By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Mar 15 2001 (IPS)

The defence deals scandal shaking the Indian government, has brought under a cloud, the country’s recent shopping spree for arms, including an ageing Russian aircraft carrier.

The mid-March expose by an Internet news group of a network of high-ranking defence ‘fixers’, has led to questioning whether these deals were ‘clean’.

India concluded its biggest defence deal so far, worth more than three billion U.S. dollars, during Russian President Vladmir Putin’s visit to New Delhi in October 2000.

This included 300 T-90 tanks, 150 multi-role Sukhoi 30Mk1 fighters and ‘Admiral Gorshkov’, the aircraft carrier, which was due to be scrapped by the Russian navy.

The Gorshkov deal was the subject of much controversy. The former chief of the Indian Navy, Admiral Vishnu Bhagat, strongly opposed the deal.

Bhagat’s controversial December 1998 dismissal by Defence Minister George Fernandes, was believed to be linked to the naval chief’s opposition to the deal.

The former navy chief alleged serious frauds in defence purchases. His sacking triggered political events, which led to the eventual fall of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s former government, in the following year.

However, the undeclared Kargil border war with Pakistan in the summer of 1999, became a patriotic rallying point for Vajpayee’s coalition, which returned to office in elections later in the year.

However, in a curious turn of political events, defence minister Fernandes is again at the centre of a row that is threatening the Vajpayee government.

After Bhagat’s sacking, a key former ruling coalition ally toppled the government when Vajpayee refused to drop Fernandes.

This time, another key regional ally — Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress — is demanding Fernandes’ removal from the government after the defence scandal exposure by the media website Tehelka(sensation).

Using hidden cameras, Tehelka journalists, posing as defence dealers, trapped senior defence officials, military officials and a key leader of the defence minister’s party, offering to swing defence deals in return for a consideration.

One of the key persons shown in the tapes is R.K. Jain, a former official in Fernandes’ party. Jain speaks of defence deals he swung on behalf of Fernandes and Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.

According to the tapes, Jain said these deals began with a 60 million-U.S. dollar purchase of armoured recovery vehicles from Slovakia during Vajpayee’s first government, which lasted for 13 months. Another was a 900 million-dollar deal for Russian MiG fighters.

Following the Kargil conflict, India stepped up defence spending by a massive eight billion dollars.

Defence analyst Kuldip Luthra then warned that the main beneficiaries of the extra defence expenditure, would be a “politico-bureaucratic combine, international arms dealers and manufacturers in Western countries.”

Luthra accused these vested interests of having a hand in the sacking of the former naval chief, who was a strong advocate of self-reliance in arms.

“This lobby has infiltrated into the nation’s policy-making echelons including the defence research and development set-up, so that the country’s own security establishments are sabotaging the nation’s security,” he said.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, former naval chief Bhagat said this lobby now had far greater “influence in decision-making.”

According to Bhagat, the Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov is being bought for 300 million dollars more than the price, which was negotiated when he was naval chief.

“This a matter for concern especially when its purchase was never a matter of priority,” he said.

Russia was considering scrapping the Gorshkov after Norway and other Scandinavian countries protested against its being anchored at a naval dockyard in the Arctic Sea, awaiting a buyer.

Bhagat said the Tehelka exposure had only touched a fringe of the corruption in defence deals.

“Those who have shown any backbone in resisting the system have been removed from posts, denied promotions, harassed and persecuted,” he said.

The defence minister has defended the Russian defence deal, along with deals to buy 10 French Mirage aircraft and British advanced jet trainers, citing a “difficult security environment” in South Asia, following the Kargil war.

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