Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial

"There Has Been No Loss": The Jeeps Nehru Defended, the Mundhra Deal His Son-in-Law Exposed, and What Happened to Everyone Involved

Two of the first scandals of Nehru's governments, told from the Parliament record, the Public Accounts Committee's own reports and Nehru's own letters. In 1948 the High Commission in London contracted for 2,000 second-hand jeeps, paid 65 per cent of the price on 1,004 of them, and India received 155 it rejected; in 1957 the nationalised Life Insurance Corporation bought more than ₹1.24 crore of shares from a financier the Finance Ministry already distrusted. One affair ended with a Parliament committee overruled and the High Commissioner who signed the contract promoted to the Cabinet; the other ended with a public inquiry, a minister's resignation and a disciplinary verdict quietly reversed. Every claim graded. Updated to 11 October 2026.