Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (12 page)

“It would be my pleasure.” Kaul spoke as if he was a classroom pundit and his tongue was a cane.

The brief meeting was over in five minutes and I followed V.K.Kaul to his cubicle. I didn’t have a desk to myself. Kaul dumped a lot of official notes and summaries on the Jharkhand movement, which had started rocking the states of Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa. I was supposed to read and digest the history of the Santhal, Munda, Oraon, and Ho tribal people of the most backward region of India and prepare a summary of the movement. The other task assigned to me was to prepare a digest on the subversive activities of the Church in the tribal belts.

Kaul had no time to brief me. He was a man in hurry. He talked incessantly like monsoon torpor, which was often laced with choicest slang, abuses and caustic comments about individuals and issues.

He often darted to the quarter inch wall map of Nagaland, Mizo Hills, Manipur and the adjoining areas of East Pakistan, Burma and China. He carried in his pocket and ear crevices a couple of coloured pencils, which he used to mark the location of the latest violent incident, caused by the Naga and Mizo rebels. He was fond of drawing a hand sketch on the raw field report before he processed and put it up to his Deputy Director, K.N.Prasad. Besides the Nagas and Mizos, he was preoccupied with two other subjects close to his heart, homeopathy and lawsuits.

My tango with the Chhotanagpur tribal was frequently disturbed by the fond and slang-enriched requests from Kaul to brew some coffee. We had a couple of coffee breaks during which Kaul regaled us with choicest vocabulary. We often had tumultuous luncheon breaks and the Deputy Directors graced the Saturday luncheon gathering too. That offered a fine opportunity to exchange views, to gather vital information about the happenings in the Company, and to have very rare peeps into the cooking pots of some hated and a few loved officers.

I didn’t learn much under the tutelage of Prasad and Kaul. They were described as giants in their fields of specialisation. However, they were selfish giants and had very little time to train a green pigeon like me. In fact, I came to know that the concept of on-job training did not exist. A new comer was released into the troubled water like a scared fry. He was supposed to learn the tricks of survival in the hardest way and work his way up partly through his work, partly by pandering to the seniors and greatly by the grace of the law of universal uncertainty.

When posted at the analysis desk a raw officer was supposed to follow the previous reporting patterns, mimic the IB brand of the English language and go by the advice of the junior drafters and idiosyncrasies of the seniors who took extreme pains in putting commas, semicolons, dotting the Is and cutting the Ts. A draft report to the government was corrected and re-corrected till someone at the top was satisfied that his brand of English would be comprehensible to the consumers.

At that vital point of time of my likely allocation to an analysis desk someone at the top hinted that R. N. Kao, the head of the recently created R&AW, wanted to see me and evaluate if I was the correct material for posting to Dacca. I believe P. N. Banerjee, the senior IB officer in Calcutta, had suggested my name. The Kashmiri with piercing eyes and razor sharp mind talked to me rather informally for over an hour. I was given a hint that I should prepare to join his outfit and get ready to move to Dacca.

It was difficult to suppress such electrifying news. The reigning chief of the IB and the chief of Indira Gandhi’s external intelligence chief did not enjoy the best vibes. Moreover, after the creation of R&AW certain IB officers were allocated to the new organisation. There was a sort of gold rush amongst the young IB officers from the IPS and non-IPS pool to rush to the new organisation. It offered the lure of foreign posting and the glamour associated to it. Only the blue-eyed boys and the wards of the relatives and associates were given preference. I was the only unknown commodity who was almost falling through the roof on the platter of the R&AW. Several eyes were squinted and lips squirmed over the ‘magic’ pulled out by a greenhorn like me.

That had probably sealed my fate. On a fateful Saturday luncheon gathering K.N. Prasad declared that I was selected for posting to the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau at Imphal, the capital of the former princely state of Manipur. I was given only seven days to wind up my Delhi establishment and proceed to Imphal, initially for a look see visit and to take over the remotest outpost of the IB by the first week of January 1969.

We did not know how to react to the new twist of event. I made some vain effort to ascertain the status of my possible posting to Dacca. M. I. S Iyer advised me that I should better proceed to Imphal. The boss man was not happy over my meeting R. N. Kao and I should forget the matter as a non-event.

