Riled by Prez Bofors ‘bomb’, India blasts Swedish daily

Girja Shankar Kaura

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 27

The controversy over President Pranab Mukherjee’s comments on the Bofors scam in an interview to a Swedish daily is spilling over with India today lodging a strong protest with the newspaper.

The President had reportedly said the Bofors scam was a media trial that had not been proven in any Indian court.

While Mukherjee’s visit to Sweden from Sunday is still on, India has written to Daygens Nyheter daily and objected to the manner in which the interview was presented by the newspaper.

Indian Ambassador to Sweden Banashri Bose Harrison, in a letter to Editor-In-Chief Peter Wolodarski, has said: “It was both unprofessional and unethical on your part to include in the report an off-the-record correction by the President after the interview had ended, about a slip of the tongue during the interview.”

She also said the President was not shown the “courtesy and respect” that he deserved as a head of state.

The newspaper, on the other hand, today claimed the envoy had asked it “to retract sections of the interview mentioning Bofors” before the article was published.

In a report, the paper said: “She also warned that the planned state visit was at risk of being cancelled.”

Ahead of his three-day visit, the President was interviewed in Delhi during which he said the Bofors deal, which saw India buying artillery guns from the Swiss defence manufacturer, should not be referred to as a scandal.

“No Indian court has given a verdict on it, the process of trial is going on, and unless some authoritative institutions describe it as a scandal and punish it, how could you say that it is a scandal?” he said in the interview.

“I was the Defence Minister of the country long after Bofors, and all my Generals certified that this is one of the best guns we are having. Till today, Indian Army is using it. The so-called scandal, yes, in the media, it was there. There was a media trial. But I’m afraid, let us not be too much carried away by publicity,” he said.

In 2004, the Delhi High Court said there was no evidence to suggest the involvement of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who had been assassinated in 1991.

In her letter, the Indian envoy said she had been asked to convey "disappointment of our authorities in Delhi" regarding the manner in which the interview was presented.

She termed it “unprofessional and unethical” to include an “off-the-record correction” made by the President after the interview had ended.

“I am told at that point you sympathised with him and said it can happen to anyone. After that, to include the same in your report in a most condescending manner as you have done does not befit the high standards normally expected from a leading newspaper or a professional journalist,” she said.

The President’s Office also reacted to the misrepresentation of facts in the interview and said instead of highlighting the importance of the visit, the interview chose to divert the attention to other issues. “Unethical to include an off-the-record correction about a slip of the tongue," a statement from the President's Office said.

Daygens Nyheter Editor, however, said: “It is surprising that someone representing the world's largest democracy is trying to micromanage which questions we should ask a head of state, and which answers should be published. We have conducted the interview in the same manner as we do whenever we interview other heads of state and government.”