Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (41 page)

The Asiad and the CHOGM might have had added to the international image of Indira and Rajiv. But they were slipping into deep political instability. Soon after the Andhra Pradesh fiasco Haryana election results gave a serious jolt to Indira. The Congress lost to the forces headed by the Jat patriarch Devi Lal.

The Intelligence Bureau and the PMH pressed my services to sabotage Devi Lal’s electoral success. The first task was to arrange a meeting between Indira Gandhi and Devi Lal. The Jat patriarch was in no mood to meet the Prime Minister. He received me well and offered heavily milked tea spiced with cloves and green cardamom. His thick eyebrows often danced to his moods of anger, frustration and indignation. But I had succeeded in softening the loveable towering figure to ‘accidentally meet’ Indira briefly inside a lift in the Parliament house. The planned meeting took place and subsequently they met twice to discuss the political scenario in Haryana.

The other task, ‘Operation Harit’, involved weaning away some of the Haryana legislative assembly members to Indira Congress. This was the third time that I was commissioned to act against a constitutionally elected assembly. However, intelligence operatives enjoy the only privilege: silently carry out government orders, be it illegal and extra constitutional. This operation dismayed me and gave rise to serious doubt about the performance of Indira Gandhi. I was forced to re-evaluate my romantic appreciation of the lady, who ‘rescued India from the errand boys of J. P. Movement.’

This dirty task was achieved rather easily. In this game Khurshid Ahmed, Banarasi Das Gupta and Devi Lal’s son Ranjit Singh, (all Haryana politicians) played crucial roles. No money passed through my hand, but I believe the PMH had defrayed huge amount of funds directly to the political personalities. It’s better not to speculate on the amount that changed hands. The final evaluators had decided that the soul of each legislator should have a different price tag-varying between Rupees one million to five million. The principal motivators received hundred million and above.

The electoral defeat in Haryana was turned in to an ‘
ayaram gayaram
’ (defection) brand political victory. Chowdry Bhajan Lal had finally arrived as another piece of passing cloud in the political firmament of Haryana and Delhi. I did not try to cultivate this wily politician. My task was well defined and I was supposed to leave the matters to the initiative of the PMH after ‘Operation Harit” was concluded.

During this operation I bled from the pricks that my conscience normally suffered. However, I had already passed the stage of initiation and had graduated as one of the witch-priests of the Intelligence Bureau, which presided over most of the black acts and deeds of the ruling masters. I had become an integral part of the ‘establishment’, which was in no way accountable to the people and their constitutional institutions. Pleasing the masters was the greatest yardstick of efficiency. To be useful to the ‘designated consumer’ was the key to success. And in India the designated consumers are the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. However, again I peeped inside and found that my birth-mate, the two squirrels, were still there and was not paralysed by the morphine of power.

*

The Andhra fiasco and Haryana rope trick inexorably proved that Indira was heading towards another political slide. The Punjab situation had started eroding her Hindu vote bank. She was haunted by the Antulay scandal, the Kuo Oil deal, the Bhagalpur blinding and communal riots in Uttar Pradesh. Assam continued to breathe heavily on her shoulder. The AASU had almost paralysed the state administration. The Nellie massacre, in which the Muslim community were very adversely affected, had cast a doubt on Indira’s capability to rule the country.

On the western flank Afghanistan was on fire. India’s Afghanistan policy was not compatible with the geo-political realities of the region. India failed to assess that Pakistan had transformed itself to a breeding ground of Islamist jehadees in the ruse of fighting the communist regime in Kabul. The expertise achieved by the Inter Services Intelligence and the military establishment in engineering armed guerrilla warfare and refining the rough edges of proxy warfare was not likely to end with the fall of Babrak Karmal regime and humiliating retreat by the Soviet forces. Afghanistan was a training ground for Zia—ul-Haq and his fundamentalist coterie. He was soon to transfer the theatre of proxy war to India, Punjab to start with and Kashmir to end up as the final conclusion of the ‘unfinished agenda’ of partition.

