Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (63 page)

My Nepali guide whispered that the illegal miners who poached into the forested area and extracted some yellow rock that contained radioactive uranium might have fired the shots. The crudely processed mineral was marketed to entrepreneurs based in Calcutta and Kathmandu. A part of the product went down to Bangladesh and probably to Pakistan. I watched the situation for a while fired back from my pistol. That was enough to propel the heels of the illegal miners, who mostly carried single barrel guns. The human asset meeting was aborted and we decided to spend the night in a Nepali village.

I need not go into the details of the military operations. Operation Bajrang offered us a mixed bag. The infected layers of the Assam administration had leaked out information about the impending Army operations. Most of the camps were abandoned by the ULFA, some in the nick of the moment, leaving behind huge cash (over Rupees 50 million) and gold bars. Certain recovered materials indicated that the ULFA leaders and cadres either believed in family planning or took abundant precaution against AIDS. They enjoyed sex!

The ULFA leaders and most of the armed cadre used country boats to negotiate the riverine area. The top leadership sneaked into Bangladesh and the majority of the cadre took refuge in the forested tracts of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Most them melted into the rural areas.

*

Operation Bajrang coincided with the collapse of the National Front government headed by Vishwanath Pratap Singh. The honest and well-intentioned person was fired by vague ideals and was not steeled into the furnace of real politics. He was not a better pilot than Rajiv was.

The old con artists of Indian politics Chandrashekhar and Devi Lal had already ganged up with Rajiv Gandhi, who was more eager to write the political epitaph for V.P. Singh than bouncing back to power. Rajiv was aware that the chances for securing parliamentary majority immediately after V.P. Singh’s removal were dim. The con artists were cultivated to provide an interlude and an embarrassed President, who was not left with any other alternative, swore in Chandrashekhar as the Prime Minister. There was no second contender for the crown that was booby trapped with Mandal,
Ramjanambhoomi
and myriads of internal security and deteriorating economic problems. On top of everything Rajiv’s carpet spreaders were ready to remove the ornate piece of support at any point of time. Chandrashekhar knew that he was ensconced on an uncomfortable throne, but he had dreamt of this throne all his active political life. Rajiv Gandhi, like Harun-al-Rashid had sanctioned the
padatik
a brief dream.

Curiously enough, around the same time the Pakistani Establishment had succeeded in installing Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. But strategic observers and analysts could not agree on a probable scenario that could bring in a thaw in Indo-pak relationship. And Chandrashekhar was shackled by the unique legacy of 11 incumbents in the ministry of external affairs falling under the domino action since Rajiv Gandhi had taken over in 1985. It was beyond the legendary
padatik
to put the Indo-Pak relations on an even keel.

My tryst with Assam operations came to an abrupt end soon after the new government took over in Delhi. I received telephonic instructions to return to Delhi. On arrival I was told that the minister of state for home affairs Subodh Kant Sahay wanted to see me.

I have had no occasion to meet Subodh Kant, a politician from Daltonganj in Bihar. The Jayaprakash Narayan movement against Indira Gandhi regime had popped him up in Bihar politics and the V.P Singh movement against Rajiv Gandhi had brought him to the parliament. A person with known socialist leaning he was somewhat attached to Chandrashekhar.

I found Subodh Kant virtually surrounded by a contingent of six officers hailing from Bihar, some belonging to the IAS and other to the IPS and assorted services. He had allocated specific tasks to his aides in the home ministry. One looked after the Ramjanambhoomi/ Babri Mosque dispute and the others assisted him in developmental activities in his constituency, transfer and posting of officers and liaison with the central police forces. I was supposed to be the seventh addition to his personal office.

Subodh was forthright in his approach. He was, he said, sincere to solve the Punjab problem and problem in Assam and wanted to avail of my services to facilitate his mission. The proposal surprised me. The Intelligence Bureau is an appended department of the Union Home Ministry. I was readily available for his Punjab and Assam operations, in case he so keenly desired to avail of my services. But he insisted on my joining his personal staff. I asked for a day to toss over the idea in my mind.

