While the Bofors controversy was raging in the country, I asked Dinesh Singh, then a Cabinet minister, why Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of the day, had declared that he would have no agents in defence deals. His answer was significant. He said: “Bhai, inexperienced hai” (Well, he is inexperienced).
The evil of this foolish policy is still with us today, as we are reminded by the breathless coverage of the AugustaWestland helicopter deal. It is well recognised the world over that arms deals need agents not only to calibrate deals for potential sellers but also to prepare the ground for buyers. Defence deals are traditionally high-risk and high-profit enterprises and any agent has to have the wherewithal and savvy to swing a deal.
Paying money under the table to close a deal is another matter altogether and is a subject of legitimate investigation and, if guilt is proved, punishment. The tragedy is that the mantra of “no agent” prevailing in the country places legitimate agents at a great disadvantage, with wheeler-dealers and cloak-and-dagger specialists taking over the field.
Today’s prevailing political atmosphere, of course, does not help. Judging by the Bofors precedent and the long list of scams that have figured in recent times, the UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes immediate fright and vows blue murder towards one and all, particularly before the Budget Session of Parliament. There is no cool assessment of the pros and cons of the deal. Once the chief of the Italian firm Finmeccanica was arrested in Italy, allegedly for paying bribes to swing the deal, New Delhi went hyperactive.
Normally, it takes years to make a major defence deal, given the essential process of matching specifications, field trials and price negotiations with built-in transfer of technology clauses and stipulated domestic investments. Our defence services are only too well aware of how dilatory the process is with our genius for making the simplest things most complicated in depriving them of essential equipment in each of the three armed services.
And whiff of a corruption scandal makes the government press the panic button. What is worse, reputations are sacrificed without proof. In the present instance, the basis of a preliminary report in Italy filed by the prosecution on the arrest of the firm’s chief is widely disseminated in the Indian media to besmirch the reputation of the former Indian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi.
It is thanks to this panic reaction that the government decided to send a team of Central Bureau of Investigation and defence ministry officials to Italy to ferret out more details. First, the government perpetuates the myth of “no agent” and, faced with harsh reality, compounds its problem by manning the political barricades with an eye on deflecting the Opposition, rather than considering the deal soberly. And the main Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, at once jumps on the deal for political profit without any thought to the harm it might cause the country in a matter primarily of transporting VIPs but with far larger defence implications.
To his credit, the one-time defence minister, Jaswant Singh, in the National Democratic Alliance, has tried to steady the ship in pleading for the luckless Air Chief Marshal Tyagi, but to no avail. His word apparently does not count in his part’s power corridors and the BJP is simply too busy scoring political points in a political atmosphere in which the Opposition shoots from the hip. The excesses of the media, particularly of the electronic variety, in its race for TRP ratings are understandable up to a point, but for political parties to sacrifice sagacity at the altar of worsting the opponent to the disregard of national interest is
lamentable.
Corruption is, of course, a live political issue against the background of the Anna Hazare movement, now split and somewhat in doldrums. The attitude of the famous aam aadmi, the common man, is that we live in a country of thieves and corrupt people, particularly if they are in politics. And with political energies of all political parties devoted to the scheduled 2014 general election, all is kosher in the game of politics. It is time at least some of the political leaders cutting across party lines got together to frame a code of conduct on defence deals to prevent partisan warfare from harming the national interest. Must we always sacrifice long-term goals for petty short-term advantage?
Bofors helped the Opposition defeat the Congress in the Rajiv Gandhi era. The BJP is, of course, hoping and praying that the VIP helicopters will serve a similar purpose this time around. The question to ask is whether Indian politics is now given over to short-term titillating scandals to the detriment of the national cause of good governance and good legislation. The Congress Party today is a pale shadow of its past, but so is the BJP from the days of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Imagine a BJP leader comparing the Congress Party chief to Goddess Durga as Mr Vajpayee did in the case of Indira Gandhi.
Perhaps there is still time for cooler heads in the political space to get together to frame new rules of the game as far as defence matters are concerned. Let us relegate the myth of “no agents” to the scrap heap of history. Legal agents are there to facilitate deals and receive their legitimate commissions, not to reward sundry hangers-on and greedy officials. It is hard-earned money for honest work.
If we continue along the beaten path, we would serve the country ill. It is simply not right to play with defence. If history is any guide, short-term advantage at the country’s cost is no real gain. Let us have signboards in the malls of Gurgaon proclaiming that particular companies are by appointment agents to the defence ministry of the Government of India. To paint this scenario is to highlight the distance we have to travel.

The writer can be contacted at snihalsingh@gmail.com