Bofors Scandal

The Bofors scandal was a major political scandal that occurred between Sweden and India during the 1980s and 1990s, initiated by Indian National Congress (Congress party) politicians and implicating the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and several other members of the Swedish and Indian governments who were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. The scandal relates to illegal kickbacks paid in a US$1.4 billion deal between the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors with the government of India for the sale of 410 field howitzer guns, and a supply contract almost twice that amount. It was the biggest arms deal ever in Sweden, and money marked for development projects was diverted to secure this contract at any cost. The investigations revealed flouting of rules and bypassing of institutions.

The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that Sweden and India had seen before and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. The Swedish company paid ₹640 million (US$9.5 million) in kickbacks to top Indian politicians and key defence officials.

The case came into light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism tipped off by a Reuters news revelation on Swedish radio, followed up by a team led by N. Ram of the newspaper The Hindu. The journalist who secured the over 350 documents that detailed the payoffs was Chitra Subramaniam reporting for The Hindu. Later the articles were published in The Indian Express and The Statesman when The Hindu stopped publishing stories about the Bofors scandal under immense government pressure and Chitra Subramaniam moved to the two newspapers. In an interview with her, published in The Hoot in April 2012 on the 25th anniversary of the revelations, Sten Lindstrom, former chief of Swedish police, discussed why he leaked the documents to her and the role of whistle-blowers in a democracy.

...
Wikipedia