Stain showing on the white kurta

Two questions - that the PM's intervention made the Rafale costlier, and that an Ambani benefited - will not vanish easily

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan came to politics around 1996 or so, when he founded his party and contested two seats. He lost both but announced he was in this for the long run (his is a remarkable story quite similar to Robert the Bruce — who tried and tried again till he succeeded). 

When Imran declared his ambition, saying he was a clean and new face who would transform the nation, there were some scandalous stories about him that began to do the rounds. To retaliate, Imran and his team hurled some stuff back at his rivals. The newspaper editor M J Akbar, who is today one of our two deputy foreign ministers, then observed about mudslinging that stains don’t show on a brown kurta. They show on white ones. Scandal does not usually affect those who have often been accused before; it tends to damage those who have portrayed themselves as pristine.

Onto this Rafale business, then. There were a few claims made and implied by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, when he positioned himself as the leader who would transform India. This would be done through some new stuff (‘Gujarat Model’) and some old-fashioned work ethic (‘good governance’). What would it all produce in the end? This was left slightly open — there were some assurances of unprecedented economic growth, plentiful jobs and so on — but there was one specific promise. Corruption in high places, apparently rampant under all previous prime ministers, would end in India.

Illustration: Ajay Mohanty

This was a clear and unambiguous statement because it was meant and it was felt and it was accepted. I have known the Prime Minister for many years and I have no doubt that he is not the type that deliberately sets out to make money for himself or his friends. He has phrased it along the lines that the things he tries out might not work wholly but the nation should be assured that he always means well. This is an anodyne if not banal sentiment but it is accepted as true. If one surveys the entire period of his leadership, the moment when he felt truly stung was during the accusation that his was a “suit-boot ki sarkar”. His brand is honesty. 

This is why he has found the Rafale accusations to be so damaging.

You can tell that something is hurting when the stops are pulled out, as they have been for this. The defence of the government’s actions comes across as clumsy and panicky. It is also a wrong strategy to be fully on the offensive on this on the assumption that it will go away when it is obvious that this is going to be one of the key themes of 2019.

Amid the vulgarity, the first real measure was to trot out the military staff to say the Rafale is a good plane that is required to secure national interests. That is neither here nor there. The Bofors howitzer was a very good gun (Swedish field artillery has been first rate for four centuries, making that small nation a continental power once). That does not excuse the fact that the public money spent purchasing it lined someone’s pocket.

This is the problem here as well. The Rafale may well be the greatest weapon of history, but no matter what is explained or revealed from here on, two facts will not change. First, that because of the Prime Minister’s personal intervention, the Rafale deal was altered to make the planes more expensive for India. Second, that the French leader who made that pact claims an Ambani was introduced to the deal at India’s behest. 

These two lines are devastating because they are easy to understand, unlike all the other stuff about offsets and avionics and such things.

There is an additional element here. The French side has not denied or thrown out former president François Hollande’s accusation. They have tip-toed their way around it, for whatever reason. The current leader, Emmanuel Macron, says only he was not in charge when this happened, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of our Prime Minister’s actions. Nor has Mr Hollande himself disowned what he said and it has now been a few days. Unfortunately (for the Prime Minister), this is not a story that is going away. It will need, at some point in the next few weeks and months, to be addressed in a way that will make the government defensive and that is not where it prefers to be. Even when in power, it is most comfortable on the attack. This is not going to work in the Rafale business.

It was a little disappointing, given how clever and innovative the dirty tricks departments of political parties can be (the mind goes to the St Kitts forgery), that the government is pinning its hopes on the idea of an international conspiracy to defame the Prime Minister and India. Among several other things, it will not be easy for Indians to understand how the “clown prince” of the Congress — as the finance minister has cleverly named him —  has suddenly become a brilliant executor of an international conspiracy.

The defence will need to be simpler to be more effective. It will need to be something that specifically erodes people’s confidence in those two crystal clear statements above: That Mr Modi insisted on a deal that made the Rafale more expensive, and that from this deal an Ambani benefited. 

Anything that doesn’t do this will not be able to change the narrative. The BJP — with friend Sambit Patra in the lead — has tried the incredible ploy of making this about Robert Vadra. That again will not have legs as a strategy. For it is slinging mud on an already brown kurta. It is the white one on which the stain is showing.