It is almost too sickening to believe but the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) now tells us that someone in the Defence Ministry made money out of a contract to buy coffins for the soldiers who died in Kargil. Coffins that should have cost $172 a piece were bought for $2,500 each from a shady American supplier who had earlier supplied them at the lower price. What makes this repugnant deal even uglier is that the Rs 1.47 crore ($3,37,500) paid for the coffins in March 2000 was a complete waste of taxpayers' money since they were never used. Last week The Times of India quoting from the CAG report said, "The entire lot of caskets was subsequently rejected during inspection on grounds of being overweight and welded. These had been kept in stock as of June 2000."

If the ministry has in its ranks people shameless enough to make money out of coffins then the mind boggles at how much they must make out of weapons procurement. But a time could come when no journalist will dare investigate financial irregularities in the ministry because, if the hounding of Shankar Sharma is anything to go by, the ministry has no hesitation in using mafia tactics to prevent them from prying into its affairs.

Remember Sharma? He was the financial whizkid who, along with his wife Devina Mehra, set up a company called First Global which was so good at its job that it became the first Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ and other international stock exchanges. Then, First Global made the mistake of investing in a relatively unknown Internet company called Tehelka.com and Tehelka made the mistake of giving us our first videotaped expose of corruption in high places. It was considered a national service by most Indians but our nationalist Government saw things differently. No sooner did our TV screens light up with images of politicians and army officers greedily accepting bribes than the Government's propaganda machinery went into overdrive to prove this was not about corruption but a conspiracy to destroy A.B. Vajpayee's uncorrupt Government and Yashwant Sinha's dream budget.

It would have looked really bad if Tehelka had been directly targeted. Right? Even the most unbiased observer would have seen this as an attack on freedom of the press. So, what did the Government do? It unleashed the hounds of the Finance Ministry on First Global. The company paid Rs 20 crore in taxes last year, making it one of the country's highest taxpayers, but in the past nine months it has faced 25 raids from the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Not a single rupee of undisclosed income has been found nor have any signs of a deep, dark conspiracy. That has not saved the Sharmas from persecution. They are unable to do any business because of a draconian clause in one of our financial laws preventing people who have an inquiry pending against them from trading in the stock exchange. The inquiry can take forever but nobody seems to care. The Sharmas have watched in helpless silence as their lives have been destroyed-16 of their 17 offices were forced to close down, they were prevented from travelling abroad and their properties have been attached.

All this because they dared to invest in Tehelka. It is an ingenious way of destroying a media company. Instead of going for the journalists-which would look very bad-you go for those who finance media companies. If Indira Gandhi had understood this simple strategy she would never have needed to impose press censorship during the Emergency. Speaking of which,
we come to another interesting aspect of what is going on. We are currently ruled by men-Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, George Fernandes, Arun Jaitley-who were jailed during the Emergency. They have, since, bleated endlessly about their concern for democratic rights and yet without the smallest qualm now participate eagerly in the exercise to deny Sharma and his wife even basic rights. It is not as if they have not tried to plead their innocence with the Government. They have taken their appeals right up to Vajpayee and Sinha but, five days after Sinha lent them a sympathetic ear, the ED responded with another raid. So, at the highest level everyone knows what is going on.

The saddest part of the Government's attempts at damage control post-Tehelka is that the prime minister seems unaware that nobody is really interested in whether there was a conspiracy or not. The story is about corruption so vile that Defence Ministry officials make money out of coffins meant for those who died for India. If the Government is more interested in defending its reputation than the country's borders then what use is it to you or me? Just chew on that a while Mr Prime Minister and it might make you realise that your Government's only response to the Tehelka tapes should have been an unconditional apology and an unconditional promise to clean up your act.