I had taken up two operational projects to infiltrate an Indian agent into an ISI run
mujahideen
training camp at Spin Khwar in NWFP, bordering Afghanistan without any knowledge of the R&AW. The talent, an Afghan Pushtun, was trained for two months and was inducted into the Gulbudin Hikmatyar faction of the
mujahideen
force. He successfully returned to his launching base in India and his debriefing proved conclusively that the CIA and ISI were training Arab, Malayan, Indonesian, Philipino, Bangladeshi and other Muslim volunteers in addition to the Afghans. He specifically mentioned about the presence of two Sikhs at a camp near Isha Khel in Pakistani Punjab.

Another agent infiltrated with the Sikh pilgrimage jatha that visited Pakistan in 1982 had brought back conclusive proof of the involvement of the ISI with some of the Indian Sikh delegates.

However, the supervisory Joint Director in charge of Punjab desk did not think much of these reports. He was, as I mentioned earlier, in the habit of sitting over complicated reports and killing the issues by allowing the arrow of time to pass him by. It was an impossible task to motivate him to appreciate a piece of raw intelligence and connect it up with the bigger mosaic. He was happy with the preparation of the routine daily reports on Punjab situation, cutting the Ts and dotting the Is. I found it difficult to induce him that ‘operational approach’ inside the extremist superstructure of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale should be blended with normal intelligence collection and data compilation. A few of my proposals to infiltrate ‘operational agents’ inside Dal Khalsa, Akhand Kirtani Jatha, and the Dam Dami Taksal were turned down on the plea that Punjab was out of my jurisdiction. I failed to climb over the dead wall. But my tryst with Punjab had just begun.

There is a common perception that the Sikh Frankenstein, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was a creation of Indira Congress leaders like Giani Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi. It’s not the entire truth, though the marks of chiselling by Indira Gandhi’s younger son and the former chief minister of Punjab are distinctly discernible on the ‘terrorist profile’ of the preacher from Dam Dami Taksal.

Sikh communalism is as much an integral part of the rise and growth of communal politics in the late 19th and early twentieth century, which was marked by creation of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), followed by the formation of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). That particular period of British occupation of India was the real crucible of growth of the concept of nationalism based on religion. The concept of Sikh separatism has often been labelled as ‘total separation’ of umbilical ties with Hinduism. True as it may be it should also be realised that there existed and still exists a distinct streak of geo-political separatism amongst a section of the Sikh intelligentsia and religious stalwarts. Seeds of separatism lay buried below the garbage of ‘identity crisis’ and sprout into life whenever the STATE becomes vulnerable. Today’s Pakistan may have decided to go easy on the Punjab issue. It would not be prudent to believe that they would develop permanent amnesia. Punjab continues to be a potent fault line.

*

The rise of Bhindranwale was simply not sparked off by conflict between ‘religious semantics’ between the pure Sikhs and the ‘deviated sect’ called the Nirankaris. The tectonic shifts in Punjab’s geo-politics and economic activities had played a distinct role. This was compounded by the threat of demographic nightmare and Hindu intransigence. The politicians, both the Congress and the Akalis, contributed liberally to the aggravation of the political ambience.

It would not be prudent to put a marker on 14th April, 1978, being the holy date when Sikh terrorism was born. An unimaginative and tactless Janata Party government had allowed the Nirankari
samagam
(congregation) to take place at Amritsar on the holiest day of the Sikhs, the day the Khalsa Panth was created by the Tenth Guru. The ruling Akali Dal government in Chandigarh had conveniently forgotten its demand enshrined in the infamous and indiscreet Anandpur Sahib resolutions.

Sanjay Gandhi did not engineer the events of 14th April. It had brought Jarnail Singh closer to Zail Singh and Sanjay, who discovered in the fiery rabble-rouser the potential of a fundamentalist of radioactive proportions. They expected him to decimate the Akali brand of fundamentalists and bring back Indira Congress to power in the border state. They were in direct contact with the priest from Dam Dami Taksal, the fountainhead of Sikh fundamentalism. This was borne out of the fact that Bhindranwale and his ‘youth brigade’ of the All India Sikh Student Federation, Dal Khalsa, Akhand Kirtani Jatha as well as the grassroots level
pathis
(one who recites the scripture),
granthis
(custodian of the Holy Book), and
dadhi
and kirtani
jathas
(ballad and devotional singers) owing allegiance to the Taksal had campaigned for Indira Congress candidates in all the three regions of Punjab, especially for Sukhbinder Kaur, wife of Sanjay crony P. S. Bhinder.

