Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai provide a thrilling account of the Nagarwala financial scam that shook Indira Gandhi’s government

A sum of Rs 60 lakh successful 1971 is equivalent to Rs 170 crore today. Was Nagarwala an attention-seeking ventriloquist troubled by the era’s geopolitics? Was helium acting astatine the behest of a higher force? Was helium a scapegoat, forced into corrupt bidding? By the CIA? The Prime Minister herself? Had she oregon idiosyncratic other parked unaccounted-for wealth astatine the bank? Was Malhotra truly gullible oregon was helium utilized to receiving instructions from the PM’s office?

The Nagarwala occurrence ballooned into a situation for the authorities (Source: Express Archive)

This was a fractious play successful the country’s polity, 1 that would pb to the Emergency successful little than 5 years. The PM’s son, Sanjay Gandhi’s fiscal — and different kinds of — rectitude was successful question. The Opposition recovered an accidental to people the government, and the enigma thickened erstwhile the main investigating officer, Devinder Kumar Kashyap, died aft a tonga crashed into his car. Nagarwala, too, passed distant successful custody, though astir accounts ascribe his demise to earthy causes. His testimonies had earlier swung from claiming to acting connected his ain volition to threatening to exposure “higher-ups”.

The play was rife for conspiracy theories. But Mrs Gandhi added to the ambiance of suspicion by dismissing the occurrence arsenic unimportant. A flawed constabulary probe did not help. Police investigations are known to endure from inefficiencies and not ever beryllium guiltless of governmental oregon different machinations. The Reddy Commission, acceptable up aft Indira Gandhi mislaid power, slammed the constabulary probe. Justice Reddy said helium recovered it hard to judge that Nagarwala acted connected a lark. But the Commission could not pinpoint blame.

Patra and Kidwai, too, bash not gully conclusions. But successful astir 250 pages, they contiguous the lawsuit successful ways that illuminate a clip erstwhile fiscal accountability was hardly a footnote successful conversations connected economics and argumentation making. The Nagarwala scandal, perhaps, recovered resonance successful Rohinton Mistry’s classical Such a Long Journey (1991) — the resemblance Major Bilimoria and Gustad Noble carnivore to Nagarwala and Malhotra are excessively galore to beryllium missed. But the occurrence required a meticulous delineation of facts, without immoderate bias — 1 that the lackadaisical strategy of the clip did not provide.

Patra and Kidwai ferret retired galore details — accounts of Nagarwala having suffered facial paralysis that would person rendered him virtually incapable of ventriloquism are punctuated by testimonies earlier probing agencies astir the ex-army officer’s penchant for mimicry successful prison. It carries descriptions of what Nagarwala did earlier the fateful incidental — the woman of the caretaker of the Parsi guesthouse, for instance, said his nonaccomplishment to admit a greeting was dissimilar the usually cheerful disposition of the Army officer. She besides noticed that Nagarwala “had got his hairsbreadth shortened and dyed.” Patra and Kidwai whitethorn person heightened the enigma astir the Nagarwala case. But they person done truthful by giving readers a much fulsome communicative than what they would person had entree to.