Devil's Advocate with Salman Khurshid

Corporate Affairs Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid has defended his party's explanation of how Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide Corp responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, left the country and insists the government is earnest in finding the truth. Khurshid told Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate that the government was correct in setting up a committee of ministers to investigate the tragedy again after 26 years.

Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to 'Devil's Advocate'. How honest has the Congress and the government been in its response to the recent Bhopal crisis. That's the key issue I shall explore today with the Corporate Affairs Minister and a former general secretary of the Congress party, Salman Khurshid.

Mr Khurshid, let me start with a blunt question: has the Congress party been deliberately misleading the country over the Anderson issue or is it really the case that your party doesn't know what your own government was doing in 1984?

Salman Khurshid: There's no reason why the institutional memory of the party should be so great and so long that we can specifically tell you what the government did. Government has a record; the government will produce the record; there's a GoM (Group of Ministers) which is looking at what happened and whatever is found necessary will be given to the public.

Karan Thapar: Did you really mean the first part of the answer that there is no reason that the party should have a memory that can stretch back 25 years? Are you suffering from amnesia?

Salman Khurshid: No, no there are individuals who may know things but the party doesn't keep a regular record like a government does. Government has files, government has documents, government has a whole record of the things that it does. The party doesn't always have this. We have documents like manifesto, posters, pictures. But there is no record of the regular word that is spoken over the years.

Karan Thapar: Alright, I'll come to the party in a moment's time. Let me first ask you three critical test questions: as of today, do you accept that Rajiv Gandhi was aware that safe passage had been asked for and given to Warren Anderson, and this was a decision that he approved and concurred with?

Salman Khurshid: I think this is too sensitive a question on which, unless I have specific information, for me to give an answer would be unfair both for me and the people who would be watching me.

Karan Thapar: Let me tell you why I asked the question. Foreign secretary of the day, M K Rasgotra, has gone on record to say that this is the case that the then American charge d'affaires has gone on record to say the same thing, an in fact, Union Carbide actually issued a press statement confirming this at the time.

Three different people saying the same thing and still you don't feel you are convinced?

Salman Khurshid: There are a lot of other people who have said things here. There has been contemporary statement that was made by the then chief minister. That's there. Other people who have recorded --

Karan Thapar: --the then chief minister, forgive me, has in no way contradicted this. He has simply gone on record in the 'Hindustan Times' on Saturday to say that he was not in the loop. That doesn't mean he was contradicting --

Salman Khurshid: --the chief minister, the statement has been shown that the chief minister had a press conference at which he said he had taken a decision. Now, I think we cannot go beyond what the chief minister then has said, we can't go beyond what several people are saying on both sides as it were, let the government take a final view, put the record together, and the truth will then be known to everyone.

Karan Thapar: Let me put this to you. This has become a matter of key concern. It is the huge swelling controversy in the country. Why is the government not able to clarify the matter immediately? Why do you need, forgive me, an empowered group of minister to clarify indisputable facts that everyone knows of? Why do you need ministers to do that?

Salman Khurshid: Listen, listen, every time there is an issue about facts, you either have an investigation, you have an inquiry or you have a group of ministers or a Cabinet meeting to say: let's check what the facts were and then produce these facts to the country. What's wrong in that?--

Karan Thapar: --Precisely, and that is what M K Rasgotra, who was foreign secretary, has done for you. He knows what the facts are and he has gone public to say --

Salman Khurshid: --he is one --

Karan Thapar: --what do you mean he is one? He was the foreign secretary.

Salman Khurshid: I know he's foreign secretary, he is an important person but there must have been a Foreign Minister, there must have been a Home Minister--

Karan Thapar: --the Foreign Minister was, I am afraid, Rajiv Gandhi. He is now dead.

Salman Khurshid: There would have been a Home Minister, there would have been a home secretary --

Karan Thapar: -- that (Home Minister) was Narasimha Rao, he too is dead.

Salman Khurshid: Well, somebody would have the record --

Karan Thapar: --Precisely. M K Rasgotra has gone on record, the American charge d’affaires has gone on record and Union Carbide issued a press statement at that time. All three said that same thing.

Salman Khurshid: It doesn't matter. If we are actually looking at all this, why don't we wait for a formulation, why don't we wait for a definitive statement to be made by the government?

Karan Thapar: You know what it sounds like? This sounds like not just prevarication but an attempt to be in denial. You know that these are facts but you don't want to accept them. You want to delay in the hope that the public and the press will forget. Be upfront and be honest with the people of India.

