Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (70 page)

Other trends that amazed me at that point of time were bitter hostility between Murli Manohar Joshi and Gobindachariya. His relationship was also not exactly smooth with Atal Bihari Vajpayee. L.K. Advani too was often intolerant of Gobindachariya’s charismatic display of understanding of the ground level politics. The top leadership was, as I understood, weary of the brilliance of the man, who, given the opportunity could replace them even before he reached geriatric maturity, a brand speciality of the RSS. But he brushed aside my subtle hints by saying that the Sangh was a well-knit family and he did not expect any trouble from any quarter. Events later proved that his brilliance was his undoing. He is a visionary, not a politician. The power hubs in the Parivar and the party were simply not ready to allow him to grow beyond a point. Gobindachariya, to my assessment, is a revolutionary spark. He has the material to make the grade of a top national leader, a real secular one, whose vision is not blurred by fanaticism. He recognises that India is a multicultural, multi-religious and multiethnic country, where there is enough space for everyone. I wish he can touch the finishing line.

The Intelligence Bureau had built up an impressive array of evidence about the real intentions of the Sangh Parivar and its associates and had kept Narasimha Rao and his Home Minister updated on all possible scenario. To honour the gentleman’s agreement I shared whatever information and assessment I managed to gather with the Director. I did not renege on the Sangh Parivar and its Hindu ideology. I simply did not agree with the strategic decision that was being implemented by the hawkish leaders simply for grabbing political power. I had no doubt in my mind that militant Hindu outburst would be reciprocated by the Islamist forces from within and outside. That would be an unfortunate day for the country, more unfortunate than the attack on the Golden Temple by the Indian Army on another 6th day in June 1984, just eight years ahead of the shameful day on 6th December, 1992.

Just before that catalytic event I happened to meet L. K. Advani along with Piyush Goyal, son of Ved Prakash Goyal. The astute politician that he is Advani tried his best to draw up a thin film between his intrinsic intensions and my inquisitive enquiries. He harped on the public slogan of symbolic Karseva at Ayodhya and assured that generation of controlled impulses was aimed at enhancing Hindu ‘
chetna
’ (consciousness) and using the newfound booster to fire the political rocket of the BJP. His slow but shrill words could not camouflage his real intentions and that of the Sangh Parivar. His eyes betrayed him. His words did not vibe with his looks. I returned with one conclusion that Advani, like most other politicians, was an expert in the art of camouflage. I was left with no doubt that the Sangh was determined to commit a bigger blunder than imposition of emergency and marching of the troops to the Golden Temple by Indira Gandhi. I sulked over the shock and prepared myself to witness another cataclysmic event.

IN SEARCH OF THE KERNEL

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehood which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplace, but which all experience refutes.

John Stuart Mill

My renewed association with the Pakistan Counter Intelligence Unit (PCIU) turned out to be a torrid affair. Before I proceed with my tryst with the professional subject I love most, I think, I it is better to have a look at the situation obtaining in the subcontinent and the region.

Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination had left a political vacuum in the country. The Indira Congress, once again rejected in North India, was resurrected by sympathy vote in the South after Rajiv’s tragic assassination. For a while it appeared, though tragically, that Congress could win an election only on sympathy or negative vote. Whatever it is, the badly divided and rudderless party finally accepted a retiring senior politician from the South, P. V. Narasimha Rao as Rajiv’s successor. The chronic Nehru-Gandhi followers felt that it was a temporary compromise. They wanted Sonia Gandhi to step in. But the wise lady decided against it. She knew that India and even the regional Congress satraps were not ready to accept a person of foreign origin as the prime minister of India. Whatever it is, a marginally minority Indira Congress government headed by Rao was in position at the Centre, though the warring factions continued to look up to Sonia Gandhi to lead the party.

A veteran politician and a scholar at that Rao was not new to the corridors of political intrigues, power brokering and marketing the Indian brand of democracy he headed. His anxiety to overcome the handicap of arithmetical deficiency in the Lower House of the Parliament had propelled him to orient his telescope towards the smaller parties like the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the genetically defined defector Ajit Singh and his group of lawmakers. He was ably aided by god man Chandra Swami and N.K. Sharma, another astrologer cum soothsayer, who was dubbed as Rao’s
raj jyotishi
(court astrologer). In fact, Sharma was another troubleshooter like Chandra Swami. Rao’s political aides like Buta Singh, Satish Sharma and other hunter-gatherers were deployed to sniff around and spread the baits for the perennial ‘
ayarams and gayarams
’ (defectors).

A close Indira Congress friend had approached me for exploiting my supposed closeness to one of the collectors and gatherers of Ajit Singh. I was in no mood to oblige the friend for two reasons: he was trying to dump Sonia Gandhi and ingratiating with Rao for a ministerial berth.