R.P. Joshi was under order of transfer to the Joint Intelligence Committee and he was to be replaced by M. K. Narayanan. Joshi was a harmless person and he had not donned on any political pyjama like Narayanan was identified with Rajiv Gandhi. Joshi’s advice to me was to get out of the IB for a while during the fluid political changes.

I was kicked around for two days. The Union Home Secretary and his Additional Secretary were opposed to the idea of adding the seventh aide to the minister. Finally I was asked to join Home Ministry on deputation as a Joint Secretary. I opposed the idea. The Chandrashekhar government was an overnight guest, which occupied the North and South Block rooms by courtesy of Rajiv Gandhi. The next government could terminate my deputation and send me either to the refuse bin of OOCOW, Officer On Compulsory Waiting or back to my state cadre that I had left, almost haunted by the CPM way back in 1967-68.

At my insistence a compromise formula was worked out by the Cabinet Secretary, which allowed me to remain on the strength of the IB and work in the office of MoS Home. I was entitled to draw my pay and allowances from the Intelligence Bureau. My colleagues and well wishers were amused by the queer arrangement and my adamant attitude of sticking to the IB. I did so intentionally to prove that I was not running away from the IB out of fear. I wanted to assert my moral right to be in the IB, after having spent about 23 years in the organisation as an ‘earmarked’ officer. Some officers in the IB construed my moral stand as an act of foolishness. Others waited in the wings with machetes and kirsches to extract their pounds of flesh and ounces of blood, simply because they believed that I was a smarter Alec. To them IB was either pro-Narayanan or anti-Narayanan and India was either with Rajiv Gandhi or with the Devil. They had no alternative to name, after having ‘betrayed’ by V.P. Singh.

I reported to the office of the MoS Home a day before R.P Joshi was replaced by M.K. Narayanan. I was assigned the mouthful designation of Special Assistant to the Home Minster. I felt painfully lost inside the walls of the North Block rooms and very uncomfortable in facing crowds of favour seekers and dough makers. Professionally too I felt emasculated having been separated from my favourite operational fields in Punjab, PCIU and Assam. I was not cut out for the job of living as the shadow of a minister. This coveted job was normally chased by the WDF (wheeler, dealer and fixer) Officers from the Indian Administrative Service.

My ill reputation being a square peg in round hole was exemplified by a couple of funny incidents that were thrust upon me by the corridor stalkers.

There was this Bannu (not real name), a turbaned Sikh from Punjab who wanted an ambassadorial assignment anywhere in the world that hosted an Indian Mission. He was ready with fat moneybags and a strong recommendation from Chandra Swami as well as from Simranjit Singh Mann. He stalked around the corridors of the PMO and the Home Ministry. Some chance miscalculation on the part of the astute stalker brought him to my office room. He was under the impression that the windows to the inner chambers of Rajiv Gandhi were open to me and I could put a word to the proxy Prime Minister. He opened up his mind and a briefcase to offer me a tidy amount of Rupees 200,000. I persuaded him to realise that he was scattering the pearls before a pig. In fact, he should have gone to one of the aides to Rajiv Gandhi. He promptly closed the bag and later bagged the ambassadorial assignment to an African country after liberally contributing to the funds of the Prime Minister and the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs. Incidentally the enterprising person had also earned the kind pouts of P. V. Narasimha Rao, courtesy Chandra Swami. The Indian PM was persuaded by the Swami and the ambassador to make an important diplomatic visit to a key African country called Burkina Faso.

I don’t want to burden my readers with too many examples of my brush with the stalkers and the grabbers, who are far too many. But I must narrate the story of a senior officer of the Indian Police Service, who chased a top slot in a central police organisation. By the time Chandrashekhar had taken over the reins of the country such posts were auctioned and awarded to the highest bidders. Most of them operated through two personal aides of the PM and some of them operated through Chandra Swami and his henchman
Mamaji
alias K.N. Agarawal. The police officer approached me after being almost out bided by a fellow colleague. Another aide to the minister coordinated service matters and I was scrupulously kept out of such transactions. Out of sheer desperation the officer walked into my room and offered me a fat amount for obtaining the signature of the MoS on his file. I had ceased to be surprised by such offers. They came accidentally to my corridor and lighted up the chambers of my cranial storehouse. I feasted on these incidents but not on the offerings they brought. I simply took pity on the senior officer, walked into the room of the minister, and told him that my senior service colleague was ready to renegotiate the post. The minister obliged with a smile and directed me to request the Home Secretary to push up his file.