Salman Khurshid: If you waited 26 years or 20 years for this, why can't you wait for another 20 days or, perhaps, for a week to get a definitive statement from the government? Why do you want to take little bits of information from various people, in the know or not in the know, and piece together a picture that is not necessarily the correct picture.

Karan Thapar: Alright. I will for argument's sake and for the purpose of this interview accept that let's wait a week as you say, but can you give me a guarantee that this is not an indefinite week, that the week won't become a two, it won't become a three, it won't become a month? Can you set a deadline by which you will clarify this?

Salman Khurshid: I am not the Prime Minister nor servicing the group of ministers.

Karan Thapar: That's why I asked because the country has been waiting, the whole issue has been hanging fire and there's no clarity.

Salman Khurshid: Listen, all I can tell you is, to my knowledge, a group of ministers have never met like they have met in this case. They have met yesterday, they are meeting today and they have, within three days, they have promised to report to the cabinet.

Karan Thapar: Aren't there simple records that you can check in a matter of minutes or a couple of hours at the most?

Salman Khurshid: Where would you check the records?

Karan Thapar: Are you saying that the Foreign Ministry doesn't have a record that the Foreign Secretary approached the Home Secretary who then approached the Home Minister and a safe passage was granted. There are no records of that?

Salman Khurshid: Foreign Ministry would have the record but you are not asking the Foreign Minister. You are asking me.

Karan Thapar: Why does the government need an empowered group of ministers. Just go to the ministry records, clarify and inform the country.

Salman Khurshid: But you can't, in a piecemeal manner, go do different offices and who would be authorised to go to the different offices and collect the information. Here, it's not just the question of giving you out what happened at that time.

Karan Thapar: Do you really believe what you are saying? It sounds like gobbledegook in Alice in Wonderland.

Salman Khurshid: You can say what you want but the fact remains that till there's an authorised definitive statement, anything that anyone of us says has no meaning at all.

Karan Thapar: Alright. Let me pick up on something: till there's an authorised definitive statement, no one knows for sure. Is that what you are saying?

Salman Khurshid: No. It's meaningless if I say anything. It has no authenticity, it has no basis and it has certainly no authority.

Karan Thapar: Very interesting. It's meaningless if you say anything. It has no authenticity, it has no basis. Then, now, let's come to what your party's spokespersons have been saying because they haven't accepted the point that you have just made.

On the 11th of June, Jayanthi Natrajan went public at a formal press meeting and this is what she said: there's no question of the Rajiv Gandhi government being implicated. I categorically deny any involvement of the central government. The question of the Rajiv Gandhi government's involvement does not arise.

Not only was that a very stupid thing to say because she hadn't checked but because it is clearly and totally false. How come she can be so categoric and the government can't?

Salman Khurshid: Political parties can say things without necessarily having to prove it but government's can't.

Karan Thapar: But don't political parties need to be correct when they open their mouth?

Salman Khurshid: I am not saying she is wrong.

Karan Thapar: And this is your political party.

Salman Khurshid: This is not a question of whether she is right or wrong. There are certain assessments and perceptions that the party would have and the party would be free to make them available to public but the governments--

Karan Thapar: --forgive me but those assessments and perceptions have to be based on something factual. They can't be imaginary and fictional.

Salman Khurshid: But it must be --

Karan Thapar: --then what was it based on? Because all the evidence is exactly the opposite.

Salman Khurshid: You could have asked her the second question, you haven't. Now why should I answer a question that the party has proposed or the party has suggested. I will wait for my government to come out with an authentic statement based on the record available with the government.

Karan Thapar: Let me repeat what you said: you could have asked her a question, you didn't. In fact, that question was asked exactly a week later to her colleague Manish Tiwari, who, on the 17th of June, commented on Gordon's trip with the then American charge-d’affaires revelation that safe passage had been asked for and granted. You know what Manish Tiwari said?

He said - I reject the conclusions with the contempt they deserve - and, then he went on to say - anyone who claims that Rajiv Gandhi's government or Rajiv Gandhi himself had anything to do with Anderson, is despicable.

Now, not only is he once again totally wrong, but, in addition, he is being offensive and what you find is that one Congress spokesman backs up the utter nonsense spoken by an earlier Congress spokesperson. This situation is getting worse and worse and worse.

Salman Khurshid: I think you are also using a very strong language for people who are trying to handle an aggressive press and trying to make a point across that don't come to any preconceived notions, or judge something before the facts are known to you.

Karan Thapar: Hang on, but they have already made a judgment. They are coming up with definitive answers which are not just foolish but turn out to be completely wrong.

