India’s leading probe agency has a ‘blue-eyed’ problem
The unprecedented war at the top of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) — leading to raids on Monday by the CBI on its own officers and the arrest of one of them on bribery charges — parallels the attempt to debilitate a national law enforcement body in the USA last year. US President Donald Trump fired the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director, James Comey, for pursuing an inquiry into Russian meddling in the November 2016 US presidential election. Trump had, according to Comey’s testimony to the US Senate and his book sought Comey’s loyalty to the president personally, and wanted Comey to go easy on the Russia investigation. While Comey wasn’t the most popular man in FBI or with the opposition Democratic Party, which blamed him for Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss, his dismissal ensured that the fiercely independent FBI will not be doing Trump any favours. Though things have quieted down since, Trump is nervous about the Russia investigation under special counsel James Muller, a former FBI director.
In India, the war between director Alok Verma, a 1979 police service officer who retires in January 2019, and special director Rakesh Asthana, a 1984 police service officer, is a Trump-like assault on the CBI by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When Asthana was to join the CBI a year ago, Verma objected due to corruption concerns. Verma may have been unsettled that in August 2016, Modi rejected Verma’s selection of officers to be deputed to the CBI in favour of Asthana, who Congress president Rahul Gandhi has called Modi’s “blue-eyed boy”.
Asthana is an officer more loyal than the king. He was part of the Special Investigation Team that looked into the burning of a railway compartment in Godhra, Gujarat, in January 2002, in which 59 pilgrims on their way to Ayodhya died. (In reaction, Hindus went on a three-day rampage in Gujarat, killing around 1,000 Muslims. Former Army vice-chief of staff Lt Gen (retd) Zameer Uddin Shah revealed that he landed 3,000 troops in Ahmedabad to quell the riots, but then-chief minister Modi did not transport the troops for 24 hours, during which time 300 people could have been saved.)
Asthana has also been the police chief of Surat and Vadodara, Gujarat, and so is closely associated with both Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, who was earlier Gujarat’s home minister. Now, Asthana faces suspension from the CBI, as recommended by Verma.
The usual suspects now complain that Verma is a “deep state” mole who has been waiting till his final year of service to sabotage Modi. (They say UPA placed these moles though in four-and-a-half years, Modi has effectively placed his favoured bureaucrats in key ministries.) Verma was, however, selected to head the CBI by Modi himself, in consultation with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, according to a laid-down procedure in which candidates are drawn up and vetted by both the government as well as by the Central Vigilance Commission. Modi went with Verma’s impeccable record — as Delhi Police Commissioner; as the director-general of prisons; and as the chief of police in Mizoram, in Puducherry and in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. He was a deputy commissioner of police when I met him as a crime reporter in Delhi 30 years ago.
Verma may not be the hatchet man that Modi wants as the 2019 parliamentary election approaches. The CBI has long been a weapon of political vendetta; even the Supreme Court of India called it a “caged parrot” back in May 2013. The CBI lodged cases against former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad in July 2017 in a railway tender scam, and that resulted in Lalu’s alliance with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar ending. Nitish then joined hands with the BJP and this alliance is currently ruling the state, though the much ballyhooed
Modi is faced with a tricky situation. He can’t dismiss Verma, who has a fixed term and who was recently petitioned to open an inquiry into the Rafale jet fighter deal
railway tender case has since gone quiet. The CBI has been used to threaten former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, whose alliance with rival Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh could mean the BJP losing many of UP’s 80 seats in the 2019 election. With the current unravelling of the Modi government — such are the perils of centralised rule — you can bet that more CBI cases against leaders of opposition parties will materialise as the election approaches.
Modi is faced with a tricky situation. He can’t dismiss Verma, who has a fixed term and who was petitioned to open an inquiry into the Rafale jet fighter deal. It would be terrible optics. Yet Modi’s singular aim remains: install Asthana as Verma’s successor. Whatever the outcome of the CBI’s internal war, one thing is certain. Yet another institution has been severely damaged due to the whims of a strongman leader — as has been happening around the world. It is unlikely that this fracture, given how all Indian leaders are feudally inclined to ruling with a heavy hand, will soon be repaired.