It wasn’t a normal practice with the IB to post out a newcomer to a sensitive and troubled outpost. The officers were allowed to grow some roots in Delhi before they were given independent charge of a heavy station. I explored the feasibility of getting my posting to Imphal scuttled and even thought of approaching Triguna Sen, my wife’s grandfather, and Ashok Sen, whom I got to know through his father in law, Justice S. R. Das. Sunanda advised me correctly and said that I should accept the posting gracefully. The coming events should not be opposed without understanding the contours of the future that lay hidden in the womb of time.

I fretted and fumed for a while and finally asked V.K. Kaul to give me some study materials on Manipur, Nagaland and the rest of the North East. He was generous and I transferred my focus from the tribals of Chhotanagpur and the ‘
subversive Christian Missionaries
’ to the tribals of the North East. That shifting of focus had later become a love for the region and the troubled people of the North East. My love affair with the North East had further deepened as I started growing with the people and their problems.

I was banished from Delhi, for no fault of mine, and I could get a posting back to the IB headquarter only after a decade. I did not dare meeting R. N. Kao thereafter on my own initiative, though he invited me to discuss certain events in the Punjab much later in my career.

TO THE LAND OF JEWELL

You’re an epitome of great energy; only the brave dare seeking you,

You’re a collage of piety and harshness;

You’re both woman and man.

You rattle man’s life with unbearable struggle.

From your right hand you pour nectar,

You smash the goblet by your left;

Resonant challenge reverberate your playground,

You bless the lives of the brave, who are entitled to greater things of life, With insurmountable struggle. (Unauthorised free translation)

Ode to Earth (Patraput).

Rabindra Nath Tagore

We left Delhi on the 19
^th
December, 1968, just a little over 5 months after reporting to the IB. Sunanda stayed back in Calcutta with her parents as she was in the family way. I took a shaky and bumpy DC3 flight to Imphal, which made two intermediate halts at Agartala and Silchar.

The reception at Tulihal airport was a low-key affair so also the briefing I received from R.N. Sanyal, the Assistant Director, whom I was supposed to relieve. I was neither introduced to any intelligence asset nor was I given a chance to call on the top bureaucrats and key politicians. The atmosphere in the office, especially the attitude of J.N.Topa, the Deputy Central Intelligence Officer, dampened my spirit. The mud and tin building in the heart of the administrative area of the state was enough to dampen the spirit of a budding intelligence officer. The look-see visit was a frustrating experience. I ended up gathering an impression that the Intelligence Bureau wasn’t running its shop professionally. The myth of excellence, at that point of time, hanged in my mind by a very tenuous thread.

On my return to Delhi on the 27, December, I was relieved immediately and directed to take charge at Imphal after availing of only 7 day’s joining time. I finally landed at Imphal on January 3, 1969, with the fond hope of taking over charge from Sanyal after a brief overlapping period.

Sanyal had by that time left Imphal on posting to Calcutta. There was no one to hand over charge and brief me about the human assets and intelligence operations. I was thrown at the sea without a life jacket. The only solace that I gathered was the knowledge that one of my cousin sisters and her family lived in Imphal. That was a big consolation, at least for soothing my frayed emotions. I needed that crucial support.

Manipur, battered by Naga and Mizo insurgencies and other militant movements, was on the verge of exploding with astounding ferocity. Delhi had just directed me to walk down the crater and fathom the magma that was about to hit the perceived placid shores of the Loktok lake, the biggest fresh water body that shone like a piece of emerald amidst the paddy greens of the valley and the husky browns of the distant hills.

Manipur, to me, was not a vibrant jewel, as the third scion of the Pandava clan of Mahabharata fame discovered it. I had to work hard to discover the beauty of the land and its people. By the time I left Manipur in 1972, I knew I had discovered its soul, the jewel of Manipur.

*

Manipur was the cradle of my birth as an intelligence operator. I ceased cursing K. N. Prasad and V. K. Kaul and thanked my destiny for pushing a raw ingot into the blazing furnace of Manipur. I realised that fire of adversity alone could not shape me up. The challenge before me was to match the ferocity of the fire in which I was thrown in. Genetically I was not engineered to throwing up hands and wailing for help. Like a field termite I was adept in sizing up the grains of the rock before me and attack it with renewed vigour. I decided, ably encouraged by Sunanda, to take up the challenges and prove that gold could be minted out of the empty mines of King Solomon.