Salman Khurshid: It is their perception --

Karan Thapar: --Their perception? Don't they want fact?

Salman Khurshid: We have to prove. We are the government, we have to prove facts. We have to show the record and you know that our record is available under the Right to Information so we can't possibly say to you something that is not authenticated by a record available to us.

Karan Thapar: But a party spokesmen can say utter nonsense?

Salman Khurshid: They are not under the same regime.

Karan Thapar: But they are your party's spokesmen. The integrity of your party hinges upon the accuracy of what they say, they are making of your party's integrity.

Salman Khurshid: The difference is about perception that is available with them.

Karan Thapar: What is perceptions based upon? Facts, presumably?

Salman Khurshid: Perception is based on some knowledge, some narrative, some degree of assumptions that are made. We cannot make assumptions. We must show record and that record will be shown to you once the GoM has taken a view.

Karan Thapar: Thank you very much. Perceptions, even of party's spokesmen must be based upon some knowledge. Let me now come to my third example. Sitting in faraway Washington, without having seen, read or heard the Rasgotra interview given to this channel, Abhishek Singhvi, your party's senior most spokesperson, at a press conference said of Mr Rasgotra's comments that they were completely outrageous and ridiculous allegations.

He then went on to be personal and accused the gentleman of being purely political, and finally he questioned why is he speaking out 25 years later. Tell me something. Is acceptable for your party's senior most spokesperson to comment on something that he hasn't seen, he hasn't read, he hasn't heard? Is that acceptable?

Salman Khurshid: Has he not seen it? I don't know.

Karan Thapar: He hadn't. I sent him the transcript after his comment had been carried by PTI. Till that point of time, he had not even seen the transcript.

Salman Khurshid: You sent the transcript? He must have seen it somewhere.

Karan Thapar: I sent it after he made his comment. He doesn't deny that the comment was made without seeing this interview.

Salman Khurshid: Listen, he has not been asked to deny or not to deny. How do you know he has not seen the interview?

Karan Thapar: Because I asked him.

Salman Khurshid: But somebody must have reported to him about the interview. You might not see the picture but somebody may report that this is what somebody has said and you would have a response.

Karan Thapar: Is it acceptable that on the basis of hearsay, a party spokesman should rubbish someone like Mr Rasgotra and say that what he said is completely outrageous and a ridiculous allegation.

Salman Khurshid: There's a context available. Whatever Mr Rasgotra would have said, the context in which he has said it is the context that is available to the party spokespersons. They do have some background on it. It isn't that they are shooting off without knowing anything at all.

They have a background but the level, the rigour and the robustness of the backup that they need is different from what the government needs. And the government will then therefore provide you with the backup that is called for when we say this is our case.

Karan Thapar: It is interesting that you should say that there's a context in which remarks are made by spokesmen. Let me give you the context, which you probably know better than I do, of Mr M K Rasgotra.

He wasn't just Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi's foreign secretary, but, after retirement, Rajiv Gandhi chose to make him the High Commissioner to London, Sonia Gandhi then made him a member of the Congress party's foreign affairs cell.

In fact, briefly, he was also the chairman of that cell. And then Dr Manmohan Singh made him the chairman of the National Security Advisory Board. This man is practically a Congressman himself and yet, your spokesman says that his comments are outrageous. Isn't that bizarre?

Salman Khurshid: The point is, there is, as I said, a context. The spokesperson is a person who has made a statement. Why don't we put him on this chair and ask him all the questions you want?

Karan Thapar: He is sitting in Washington. He is not accessible to the press. But he manages to make statements that not only confuse but are untrue and personal.

Salman Khurshid: Take a flight to New York. Go and talk to him. Now all questions that should really be directed at our spokesperson, who I think is an able spokesperson, and would be able to very, very comfortably answer your questions, are being directed to me.

I am not the one who made that proposition to begin with, I am not the one who is claiming to have special knowledge of what happened in the events leading to Bhopal and thereafter and I am certainly not today authorised to say anything.

Karan Thapar: Mr Khurshid, we are talking about the party spokesmen, we are talking about their attitude to the Anderson story and the manner in which they have rushed to make statements. Let me put a simple concern to you that the people of India are asking. Why can't Congress party spokesmen check their facts before they rush to make denials and issue denunciations?

Salman Khurshid: Now that's a good question. I have been a spokesperson myself. I know that it is a tough job. It's a 24 X 7 job because people from your tribe, the media, will not give you a convenient moment to answer the question. You have to answer hot from the oven as it were.

Karan Thapar: Can't a spokesman be honest and say I need to check that, I don't know, I'll get back to you in a couple of hours?

