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"There Was A Sundarji-Arun Singh Nexus"

Outlook News Desk

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FORMER chief of army staff Gen. K. Sundarji has pointed an accusing fin-ger at Rajiv Gandhi and his PMO in the Bofors deal. But some of Sundarji's former colleagues are also wondering whether a few fingers shouldn't be pointing his way. "Sundarji," says Lt Gen. (retd) Prem Nath Hoon, "must have some explanations for his shifting decisions. He was first for the French Sofma (gun). He switched to Bofors, defending the decision. But swung again, wanting it scrapped after the contract was signed. Why? Was it pressure or money? Or both?" Referring to Sundarji's now famous quote of Arun Singh's statement that the cover-up was done "to save one man's skin", Hoon says: "There was much more of a nexus between Sundarji and Singh. He (Sundarji) was helping the minister, and they were furthering mutual ambitions. Take Operation Brasstacks, which I ran as commander-in-chief of the Western Command. Singh and Sund-arji were conferring for months. Rajiv Gandhi was kept in the dark by the two, who nearly took the country to war with Pakistan. He (Rajiv) was furious when he was finally told." He adds that former President Giani Zail Singh's unpublished memoirs would throw some light on the ambitions of the Army led by Sundarji.

Both the minister and the ex-army chief had a more dubious role in Bofors than they will admit, says Hoon. "Bofors pulled down a government and continues to haunt India. So why can't Sundarji, who made the controversial decision, answer why he did it?" asks Hoon, who was director-general (military operations) at the time.

Meanwhile, the Scandinavian gun saga has also put under a cloud the Indian Army's superior weapons evaluation standards—standards better known outside the country than within. "The Indian Army's evaluation standards have been so good and well-respected the world over that we have been approached just to evaluate weapons, though we may not necessarily be interested in buying them," says retired brigadier S.C. Sharma.

This is why, say army officers, after a stringent and lengthy evaluation process that goes into the selection of a weapons system, the mess is outrageous. Here is how a process that could take over three years is carried out.

  •  When a selection has to be made the Military Operations Directorate makes a qualitative requirement (QR) of the proposed weapons system or equipment. The QR takes into account national needs and military objectives like threat perceptions, the kind of weapons being inducted by neighbouring countries and performance under diverse operational conditions. Also taken into consideration is performance in different terrains. Spares for the weapons system, the requisite training, etc. would also be taken into account.
  •  The next step is the identification of the weapons system.
  •  At the third stage comes the trial of the weapons system in different terrains and under diverse conditions. Then follows the evaluation of the trial and the trial report.
  •  In case two or three systems meet the Army's requirements, the final decision is left to the Government. Suggestions from the chief to army staff are appended to help the Government make a decision.
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  • If the Government's choice is not acceptable, the chief of army staff may reject it on grounds that it does not meet security or operational requirements.

    In the "Bofors case", says Hoon, Sundarji himself, as deputy chief of army staff, had approved the French gun Sofma. "But once the evaluation process was over and the French gun was selected, Sundarji backed out and asked for a re-evaluation." Here he questions Sundarji's role: "Much after Bofors was selected and the contract signed, Sundarji said the gun deal should be scrapped. His reason was that he had learnt about bribes in the deal. In the first place, Sundarji, who should have resigned if he was not for Bofors, even told the Joint Parliamentary Committee that his decision for choosing the gun was its 'shoot-and-scoot' capability." Sundarji's reasoning that the decision to re-evaluate was made after reports in 1985 that Pakistan had acquired "gun locating radars" from the US, which could detect the position of the firing gun and destroy it, have since been shot down.

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