I was once called upon, in May 1981 to contact a relative of Jarnail Singh and bring him to Delhi for a meeting with the home minister. I had fortunately met the young nephew of Jarnail Singh at Ganganagar just a couple of months back. I picked up young Jasbir Singh and a personal aide to Jarnail Singh from Shardulgarh on Haryana border and drove them straight to the official residence of the home minister. They went back with two fat shoulder bags. I was asked to drop them at Mansa near Bhatinda. I did my job with the characteristic silence of a deaf, dumb and blind intelligence operative.

Indira Congress’ victory in the 1980 elections strengthened the unholy bonds between Zail Singh and Bhindranwale. The home minister spurred the district authorities to issue arms licence to the followers of Jarnail Singh, which were later used in criminal activities. Zail Singh was not satisfied with the ministerial berth in Delhi. He incited the Bhindranwale extremists against the Indira Congress chief minister Darbara Singh, who had gathered courage to arrest the errant priest from Chowk Mehta gurdwara on September 20. Zail Singh had certified the innocence of Jarnail Singh on the floor of the Parliament when he was released from custody on October 14, 1981.

Jarnail Singh’s much hyped visits to Delhi, Nanded Sahib in Maharashtra and other places were patronised by Zail Singh even after the intelligence and security organisations had furnished ample evidence on the priest’s involvement in terrorist activities and target assassination. His visits to Delhi were marked by a few queer developments.

I was tasked to keep discreet but intensive watch on the activities of Jarnail Singh. The usual mechanism of deploying HumInt and TechInt were achieved without much fuss. But Zail Singh personally dictated the trickiest task. He wanted me to record the speeches and discourses of Jarnail Singh and carry the tapes personally to his residence. My colleague Ajaib Singh performed the job with appreciable alacrity. But the most difficult task was to carry the tapes to the residence of Zail Singh and wait till he finished listening to the lengthy harangues of the rabidly communal priest.

Zail Singh’s evenings belonged to himself. The burly Sikh was usually prostrated on his rope knitted poor man’s cot with the usual whisky glasses by his side and a massive masseur all over his oily body. He did not speak any kind of legible English and my Punjabi was as atrocious as was Swahili to a Greek. A student of language and philology, I picked up the language in all its forms in 1983, soon after my posting to the Indian High Commission in Canada. But way back in 1980-82 the loveable rustic home minister conversed in Punjabi and I replied in Hindi. He was surprised to meet a strange police officer, who was not a connoisseur of whisky. His rustic simplicity had charmed me, though I was conscious that below his skin he excelled in political manoeuvres. That dusky side of his character was caught in a camera on a night when he visited Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and was closeted with Jarnail Singh for over an hour. No one in Delhi expected the Union home minister to prostrate before the priest turned goon and compromise the security of the country. I believe Indira Gandhi was not amused to witness the blazing evidences of her home minister’s acts of indiscretion.

She was further frustrated by reports on a couple of visits of Zail Singh to the residence of Amteshwar Anand, including a visit on the day he was elevated to the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Zail Singh enjoyed a special bond with Sanjay and his wife’s family. I had not forgotten the scene when the wily Sikh leader had bent down to touch Sanjay’s feet soon after he was administered the oath of office at the Ashoka Hall in 1980.

I believe Indira Gandhi had directed her internal intelligence chief to file a complete profile on Zail Singh’s relationship with the Anand family. As the chief of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau I added my input to the broad-spectrum report, the contents of which were not of endearing nature. His elevation to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, however, could not insulate Zail Singh from the ferments of Sikh politics and the love and affection for the family of Sanjay Gandhi’s wife. He had never developed a liking and respect for the ‘
hawai kaptan
’; the pilot turned Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.