Salman Khurshid: I think that's a good technique.

Karan Thapar: Why don't these colleagues of yours do that? Why do they rush to denounce when they don't have the facts.

Salman Khurshid: We are not running a school for spokespersons.

Karan Thapar: Don't you think you should? Given the circumstances, don't you think you should?

Salman Khurshid: I have always believed that the media and the people who handle the media in our party or, for that matter, any other party, need greater deal of training and understanding and certainly an interface to be able to communicate better. And I think we have done this exercise in the past when I was the spokesperson.

Karan Thapar: You need to do it again, repeatedly and rigorously.

Salman Khurshid: I can't say whether we should or should not but even as ministers, we need to be able to handle the kind of media that you have, the kind of pressure that you have today and every little wink and every little movement on your face can be interpreted to mean something. I think it is a tough job. Please don't be too tough on them because it's not an easier thing to do.

Karan Thapar: What about saying also the obvious and natural conclusion to what you have said up till now the spokesmen need to be sure of what they are saying, more certain of their facts and to just pause and think before they start denying and denouncing and end up finding that they themselves are in the wrong. Would you agree with that?

Salman Khurshid: Spokespersons can go wrong. Spokespersons, often when they go wrong, come up with an explanation and they even regret if something has backfired. But please understand that in the heat of the moment, it is not people who have been able to reflect endlessly before they comeback. It's not that you are arguing a case in front of a judge so that you prepare all your briefs and papers and then you come with it.

Karan Thapar: Let me put this to you: what then should the country make of the Congress spokesmen and their briefings? If I were to say to you that often, they don't know what they are talking about and sometimes, they are downright lying, you couldn't deny it.

Salman Khurshid: I will deny it.

Karan Thapar: But I have given you examples of Jayanthi Natrajan, Manish Tiwari, Abhishek Manu Singhvi simply not knowing what they are talking about. But that doesn't stop them from talking.

Salman Khurshid: Do you know the expression - being economical with truths.

Karan Thapar: They aren't.

Salman Khurshid: When one is dealing with difficult public questions, you have to be careful with what you say. Even if you have to concede something, you have a proper moment for conceding it and that has to wait till a party decision is taken.

Karan Thapar: Minister, is it acceptable for the spokesman in the process to lie and mislead?

Salman Khurshid: I am not accepting that anyone is lying. Choice of words may be something which you may argue about. But I am not prepared to say that they are lying. I am not prepared to say that they are completely off the mark. They are frankly handling a very difficult brief.

Karan Thapar: And handling it rather badly one would say.

Salman Khurshid: That's for you to judge but obviously, we have faith in them. We have confidence in them. That's why we consider them to be the best face.

Karan Thapar: The impression that the people of India get is that the Congress spokesmen hold the Indian people in utter contempt because those spokesmen believe they can say anything they want and get away with it whether it's correct or wrong.

Salman Khurshid: I thing you are being too harsh. Really, you are being too harsh. There are communication skills that are wanting at a time when you have a very difficult brief but I don't think you are fair when you say that they are lying or they are being insensitive or they are being unfair or they are being incompetent. I don't accept this.

Karan Thapar: Let me put it like this. Do the Congress spokesmen owe the people of India an apology for misleading them whether it was done advertently or inadvertently.

Salman Khurshid: Let us first get the facts. We haven't established the facts as they will be presented to this country. Those facts will be there. They are not to be hidden; we are not going to run away from our responsibility. Why should you pre-judge our spokespersons before that happens?

Karan Thapar: Alright. When the facts are established an they will undoubtedly be, they turn out to be as I have presented them today. Will your spokesmen then apologize?

Salman Khurshid: It may be the other thing and in which case I will ask you to apologize.

Karan Thapar: If the spokesmen turn out to be wrong, will they apologize?

Salman Khurshid: I am not here for ifs and buts. What if you are wrong and they are right? You will not come back --

Karan Thapar: --I'll give you a cast-iron guarantee that if I am wrong; I will apologize to you, to the Congress party. Now, in return, if I can be so forthright, will you be forthright? If the Congress spokesmen are wrong, will they apologize?

Salman Khurshid: If you think that we have misled you, I will apologize but I can't speak on behalf of my colleagues. All I can say is that they are doing a difficult job, they are doing a good job. Please give them a hand of support. Don't run them down like this.

Karan Thapar: Mr Khurshid, that was large hearted of you say that you will apologize. Hope that your spokesmen take a lesson from you. A pleasure talking to you.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)

#Bhopal gas tragedy