But Manipur of 1968-69 was not an empty mine. The state was infested by Naga and Mizo insurgency and scattered armed struggle by other tribal groups. The Kuki National Assembly, Hmar National Volunteers, Paite Liberation Front fluttered the flags of defiance in the non-Naga hill tracts of Churachandpur, Tengnoupal, Karong, Senapati, and Sugnu areas.

The self-styled Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the contingents of the underground Naga Army operated in the districts (old) of Ukhrul, Mao, Teamenglong, parts of Tengnoupal and Karong. The level of violence was pretty high. The Naga insurgents ran a parallel government in area of influence and the Mizos in the non-Naga tribal pockets.

The Imphal valley, basically inhabited by the Meitei Vashnavites, a stream of Hinduism, had also embarked upon agitational activities. The initial thrust provided by the Manipur Red Guard of Hijam Irabot Singh, a Muscovite Communist and the Meitei State Committee had gathered momentum under the tutelage of the Pan Mongolian Movement and the United National Liberation Front engineered by Arambam Somorendra Singh. Around that time Oinam Sudhir Kumar had formed the Coordination Committee of Manipur under which was established the Revolutionary Government of Manipur (RGM). N. Biseshwar Singh had emerged as the most potent leader of the RGM and a group of about 200 Hindu Meitei youths were allured by the Pakistani Establishment (the ISI) for training in the Sylhet district of East Pakistan.

The fractured political edifices in the Union Territory supplemented the subterranean movement among the Mieties. The Territory was put under a Chief Commissioner in the person of Baleshwar Prasad, a retired member of the Indian Administrative Service, and a person with intricate and intimate connections with a few top bureaucrats from his home province and other acolytes of Indira Gandhi. The Territorial legislative assembly worked under Prasad’s patriarchal regime, which was basically aided by mainland Indian bureaucrats with a sprinkling of local elements.

The Manipuris smarted under an impression that Delhi had granted statehood to Nagaland, reorganised the State of Punjab and was about to grant the status to Meghalaya but refused to elevate the status of the former princely state which had maintained its independence, in some form or other, even under the British monarchy. A series of popular agitation for statehood rocked the placid eastern frontier of India. Delhi had turned a deaf ear and relied on the police, para-military, and the Army for meeting the catastrophic explosion of terrorism.

I, designated as the Joint Assistant Director, with the total service length of little over four years, was put in charge of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) Imphal. Presumably the junior most officer around, I was supposed to deal directly with the Chief Commissioner, Chief Secretary, the Inspector General of Police and the Army Generals and the Brigadiers, besides the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues.

The first thing I did was to take a stock of the arsenal that Delhi had provided for meeting the challenges. I think I should make an honest effort to acquaint my readers with the infrastructure I inherited.

The ‘eyes and ears’ of the Union Government, as I was supposed to be, was assisted by a Deputy Central Intelligence Officer, a Kashmiri gentleman, who was totally ignorant of the Meitei language. He did not raise any intelligence asset, and if I’m correct, he claimed every month a sizeable amount from the secret service fund. I did not ask, why? In those days it was a fashion to think that every Kashmiri was related to the Nehrus.

I inherited Mani Singh, a resourceful Assistant Central Intelligence Officer, grade I (ACIO I) who generated a few peripheral Meitei agents. He honestly scrounged through the Meitei language dailies and produced ‘agent reports’ in English. I did not object to this. At least I had the advantage of receiving every evening a bunch of papers that reflected the daily press reports on open political activities and some elements of secret report, which could not be covered by the mainland Hindi-speaking officers. They simply did not have access to the Meitei society and the valley Hindus had started abusing any visible mainland Indian as ‘
mayangs
’ (outsiders).

It’s not that I was totally devoid of officially appointed intelligence operators. I was amazed by the reach of N. K. Singh, a Vishnupriya Manipuri (a different Vaishnava sect, which spoke a mixed Meitei, Assamese and Bengali language). He generated meaningful assets amongst the valley Hindus and a few Zeliang and Rongmei Naga tribals. Devkishore Sharma, a constable, who normally started drinking bouts at seven a.m., was the most priceless intelligence operator. The puritan Brahmin Kashmiri DCIO suppressed him. I gave him a free hand. The only unconventional price that I paid him, besides the secret service fund, was liberal supply of bottles of rum, which I procured from the Army canteen at subsidised rate. I treated him more as an agent.

