An insightful probe into a murky scandal

From the Harshad Mehta scam of the 90s to the Satyam Computers, the Nirav Modi/Punjab National Bank and the Vijay Mallya scams of the 2000s, con games have been a recurring phenomenon in India, more so in recent years.

Undoubtedly, one of the most sensational scams dates back to the early 70s when a retired Army Captain, Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala pulled off a heist that involved the largest bank in India, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, her secretary P N Haksar and the Mukti Bahini that was fighting for the liberation of Bangladesh.

It was on the morning of May 24, 1971, that Ved Prakash Malhotra, the chief cashier of State Bank of India’s (SBI) Parliament Street branch received a purported call from Haksar and Indira Gandhi to deliver Rs 60 lakh (a mind-boggling sum at the time) to a courier for a secret mission in East Pakistan.

“Spellbound” on hearing the purported voice of the PM and in a “zeal of patriotism”, Malhotra swung into action, taking a trunk full of 100-rupee notes in a car to do the needful. Thereafter, when Malhotra approached the Prime Minister’s Office for the receipt, he was shocked to be told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions or sent anyone. Malhotra was duped. Within a few hours, Nagarwala, a burly Parsi, responsible for the cloak-and-dagger operation, was apprehended and most of the money recovered. He got a four-year jail term in one of the fastest trials in India.

The story didn’t end there. Many questions were left unanswered as the scam snowballed into a huge controversy, engendering conspiracy theories for nearly a decade.

Some denounced it as a botched police investigation and bungling by the lower judiciary. The deaths of Nagarwala in Tihar jail and investigating police officer D K Kashyap in mysterious circumstances and the sudden transfers of officials who probed the case made it even more intriguing. Indira Gandhi’s silence on the issue only deepened suspicions about her role in the sordid saga. Five decades after the ‘mother of all scams’ took place, seasoned journalists Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai have revisited this case to bring out a gripping book which is as much an insightful investigation as it is a whodunit.

It has all the ingredients of a thriller — captivating plot and subplots, shady characters, farce, tragedy, greed, human failings, abuse of power and a build-up of suspense, all of which make it a compelling read not only for this generation but also for older folks unfamiliar with this scandal.

Meticulously trawling police records, press reports, files at the National Archives, an 800-plus-page report of the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission that investigated the matter, interviews and extensive research, the duo have given the Nagarwala scandal a new lease of life through the reconstruction of the scam.

The authors have not only, chapter-wise, delineated the facts as they occurred but have also documented the lackadaisical approach of the entire system. Commendably, they have made a conscious effort to remain politically neutral. In the end, readers are left grappling with a volley of questions whose answers are hard to find.

Whose voice was it that instructed the head cashier to deliver the money? Was Indira Gandhi’s unaccounted money kept in the bank’s strong room? Was the money meant for Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti project or was it meant to fund the Mukti Bahini? Was the star investigator Kashyap’s death an accident? Was Nagarwala’s death natural? Did he really die or was packed off to Italy and his death merely a red herring? Was it all a judicial botch-up?

Interestingly, the book, while navigating the complex case in a linear narrative, also provides a perspective of India’s political landscape of the 1970s. At least two books were published in the immediate aftermath of the Nagarwala scandal and it also inspired award-winning novelist Rohinton Mistry to create a character after Nagarwala in his novel ‘Such a Long Journey’.

This latest, an objective and richly detailed work, may well inspire filmmakers to adapt it into a movie or television series.