*

Before I traverse back to the killing field of Punjab I must do a little plain speaking about the roles Chandra Swami and
Mamaji
played in running the affairs of the state and in acting as convenient siphon for the high and mighty in the land. The Swami acted as an intermediary in almost all the deals that Chandrashekhar could manage to conclude during the chance of a lifetime offered by Rajiv Gandhi. However, some of the defence, petroleum and heavy industry related deals were efficiently handled by Chandrashekhar’s personal aides.

I met
Mamaji
for the second and last time in the office of the minister of state for home affairs. His said that his intensions were honourable and he wanted to liberate me from the misery of pecuniary constraints for all time to come. The Prime Minister, he said, was interested in two particular import deals. But he hesitated to clinch the issue, as he was aware of Rajiv Gandhi’s live interest in the matter. Would I be good enough to speak to an aide of Rajiv Gandhi and request him to mediate an honourable solution between the former and the present Prime Minister? My visitor was ready to oblige me with a reward of Rupees five million for the services rendered.

I pondered over the offer and counted my pulse beat. My bank balance of Rupees 21,000 was good enough for rainy days. I was in the midst of negotiation with a nationalised bank to raise loan to purchase an apartment house. My deduction was that five million would accelerate my heartbeats beyond control and I would end up in an intensive care unit.
Mamaji
was sagacious to increase the offer to seven million to help me to tide over the financial crisis I was passing through. His depth of knowledge of my financial status amazed me. However, I managed to humour the Aladdin and later confirmed from a very delicate source that indeed there were nascent and sprouting tensions between Chandrashekhar and Rajiv Gandhi over some undefined financial deals. I dropped the hot potato and begged excuse of the Aladdin as politely as I could without ruffling his remaining few strands of hair. His departing words were prophetic: ‘you’ll die a poor man.’

It is a common knowledge that Rajiv Gandhi was mighty unhappy over inclusion of Sanjay Singh and Maneka Gandhi in Shekhar ministry. Rajiv Gandhi’s missives to Chandrashekhar on IMF loan, direct talks with Punjab militants, foreign policy matters, imposition of President’s rule in Tamilnadu and the complex issue of surveillance on Rajiv by ‘henchmen’ of Om Prakash Chauthala, Devi Lal’s son, are also attributed to be the provocations behind withdrawal of Indira Congress support from Chandrashekhar government.

These subterranean skirmishes were aggravated by the Intelligence Bureau reports and private studies that the time had come for Rajiv to go to the polls and harvest 280 seats. Rajiv was again wrongly advised. I had pointed this out to Dhawan, but he had very little say in the matter. Rajiv was very much guided by his intelligence fraternity. This scenario dramatis again proved that ‘friendship’ between the Chief Executive and his ‘Chief Spy’ often generated disastrous consequences. The history of Goerings, Berias and Hoovers should serve as exemplary illustrations.

I think it would be in the interest of current Indian history to carry out a study on the conflict of interest between the puppet and the puppeteer over certain financial deals. That was said to be the immediate provocation for sudden removal of the carpet.

*

Minister Subodh Kant was a regular visitor to the Safdarjung Enclave abode of Chandra Swami. Some of his deals relating to purchases made for the police and paramilitary forces in Assam and Punjab were routed through Chandra Swami. A particular jeep deal for Assam was clinched after the minister and the targeted supplier had an exclusive meeting at the abode of the Swami.

I had almost irritated the minister by my persistent refusal to go inside the abode. Whenever I accompanied him I preferred to stay out in the escort car. I refused to meet the Swami even on the issue of his supposed mediation on the
Ramjanambhoomi
issue. Thereafter Subodh Kant kept me out of his private enterprises except on occasions when he demanded fat amounts from the secret service fund of the IB for ‘missions in Punjab and Assam’. I acted as the carrier between two corridors of the North Block and often earned the ire of the IB chief. I had very little to choose between the donor and the beneficiary. It was part of the job and I accomplished it with full knowledge that the secret service funds were not utilised for the purpose these were drawn for.