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THE NATION: PMO
Mishra Bypasses Indian Missions
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AFFLUENCE'S INFLUENCE:
From Rajiv to Rao, the Hindujas toasted them all
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What the past week's
leaked letters have done, on the other hand, is to confirm the perception
that Mishra, who travelled abroad as the prime minister's emissary in
the immediate aftermath of Pokhran II, completely bypassed the bona fide
Indian representatives. Salman Haider, then high commissioner in London,
was not the intermediary with 10 Downing Street. The Indian ambassador
in Paris did not seem to know about the meeting with Chirac.
In Delhi, the BJP was embarrassed into reticence.
The Congress, so far on the receiving end on the Hinduja front-the brothers
have been linked to the Bofors kickbacks mystery-attacked the prime minister,
Mishra's master. "You don't shoot the messenger," said party
spokesman S. Jaipal Reddy, "you shoot the one who had sent the message."
Even Jyoti Basu joined the chorus.
The Ministry of External Affairs, however, rushed
to Mishra's rescue. It referred to India's isolation in May-June 1998
and saw nothing wrong in "informal" methods of breaking the
ice with Whitehall, citing "national interest".
This logic, others have argued, is a double-edged
one. It implies either that Mishra and the PMO did not trust the regular
ifs or the Indian representatives in London and Paris were ciphers. The
bravado of a "big bomb" does not quite square up with the willingness
to turn up at Blair's door only a month later, wearing sackcloth and ashes.
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EPISTLE ERUPTION: G.P. Hinduja's controversial letter to Blair's
office seeking a Mishra-G-8 meeting
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Seen along with the PMO's deployment of R.K.
Mishra, Reliance Industries executive, as a "back-channel envoy"
to Pakistan, the entire episode also raises questions about corporate
influences on India's foreign policy. Conflicts of interests are inherent.
Whether the Hindujas were batting solely for India is, after all, open
to question.
As their copious exchanges with Downing Street
make clear, the Hindujas facilitated British-Iranian ties as well. On
September 26, 2000, Powell writes to G.P. Hinduja informing him that "the
foreign secretary met with his Iranian counterpart, Dr Kharrazi"
and welcoming "your efforts to encourage the Iranians to improve
conditions for inward investors". As The Independent (London) noted
in its report on Tyrie's conference, "The brothers made their fortune
originally from brokering deals between India and Iran and they have an
office in Teheran."
Eyebrows are likely to be raised further by
a letter dated July 26, 1999, and signed "Yours ever, Tony".
In a pithy page, Blair tells "Dear GP" of his meeting with Nawaz
Sharif, then Pakistan's prime minister, is "delighted" that
the Kargil war is ending and expresses the "hope that India and Pakistan
will resume their dialogue over all bilateral issues, including Kashmir".
The final line is open to interpretation: "I hope that you will convey
a similar message to your interlocutors in both countries." Were
the brothers talking to both Delhi and Islamabad?
Tyrie's latest salvo is part of Britain's "passport
scandal". It erupted in the winter of 2000 when it was reported that
the Hindujas-"friends to the Labour glitterati and well-known government
glad-handers", as The Guardian then described them-had got British
passports in an irregular manner. Tony and Cherie Blairs' presence at
their Diwali party, the Hindujas' contribution of £1 million to
the Faith Zone of the Millennium Dome-London's white elephant that was
Blair's passion-and their proximity to two ministers, Peter Mandelson
and Keith Vaz, were the stuff of gossip. Eventually Mandelson had to resign
when it was found he had lied about a letter recommending the Hindujas'
citizenship request.
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HINDUJA GEOPOLITICS
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1 S.P. Hinduja's letter to Blair's
office on June 4, 1998, speaks of India signing CTBT.
2 On June 9, 1998, G.P. Hinduja
writes to Blair's office seeking a Mishra-G-8 meeting.
3 During the Kargil war, on July 26, 1999, Blair writes about
Nawaz Sharif to G.P. Hinduja.
4 In the same letter, Blair asks
G.P. Hinduja to address "interlocutors" in India, Pakistan.
5 On October 5, 1998, Blair writes
to S.P. Hinduja telling him India must sign CTBT.
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Following that an inquiry was instituted into,
to quote Tyrie, "not merely whether a passport application was handled
properly" but "whether the (British) Government should have
been so closely involved with the Hindujas". Were the passports given
in lieu of favours? Tyrie asks why Blair "deepened his personal relations
... with the Hindujas when he knew that from January 1998 they were under
investigation ... This was the date on which the Indian government issued
letters rogatory to enable them to look at British bank accounts"
that the Hindujas "might have used to deposit corrupt payments"
in the Bofors swindle.
Old memories are being jogged in distant Delhi
as well. Was the quid pro quo for arranging the meeting in Downing Street
a delay on Bofors? The Hindujas-whose clout with every party and almost
every recent prime minister, including Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha
Rao, is legendary-were named in the cbi chargesheet on Bofors only on
October 8, 2000 and came to India to appear before a court as late as
January this year. The Government protests its innocence, pointing out
that it did file charges against the brothers, something no predecessor
had done in the 14-year Bofors saga.
Yet on October 30, 2000, the very month of the
chargesheet, "the Indian Government invited" the Hinduja representative
in Paris to a private lunch of the Indo-French Forum, presided over by
Ramakrishna Hegde. The Hinduja man was the only non-official at the lunch.
An Oxbridge man with a keen economics mind,
Tyrie is going full throttle with the Blair witch-hunt project. In March
this year, he made public details of how political advisers-as opposed
to career bureaucrats-had accompanied Blair's ministers on 587 overseas
trips since 1997, at a cost of £767,000 to the taxpayer. Combining
intellect with pertinacity, he is something of a Subramanian Swamy in
British politics. As the June 7 election approaches, Tyrie has hinted
that he has more up his sleeve. Three brothers kept back in India by a
Delhi court will be biting their nails. So will a solitary principal secretary
who lives only a few kilometres away. It's a passport to a hot summer.
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