The Scam that Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal-Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai

Book: The Scam that Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal
Author: Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai
Publisher: HarperCollins India

Have you heard of the Nagarwala Scandal?

On 24 May 1971, based on a telephone call purportedly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her secretary P.N. Haksar, the chief cashier at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India handed over Rs 60 lakh to a stranger posing as the PM's courier. The money was supposedly meant for secret operations in East Pakistan. When the chief cashier approached the PMO for a receipt, he was told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions. He had been duped. Within a few hours, the Delhi Police recovered the cash and caught the man responsible for the heist, a former army captain-Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala. Subsequent events-which included a botched police investigation, bungling by the lower judiciary, mysterious deaths of the accused and the principal investigator, and Indira Gandhi's inexplicable silence-led to the rise of several conspiracy theories. Based on police records, press reports, depositions before the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission and its report, The Scam That Shook a Nation is the first authoritative work on the scam, its investigation and its afterlife as a study in political corruption.

With the development of the country and passage of time, we have had people who have tried to outfox the system to make a quick buck. The book explores the events that took place as the scandal unfolded and how one phone call set in motion something that impacted more than just the 2 people directly involved in it. The book starts off by describing the events of the day from the eyes of Nagarwala and Malhotra and how the entire chain of events happened right from the call to the arrest. The book then moves on to the investigation and the authors then deep dive into the investigation conducted by the authorities. What stands out for me in the book comes after the first section. The chapters about the two primary players in the story are well researched and help you gain an understanding about the psyche of Malhotra and Nagarwala leading upto the events of that day. The section about the Reddy Commission is the part that brings out the questions that the reader has as you read about the scandal and there are some pertinent questions that come up with regards to how the case was handled and investigated. The authors then move on to the author’s analysis of the alternative theories that have come up and the findings and the key conclusions of the Reddy Commission.

The book is quite fast paced and devoid of any fluff to present the facts of the case as they are. The writing is quite neutral and the authors present the events from multiple perspectives to show the reader the multiple facets of what happened and what could have happened. The book is very well researched and keeps you engaged with the narrative and the storytelling.

A well written true-crime book, I really enjoyed reading the book. It scores a 4.5/5 for me.

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