Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (35 page)

I requested K R. Puri, after the final report was submitted, to release me for my duties in the IB. I was apprehensive of the fallout of the ‘sham job’ that I had done. But Puri appreciated the report and told me very frankly that he was pleased with his other job of Chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Committee. He would, he said, continue to function from Faridkot House. He graciously offered me the job of a vigilance director in one of the leading public sector undertakings in Bombay. I politely declined the offer and reported back to Rajeswar for the next assignment.

*

Rajeswar did not waste time in slinging me over to the slot of Deputy Director in charge of foreigner’s affairs, which looked after immigration control and interpreted and devised policy matters in respect of the foreigners visiting India as tourists, research scholars, students and even as investors.

Those were the days of the CIA ghosts lurking in every nook and corner of the psyche of the scared politicians. The Cold War fumes and special treaty relations had tinged India with the Russian rouge and we were told to be scared of the CIA ghost that still tilted towards Pakistan and harboured the nefarious design of destabilising India. My task, therefore, had assumed certain unnecessary paraphernalia and I was given to understand that I should wield the baton strictly and guard very carefully all the doors and windows of the country that were prone to violation by the demonic foreigners. I did my job rather faithfully and had even started believing that the CIA was only a few steps away from breaking the country into pieces. I was, as a student of current geo-political history, was aware of the roles being played by the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the ‘free world’ in collaboration with the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan in Afghanistan and inside some of the Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union.

In fact, in my spare time I had prepared a small monograph on the likely spill over of the Afghan jihad to Indian Kashmir and its likely effects on the Indian Muslim psyche. The process of Islamisation in Pakistan and the growth of jihadist forces did not augur well for India. The Islamised Army, ISI and freelance mujaheedins were sure to pay attention to Indian Muslims and disaffected ethnic groups. The note had also mentioned about the role of Al Qaeda outfit of the Saudi millionaire bin Laden. The CIA and the ISI, I suggested would like to strike in the North East and Punjab and Kashmir. My mention of Punjab was, in a way, prophetic. I was following the emerging bonhomie between the Pakistani dictator and some members of the Sikh Diaspora and their linkages with certain leaders of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and a few well-identified fanatic religious figures. I have reasons to believe that Rajeswar had gone through the report. But, at that point of time, we in the Intelligence Bureau were not properly geared to track, identify and neutralise the ISI operations in India. IB’s preparations were childish and the senior operators were limited by their myopic attitude from strengthening the counter and forward intelligence capabilities in important field formations in Assam, Punjab and Kashmir.

Most of the officers were contented with routine collation of information and preparing occasional status paper. These static studies were good enough for record building, but were not good enough to grapple with the gathering clouds in Punjab and Kashmir. The Pakistan counterintelligence unit did not simply have any spread to the territorial SIBs and the field units were not armed with the mandate and wherewithal to locate, investigate and neutralise Pakistan’s penetration into the vital sectors in India. The ignorance was blissful but laden with devastating explosives. It was impossible to engage the top echelon of the IB to this emerging danger that grew out of Pakistan’s reoriented India policy. Moreover, I was intruding into the domains of officers who were elaborately seasoned with several embellishments. They were simply more ‘powerful’ than I was.

*

My stint with the foreigner’s desk was short lived.

I was asked to take over the important desk of counter-intelligence that looked after the intelligence operations of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in India. It was a daunting task and I was foxed by the sudden change. I had more or less successfully sealed up all the crevices and cracks to deter the evil foreigners entering India through recognised and unrecognised routes. I had tried to venture into the sacred territory of legal and illegal Pakistani and Bangladeshi traffic into India. A note prepared by me was circulated to the concerned desk officers and they came down heavily on me for intruding into their exclusive territories. They were of the considered opinion that their flanks were stronger enough to save India from the evil designs of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Intelligence Bureau had not developed a system of informal brainstorming and threat evaluation through open-house discussion. The desk chiefs were the master chefs who catered to the ears and eyes of the boss and the government. The IB functioned in close compartments (the practice is still on, for obvious reasons) and the concept of restrictive security was implemented to the dizzy limit of prohibiting flow of free ideas.

However, my posting to the weighty USSR counter-intelligence desk surprised a few other stalwarts of the IB and ruffled a few decorated plumes. The US and USSR desks were headed by fairly senior officers and an officer of my seniority was normally assigned to the analysis desks, preparing daily summary of information, a rather mundane affair and drafting unofficial reports (UO reports, not really unofficial) for different consumers in the government. Most of these reports were polished and brushed up again and again by the links above for dotting the ‘I’s and cutting the ‘T’s and off course rendering the language as unintelligible as possible.

My appointment to the USSR counterintelligence desk, as I said, had evoked surprise and concern in some quarters. One of the senior officers, who boasted to be the last word on national and international communism summoned and grilled me for over an hour to prove that I had forced out a very competent officer by pulling some strings somewhere. He could not find any hole in my understanding of the KGB and GRU operations in India and the intelligence organisations of some of its satellite countries. On the other hand I pointed out to him that the USSR had got bogged down in its Vietnam, in Afghanistan, and its internal political stresses and strains and economic disaster were likely to destroy the edifices of the communist empire. The Vietnam debacle had, for the time being, had tantalisingly limited the American expansion in the Far East and South East Asia. The Afghanistan debacle would not only give a fresh lease of life to American ascendance in the region, it would also signify the beginning of the end of Iron Curtain regime.

He agreed with me grudgingly and advised me that by replacing my predecessor, a powerful
saryupari
(hailing from near the River Saryu, connected with the mythological birth place Lord Rama) Brahmin from Uttar Pradesh, I had created powerful enemies. This was a pregnant advice. I did not ask for the change.