The fat Thai looking junior officer Soibam Yaima Singh had opened up for me the closed door to the Meitei society, by bringing me closure to Maharaj Kumar Priyabrata Singh, Rajkumar Madhuryajit Singh, Leishram Lokendra and the chief priests of the Palace temple and the temples at Bishenpur, Thoubal and Moirang.

My driver Mani Singh too had risen to the occasion helping me in generating assets close to Arambam Somorendra and the CONSCOM of Oinam Sudhir.

The most important assets in the Revolutionary Government of Manipur were brought closure to me by Devkishore Sharma, the constable. I did not like his drinking bouts but I understood that brewed alcohol was the only fuel that could propel the Meitei Brahmin.

I must mention that my efforts had inspired Navrang Sharma, a lower division clerk. He had helped in raising very sensitive agents amongst the Meitei underground movements. Even my orderly constable Ibomcha Singh had pitched in.

Within a short period of five months the SIB could boast of having in its honour roll a number of assets from the valley. I opened a new ‘Asset Register’ to replace the blank old one left by my predecessor.

I received a funny enquiry from my Deputy Director at Kohima, my controlling officer, asking me the necessity of raising all these assets and defraying so much from the secret service fund. I had to put up a lengthy paper to describe the scorched earth that I had inherited and the immediate need for focussing on the emerging Meitei insurgent movement. V. V. Chaubal, the regional boss at Shillong, supported me.

*

The length and breadth of the valley, about 7000 sq km, was given intelligence coverage from the main station at Imphal with a few Border Check Posts (BCP) and Internal Intelligence Posts (IIP).

The roads were primitive and the transport system almost non-existent. The officers of the SIB scarcely ventured out of Imphal. My Kashmiri DCIO too deserted me and managed a transfer to Delhi when he found that the work termite would not allow him to sleep on piles of unacceptable excuses. He was a paper pusher and had good connectivity with the elites of the ruling ethnic group in Delhi.

I did not miss much, rather I was happy to see that a non-functioning pinion had been removed and I was given the liberty to set up a fresh work-speed. I drew up a roster of about eight available officers, four of them mainland Indians and assigned them territorial responsibilities in the valley. Some of them demurred and a few expressed their concern for physical security. I could not blame the mainland officers either. They were not provided with government accommodation in the safer administrative areas and were forced to rent out homes inside the Meitei localities. Finally I succeeded in locating a big brick and cement house in a nearby locality and five officers and their families were accommodated there. Once free from anxiety of the safety of their families the young ‘
mayang
’ officers did not dither and they walked alongside the full length of the troubled ways in the valley and hill tracts of Manipur.

Delhi’s lack of imagination was reflected in the practice of deputing mainland Indians to Manipur on first posting, without equipping them with working knowledge of the language, custom and cultural attributes of the people of the territory. They were supposed to complete three years’ mandatory border posting before being pulled out to greener pastures. This was an unproductive practice, a sheer wastage of manpower. But I was left with no other choice but to depend on the young lot, some displayed exemplary courage and determination.

A little bit of research into the history of the Meitei people and their historical relations with the neighbouring Assamese, Bengalis and the British Empire builders gave me to understand that my coreligionists in the valley were more like the Thai people. They were a friendly lot. But they were highly suspicious of all outsiders. Their troubled relationship with the Burmese, steady inflow of the Nagas, Kukis, Chins and other assorted tribals from the Kabow Valley and the Chin Hills area of Burma had made them suspicious of the intentions of the successive governments in Delhi, especially the Governors in Assam and the Political Agents at Imphal.

The spread of Hindu Vaishnavism at the cost of the traditional worship of
Sanamahi
and the
Kangla
had not completely wiped out their ties with the distant Thai lineages. The legends of Arjuna, the third Pandava, and Chintrangada, the enchantingly beautiful and heroic princess of Manipur, had not been able to bring about total assimilation. The sense of alienation was exacerbated by the colonial type administration from Delhi and its British clones, the large contingent of mainland Indian officers. They ruled like colonial masters and paid little attention to the aspirations of the people who had tied the knot with India only in 1949.

The Meiteis suffered from several disabilities. Way back in 1969 they did not have quality educational institutions, professional colleges and infrastructure to generate employment. They were tribal Hindus but were denied the reservation facilities. The Naga and non-Naga youths could afford to get into the All India Services with ease taking advantage of reservation policy. However, the cleverer Meitei boys could hardly compete with the better-equipped youths of mainland India.