of being torn between the two, and her guilt at choosing the fight to lay bare the secrets, is what haunted her day and night.
“Bofors was not just about the money and corruption in high places. The real issue was not about money. The real issue was one of faith and the betrayal of faith by a system, a government and a PM.”
The book unravels many unexplained plots of the massive cover-up initiated by the Government of India. Amitabh Bachchan being framed. Arun Singh’s resignation. Arun Nehru’s role. Hindujas, Win Chadha, Quattrochi. Her fallout with N Ram.
The book reveals ‘Sting’, the major whistle blower, who provided all documents to Chitra Subramaniam, as Sten Lindstorm, the Swedish head of police, who proved to be her major ally in exposing the huge cover-up and the massive trail of bribes across different countries.
The triumphant result of her dogged persistence was that the boxes of secret bank documents were handed over to the CBI in 1997, ten years after the story broke in 1987. And to date, the boxes lie unopened. Secrets lie in the boxes, buried under political compulsions and ambition. As she rightly says, “The unopened boxes with the CBI contain the self-respect of India.”
Bofors Gate by Chitra Subramaniam is an outstanding testimony to the pursuit of truth and also to the highest standards of journalism.
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