A serious stock taking of the human assets and technical operations, besides mobile surveillance, shocked me beyond comprehension. The high profile unit did not achieve any penetration either in the core area or in the periphery of the target mission’s intelligence operatives. A few journalists having the licence to attend diplomatic parties and a few drivers and watchmen were the only intelligence assets. It was not even funny to dare covering the deep penetration by the KGB, GRU and their sister organisations operating from the diplomatic missions of the client countries.

The controlling officer was apprised of the ground situation and suggested an aggressive approach for targeting identified and suspected intelligence operatives of the Soviet Block and their live Indian ‘talents’ amongst the Communist parties and their front organisations. The project was approved with an unlimited secret service fund allocation. I had the satisfaction of locating and hooking at least four human assets, one from a satellite mission and three from the Indian communist targets.

The developments in Afghanistan had brought the steams of the Cold War to India’s doorsteps. The KGB, besides operating from Afghan soil, had targeted the Afghan refugees in India. A few Afghan high officials loyal to the former king and Pushtun leaders having linkages with Pakistan and US backed mujaheedins had walked into the KGB network. Delhi had emerged as an important operational base of the Soviet intelligence that intended to outflank the ISI and the CIA.

I was discouraged from penetrating the KGB network on the plea that it was not compatible with the diplomatic initiative of India in Afghanistan. I had no expertise in Afghan affairs but I tried to fend off the Foreign Office experts with the argument that we had a duty to know the activities of the KGB in India. India’s Afghan policy, I felt, was lopsided and it required realignment in the light of the popular sentiment of the Afghan people. Supporting the Soviet backed regime and ignoring the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan could be counter productive. I also pointed out that the Afghans were fighting in the name of Islam and the Indian Muslims supported them. Blind backing of the communist regime in Kabul could alienate the Indian Muslims and give opportunity to the ISI and the CIA to incite troubles in Kashmir and other strong Muslim pockets. India should not be seen, I had argued, as an enemy of the Islamist resistance in Afghanistan. I was silenced by a homily on the ‘imperative needs’ of diplomatic support to the Afghan regime. The intelligence machine had no reach in that prohibited territory.

The Indian communists never excited my political and social instincts. For reasons right or wrong I considered them as extensions of the Soviet and the Chinese interests in India. Very few of them were fired by the ideological fervour of the Bolshevik revolution and hardly believed in the socio-economic dynamics preached by Marx and Angles. They did precious little to unify the Indian society and fight against caste system and blind minority-ism. They were too timid to go for armed rebellion and too bourgeoisie to break the socio-economic taboos India suffered from. The Indian communists were no proletariats; they exploited the slogans of the proletariats to fatten their own pockets. Some of them indeed were committed to the ideals of Communism but most of them were the later day B team of the Congress, reinvented by Indira Gandhi.

My painstaking research and intelligence penetration had succeeded in identifying over four Union ministers and over two dozen members of the Parliament who were in the payrolls of the KGB operatives. Some of them are still around. One of them, a journalist of sort, is now on the payrolls of a Bombay based tycoon. He masquerades as an evergreen ‘troubleshooter’, a Pakistan expert and an
avatar
of track II diplomacy. For obvious reasons I would not like to name them. So much so with a celebrated communist!

But the most surprising area of penetration of the KGB was the Ministry of Defence and those layers of the Armed Forces, which were responsible for procurement of military hardware. My list of these galactic stars did not amuse the bosses and I was advised to ‘secure those information’ in my archive. No one at the top had the gumption of illuminating the government with the identity of the Soviet targets.

The vast sweep of Soviet penetration had surprised and shocked me. A study of Left controlled publications of newspapers and periodicals indicated that the main parties and front organisations received considerable subsidies from the Soviet embassy. Several writers, poets and artists were on their payrolls. Over a dozen of them were on regular visit to the Soviet Block countries for fraternal meetings, education, and treatments. The roster was so long that it became well nigh impossible to keep surveillance on all of them. The most interesting case was that of a member of parliament, who regularly received a pay packet from the Soviet embassy for covering certain segments of the kitchen cabinet of Indira Gandhi. In fact, the Soviets had succeeded in considerably influencing a large number of educationists, literatures, artists and opinion makers.

My activities had attracted the attention of a left affiliated Muslim intellectual, who claimed to be a historian and an expert in diplomatic skills. He approached me through a common friend of the university campus and wanted me to meet a diplomat of the Soviet embassy. His temerity surprised and shocked me. I declined the offer and kept my superior informed. This intellectual historian and expert in diplomacy had succeeded in cultivating certain members of the coterie around Indira Gandhi. He considered himself as an architect of India’s pro-Soviet Afghan policy. He had managed to gather around him a few Pushtun expatriates and peddled that ‘achievement’ as India’s vanguard amongst the Pakistani and Afghan Pushtuns. Indeed his blind faith in the rouble had blinded him to the realities of tribal politics in Afghanistan and the pioneering role played by a towering Pushtun to demand integration of the Pushtun dominated areas of present Pakistan with India.

However, my tryst with Soviet counter-intelligence unit was short lived. I had started trampling over too many powerful toes and focusing the arc lamp on a grey area that was dear to the communists as well as to some factions of the ruling party. Deeper penetration of the forces won over by the Soviet Block by an intelligence agency had irked a number of important secular and democratic opinion makers.

For reasons unknown to me I was directed to take up the reins of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, Delhi. I was not sure what had hit me and I could not determine if I should celebrate my assumed ‘elevation’ to one of the lever-pedals of the Director, Intelligence Bureau. Much later I was told that the Prime Minister’s office had desired my posting to the position that was supposed to carry out some of the ‘dirty jobs’ of the power centre.