I did not like the deceptive pout of the PM. His supposed direction to a political adventurer from Assam, MMM Singh to influence me was the most insulting experience I ever had with any political creature. I literally reprimanded the bully and advised him to try his muscle in Assam. Rao was beset with scandals. Association with Chandra Swami had smeared his name. Later came in the sordid episodes of Harshad Mehta, the stock market plunderer. Personally I rated Rao as one of the worst hunter-gatherer of Indian politics. His alleged corrupt practices had fattened his own pocket and not the party coffers. His scholarly slough did glitter but like that of a black cobra.

Though I had positive aversion for Rao, I acted under moral pressure of my friend and made a bridge between him and the fabulous collector and gatherer from Western UP. However, Satish Sharma and god man Chandraswami edged my friend out of the manoeuvres. As long as I was associated with the informal negotiations I was given to understand that the US educated Jat scion, the perennial defector, was not likely to settle for less than Rupees 500 million. I had kept the Director IB informed about the personal request made by the emissary of the PM and the lines of action I intended to adopt. He was not happy to hear what I had to say and cautioned me to tackle the new PM cautiously, as he enjoyed the reputation of a ‘friendly hangman.’ He was not to be trusted. V. G. Vaidya, a Maharashtrian should know better as Rao had spent his formative period in Maharashtra and had significant brushes with the RSS people.

At a later stage Rao managed to cobble up a parliamentary majority by purchasing support of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and other splinter groups and individuals. A number of cooks had cooked that broth for Rao. Some of them, Rao including, had later faced the process of the law for alleged subversion of the constitutional propriety. The law courts rarely convict the high and mighty of India. The priests of the law court (advocates) and the high
mahants
(judges) of the portal of justice and the serpentine process of the law insulate them from the poor and less privileged people, for whom the law of the land often behave like a steam-less locomotive.

Though embroiled in numerous allegations of financial corruption and graft, Rao provided a shaky political stability. His reign, however, was marked by the decline of Sikh terrorism in the Punjab. It was more of a natural death than a sudden death brought about by the state machineries.

By 1992 Pakistan was disillusioned with the Sikh terrorist factions and realised that the ferment in the Indian Punjab could not be sustained by training ideologically inept, angry, hungry and criminalized youths. It was not interested in direct intervention in a territory where Muslim population was insignificant. The fire of hatred fanned by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had almost subsided. The convoluted political ideology of an independent Punjab under Pakistani tutelage did not make any sense to the affluent Sikhs, who had not forgotten the partition scars. The movement, however, chugged along for a little while on exhausting steam before it was firmly put down by a competent police chief and his determined political master. Pakistan too had, in the meantime, found out a better killing field in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan’s fresh drive in Indian Kashmir had coincided with its involvement in Afghanistan and tango with Sikh militancy. The thrust was buoyed up by crucial input from the Inter Services Intelligence managed
mujahideen
outfits, which were floated to fight the Cold War enemy of the USA in Afghanistan and to establish Pakistani stranglehold on strategically and economically important Afghan territory.

The Zia regime had witnessed rapid Islamistaion of Pakistan and growth of sectarian war between the Shias and the Sunnis. Proliferation of sectarian armed groups was encouraged by Saudi Arabia (Wahabi), Iraq (Sunni) and Iran (Shia). For a while Pakistan had emerged as the proxy battleground for Iran and Iraq. The Afghan war fallout and the sectarian clashes proved problematic for the democratic forces. Both Benazir Bhutto (1990-92 and 1997-98) and Nawaz Sharif (1990-93 and 1997-99) had failed to consolidate the democratic forces. The combined forces of the Pakistan Army and the Taliban elements nourished and nurtured by the Pakistani establishment and Al Qaeda al Sulbah and the ISI had scripted a blood-curdling scenario. They envisaged restoration of medieval Islamic rule in Afghanistan, sharpening of sectarian conflicts at home and sharpening of the proxy-war edges against India.

After 1992 the International Islamist Forces headed by Osama bin Laden had set up firm linkages with the Sunni
mujahideen
organisations like Hijb-ul-
Mujahideen
, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Sipaha
Sahab
a, Markaz -Al-Dawa al Irshad, Lashkar-e-Tayeba and scores of other splinter jihadist groups. The ISI had expanded its operational orbits in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Philippines. Its involvement with the Uighur East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in the Xinjiang province of China and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had drawn international attention. The WTO bombing incident highlighted the involvement of Osama bin Laden’s outfit against US targets. It prompted Washington to declare that it was considering branding Pakistan as a terrorist state.

India was badly trapped in police and military actions in the killing field of Kashmir and the new government headed by Narasimha Rao did not succeed in giving political direction for the resolution of the internal problems of Kashmir.

