Bofors scandal

Haubits FH77 howitzer, of the type around which the Bofors scandal centered.

The Bofors scandal was a major weapons-contract political scandal that occurred between India and Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s, initiated by Indian National Congress politicians and implicating the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and several other members of the Indian and Swedish governments. These politicians were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB, an arms manufacturer principally financed by the Wallenberg family's Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken,[1] for winning a bid to supply to India the company's 155 mm field howitzer[2] – the sale of 410 field howitzers, and a supply contract for almost twice that amount, totalling a US$1.4 billion deal. It was the biggest arms deal ever in Sweden, and money marked for development projects was diverted to secure this contract at any cost. The investigations revealed flouting of rules and bypassing of institutions.[3]

On 16 April 1987, a Swedish radio station broke a story, sourced from a whistleblower in the Swedish police, alleging that the reputed Swedish artillery manufacturer Bofors had paid kickbacks to people in several countries, including Sweden and India, to secure a ₹15 billion (equivalent to ₹200 billion or US$2.4 billion in 2023) contract. This had been done the previous year for a deal to supply 410 155 mm calibre howitzers for the Indian army.[4] However, none of the newspapers in India were aware of this. In May 1987, a broadcast by a Swedish radio station revealed that bribes of ₹600 million (equivalent to ₹8.2 billion or US$98 million in 2023) had been paid by Bofors to Indian politicians, members of the Congress party and bureaucrats. This was picked up by a young journalist from The Hindu, Chitra Subramaniam, who happened to be in Sweden at that time, covering another story. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that Sweden and India had seen before[dubious – discuss] and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.[5] The Swedish company paid ₹640 million (US$7.7 million) in kickbacks to top Indian politicians and key defence officials.[6]

The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism tipped off by a Reuters news revelation on Swedish radio, followed up by a team led by N. Ram of the newspaper The Hindu.[7] Subramaniam, reporting for The Hindu, secured the over 350 documents that detailed the payoffs. Later the articles were published in The Indian Express and The Statesman when The Hindu stopped publishing stories about the Bofors scandal under immense government pressure and Subramaniam moved to the two newspapers. In an interview with her, published in The Hoot in April 2012 on the 25th anniversary of the revelations,[8] Sten Lindström, former chief of Swedish police, discussed why he had leaked the documents to her and the role of whistle-blowers in a democracy.[2]

  1. ^ Whiteside, R.M.; Wilson, A.; Blackburn, S.; Hörnig, S. E. (2012). Major Companies of Europe 1990/91 Volume 3: Major Companies of Western Europe outside the European Economic Community. Springer. p. 185. ISBN 9789400908017.
  2. ^ a b "What the Bofors scandal is all about". IBN Live. Archived from the original on 28 August 2012.
  3. ^ "The Bofors story, 25 years after: Interview with Sten Lindstrom". The Hoot. 24 April 2012. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  4. ^ Joseph, Josy. "Arms and the Middlemen". India Legal. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  5. ^ Joseph, Josy (3 May 2016). "Arms and the middleman". The Hindu. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  6. ^ "Key players in Bofors scandal". India Today. 28 April 2009. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
  7. ^ "Rediff on the NeT: Vir Sanghvi looks back at the Bofors scandal". Rediff.com. 23 September 1999.
  8. ^ "The Bofors story, 25 years after". The Hoot. 16 April 1987. Archived from the original on 4 March 2014.