Bofors is yesterday’s news. Ms Sonia Gandhi will be well advised not to spend her life staring into the rear-view mirror

A week is a long time in politics. Seventeen years, by the same reckoning, marks an era. Indeed, in the light of contemporary politics, the years that Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm of affairs seem like an era in the distant past. So the announcement from the court that he has been exonerated in the Bofors case does not create much of a stir anywhere. The Bofors scandal does not even cause a flutter today, and the amount involved in it is small beer compared to scams of more recent vintage. The long legal process and the labyrinthine nature of the case itself have taken away from the excitement that was originally present in the very name Bofors. It is difficult to imagine now the enormous turmoil that led to the unseating of Rajiv Gandhi because his name was associated with the scandal surrounding the Bofors gun. It did seem then that political power flows from the barrel of a gun, although not in the sense that Mao Zedong originally meant that comment. The Delhi high court noted the fact that Rajiv Gandhi had been tried by the media and pronounced guilty even before the court had actually begun to hear the case. Every newspaper and magazine carried stories on Bofors, even though very few understood the nature of the case. Very few of the stories — if any — were in favour of Rajiv Gandhi. His involvement in the kickbacks was kind of taken for granted. His exoneration can hardly serve to remove the stain on his integrity, which he bore to the grave. The court judgment can only bring some relief and satisfaction for his wife and children.

The lack of interest regarding Rajiv Gandhi and his lack of involvement in the Bofors money only underline the wellknown fact that yesterday’s news does not even raise an eyebrow. Bofors has been overtaken by new concerns and debates: liberalization, religious fundamentalism, Indo-Pak relations, new equations with the United States of America and so on. These, and not the Bofors gun, will determine the future of India. Even from the narrow point of view of India’s security and defence, the Bofors gun is passé. The fickle nature of public memory might appear too cynical to some people but that is part of the reality of political life. Scandals, like a fashion model’s glamour, are by nature fleeting in character.

Without gainsaying the pain that Ms Sonia Gandhi suffered because of the allegations against her husband and by his brutal death, she will be well advised not to spend her life staring into the rear-view mirror. The past might serve to mould her inner persona, but her political personality must look forward. Her vision of India must be grounded in present concerns and not on past grief. India is poised on the brink of momentous changes and is now preparing to take on the world in economic terms; the pull of the past is irrelevant to the transformation India is now experiencing. To an entire generation, Rajiv Gandhi and Bofors are no more than two names, if that. As the leader of the Congress and as the prime-minister-in-waiting, Ms Gandhi must look beyond her own grief and relief to present and future concerns. That will be her best tribute to her husband — a man who dreamt of a new India.