Pakistani operations in India had spilled over the brims of militancy in Punjab and proxy-war in Kashmir. The combined forces of the Joint Intelligence North, Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous and Joint Intelligence X-the three dreaded arms of the ISI expanded to newer fields. They assisted the terrorist groups in the North East (The NSCN-IM, ULFA, BODO and TNLF etc) from their bases in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

The Inter Services Intelligence headed by Lt General Shamsur Rahman Kallue (May 1989-August 1990), Lt. Gen. Assad Durrani (August 1990-March 1992), Lt.Gen. Javed Nasir (March 1992-Ma7 1993), Lt.Gen. Javed Ashraf Khan (May 1993-) thrived under the democratic regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. The extended arm of Pakistani Establishment did not deviate from the committed Pakistani national policy of destabilising the
jahiliya
and
kafir
nation of Hindustan.

Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, an engineer by training was a fundamentalist to the core. A member of the Jammat-e-Islam and Tablighi Jammat he was responsible for escalating the international operations of the ISI and firming up relationship of the Pakistani sectarian and jihadist groups with the forces of the Al Qaeda al Sulbah and the global fundamentalist elements elsewhere.

In fact, from Z.A. Bhutto to Zia-ul-Haq there was no looking back for the most important establishment of Pakistan. It had turned into a pseudo-political organisation under Zia. Absence of political accountability, Russian occupation of Afghanistan and US patronage had conferred upon the ISI an aura of invincibility. General Hamid Gul, an enigmatic military leader, had not only masterminded the ISI’s Afghan saga, he had also helped the military regime to fashion its strategic thrust in the Indian Punjab and Kashmir.

*

Though my desk was primarily concerned with Pakistan Counter-Intelligence I formulated the scheme of studying the entire gamut of ISI operations in the subcontinent, proximate geo-political region and its international connectivity and ramifications. I laid stress on exploring the concept of ‘intelligence encirclement’ of India by Pakistan and its direct involvement in promoting and escalating Islamist Jihadist movements in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. V. G. Vaidya, Director IB, was receptive to my ideas and encouraged me to enlarge the orbits of activities beyond the charter drawn up about 3 decades ago.

A section of the senior hierarchy had opposed my plan for studying Pakistan’s intelligence, sabotage and subversion activities by a centralised unit of the IB. The territorial section heads were opposed to the idea of an essentially counter-intelligence unit taking over the burden of studying, analysing and devising ways and means to thwart the ISI operations regionally and globally. They wanted me to keep confined to the beaten track of catching embassy-based spies once in a while. They were not unaware of the need for such a centralised unit. Nevertheless they were opposed to the idea of some smart Alec grabbing the credit lines. I did not bow to their demands simply because they themselves were doing precious little to combat the main enemy of India. I had not succeeded in convincing them of the need for studying the ISI as a whole, but I did not yield to their parochial pressure. I had seen enough of these dark tunnel mice, which were afraid of sunlight. There was no option but to ignore them and to make an honest effort to prepare a comprehensive paper on the ISI operations. I knew I was taking on too many heavyweights who formed the inner layer of the onion. Failing to resist my rationale by any credible alternative they agreed grudgingly, only to stab me from the back, at a moment when I became most vulnerable to adverse political pressures.

Under the stewardship of V. G. Vaidya I redefined the operational techniques of the counter-intelligence unit and added fresh inputs from the TechInt wings, which I headed a couple of months ago. Modernisation of technical inputs and adoption of pro-active surveillance measures had helped the PCIU in neutralising over half a dozen embassy-based operatives of the ISI and MI. The unit operatives succeeded in unearthing several ISI networks spanning the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The pressure on the embassy-based operatives was increased by several degrees, which invited matching retaliation from the ISI against Indian diplomatic personnel in Pakistan. PCIU operations were reciprocated, often brutally, by the ISI. A sister intelligence organisation approached the Prime Minister’s office to advice me to slow down. After a particular act of brutalisation of a suspected Indian intelligence officer in Islamabad I was asked by the PMO to go slow and not to demand open declaration of ‘persona non grata’ status for neutralised ISI/PMI operatives. They were, henceforth, to be deported without fanfare. However, restraint on the Indian side was not reciprocated by Pakistan. The ISI continued its brutalisation process. But, I must assert that for a couple of years we had succeeded in restraining considerably the embassy-based operations of the JIM, JIX wings of the ISI and the Pak MI.

Certain constrains prevent me from discussing some of the important counter-intelligence operations. But to quote a diplomat of a western country, as narrated to me by an Indian journalist, “India has put the heat on Pakistan after a long time. They are simply starving for intelligence.”

The credit for this goes to my colleagues, who laboured ungrudgingly and tolerated my ‘jihadist’ attitude with smiling faces. I enjoyed working with the young officers. One of them, a discarded junior officer, was resurrected by me and was placed inside an important coterie of Pakistani collaborators after giving him a foolproof Muslim cover. The cover had lasted until I retired and the daredevil officer had rendered salutary services to the country. I must plug in the temptation of telling a few more stories to protect a number of ongoing operations by the PCIU.