The leaking of the "interim report" of Justice M.C. Jain, who constituted the one-man commission to investigate the death of Rajiv Gandhi, has suddenly changed the course of South Asian politics. Even though it is by all accounts a document of mediocre investigative methodology, Jain´s opus brought about the fall of the Gujral government and splattered New Delhi´s relationship with Colombo and Kathmandu.
The leaking of the "interim report" of Justice M.C. Jain, who constituted the one-man commission to investigate the death of Rajiv Gandhi, has suddenly changed the course of South Asian politics. Even though it is by all accounts a document of mediocre investigative methodology, Jain´s opus brought about the fall of the Gujral government and splattered New Delhi´s relationship with Colombo and Kathmandu.
The Jain report recklessly revealed privileged information that would otherwise be the most highly guarded of state secrets. Whether in providing details of VVIP security procedures or releasing affidavits of former prime ministers and police department alike, what Jain delivered was a journalist´s bonanza and a diplomat´s nightmare.
In investigating an assassination of unparalleled political import regionally, there was a lackadaisical attitude towards investigative procedures and a loose pen that seemed to want to pass comment on anything that crossed its path. When Jain is not casting aspersions on the entire Tamil population and its "anti-national character", he is repeating rambling paeans to Rajiv Gandhi, or making available piles of reports on the workings of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). One wonders at the state of affairs in the Indian judiciary, of which retired Justice Jain must be a quality product for having been given the job back in 1991 by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.