Commentary/T V R Shenoy

The St Kitts case is nothing less than a blueprint for an assault on every Indian citizen

Rs 640 million stolen in the Bofors case. Rs 1.33 billion stolen in the urea scam. Rs 9.5 billion stolen in the fodder scam.

Compared to these vast sums -- and I haven't even mentioned the securities scam! -- some may wonder why an overworked Central Bureau of Investigation even bothers to investigate the relatively small amounts involved in the JMM bribery case or the St Kitts forgery case.

The answer is both cases throw up issues that is far greater than the money involved. The JMM case may be easier to understand. There is a general consensus that bribing MPs strikes at the roots of representative democracy.

But St Kitts?

Unlike Bofors, or even the JMM, the St Kitts case has received only sporadic attention from the media and the public at large. I predict that there will be even less, now that the charges against P V Narasimha Rao have been struck down.

This collective lack of attention is dangerous. Because the St Kitts case is nothing less than a blueprint for an assault on every Indian citizen. It was a naked abuse of State power to crush an innocent individual. That, not the presence or absence of a former prime minister in the dock, is what should concern us all.

Consider the facts. It was the State machinery that was abused in the desperate hunt to find a true copy of V P Singh's son's signature. It was the State machinery, in the form of the Enforcement Directorate, that then went after Ajeya Singh. It was the State machinery that authenticated forged documents (which claimed that Ajeya Singh was guilty of violating FERA regulations).

Yes, there is every reason to believe that Chandra Swami, the all-powerful 'godman' of the Narasimha Rao era, was involved in the forgery from beginning to end. And the court has, in fact, ruled that there is enough prima facie evidence to frame charges against him and his secretary, Kailashnath Agarwal aka Mamaji.

But it isn't a question of nailing a Mamaji today or a Chacha tomorrow. Because Chandra Swami and his disciple, whatever else they claimed, did not embody the majesty of the State. Chandra Swami may have dreamt up the crooked plan, but the hands that carried out the project worked for the State.

Throughout the sad story of the St Kitts forgery the bureaucracy at large seems to have played along with Rajiv Gandhi's desire to hit out at V P Singh. At no point whatsoever did any civil servant point out the blatant illegality of what they were doing.

So the external affairs ministry dug out Ajeya Singh's signature from a passport application form in distant London, and then authenticated a forgery in the New York consulate-general. The ED swallowed the forgery wholesale, and sent sleuths charging across the globe. And every section of the bureaucracy gave selective leaks to the media.

All this was done in the utter confidence that nobody would be blamed. After all, if the prime minister was saying so then it had to be legal.

This, is essence, was the remarkable defence offered by R K Anand, Narasimha Rao's able lawyer. Anand argued that Rao, then the external affairs minister, had done nothing but act as Rajiv Gandhi commanded. This seems to have been accepted by the special judge.

Justice Ajit Bharihoke said there was reason to believe that Narasimha Rao initially refused to ask the Indian consul-general in New York to authenticate the forgery. Rao did, however, play along after getting a message from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Had Rao been a party to the conspiracy," the special judge ruled, "there was no reason for him to refuse to assist Chandra Swami for the attestation work." (I am afraid Justice Bharihoke didn't give enough credit to Rao's intelligence and sense of self-preservation here!)

In any case, it is immaterial whether Rao knew what was going on from the very beginning, or whether he entered the game at a later stage. The point is that he willingly collaborated in framing an innocent man, as did all the others.

Rao and the rest may or may not be guilty of cooking up the conspiracy. But they are definitely guilty of helping carry it through.

Yesterday, it was Ajeya Singh. Tomorrow, it could be any of us who happen to anger a powerful man. (Or, as in Ajeya Singh's case, it could even be an accident of relationship that puts us in the path of the State machinery.) Does that mean we too shall be hounded by the various agencies at the disposal of the State?

Ajeya Singh escaped the trap because a vigilant media exposed the chinks in the hastily cooked-up charges against him. What guarantee is there that the rest of us, those who lack famous parents anyway, will be equally unscathed?

The assault on Martin Massey (the Delhi-based executive beaten by the cops for accidentally straying on the prime minister's route) has been justly condemned. The St Kitts forgery was an equally great assault by the forces of the State on a harmless individual.

Massey and Ajeya Singh survived. The rest of us may not be so lucky. It is time we started paying more attention to the issues involved in the St Kitts case.

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