Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (21 page)

But that day my Mymensinghia Bengali did not satisfy a motley crowd of villagers who stood behind the barrier armed with machetes and spears.

“Are you a Ahomiya (Assamese)?”

Someone asked.

“Are you a Hindu Mymensinghia?”

“Yes,” I replied and asked, “Why are you blocking the traffic?”

“There is a Hindu-Muslim riot here. The Ahomias are trying to grab our land. They attacked two of our villages last night and killed three people.”

“Kill him,” Someone shouted, “This
shala
(an abuse) is a Hindu too.”

A mob of about 12 Muslim youths charged at my car and I was not even armed with a fruit knife. On this tract of journey I did not normally carry the Belgian .9 mm automatic, which had become a part of my life.

My driver, a Lotha Naga, deserted me and took shelter inside the standing jute crop.

Suddenly I noticed a middle aged Muslim, armed with sickles, rushing towards me. The thought of running towards the jute field had flashed past my mind. But I knew the exercise was futile. I wouldn’t survive for more than a few hours in the mud and slush.

“
Hey magir putera
(you sons of bitches),” My rescuer shouted out in pure Mymensinghia Bengali, “
Ya amago manuh, maimansingha bangali. Kichu kartai na ere
.”

Roughly speaking, he shouted at the mob by addressing them as sons of bitches and proclaimed that I was a Bengali from Mymensingh and they should not harm me.

The magic worked. The armed vandals stopped inches away from my neck.

My rescuer introduced himself as Kusum Mian, headman of the village, and a migrant Muslim from Kuliarchar, a village in the vicinity of our village Kamalpur. I followed Kusum Mian to his house and his wife Shiuli Khatoon, wearing a sari and Hindu style conch shell bangles and a spot of vermilion spot on the parting of her hair served us tea and
muri
(puffed rice). Kusum Mian’s men fished out the Lotha driver from the jute field mud and after about an hour of friendly bonhomie with my fellow village folks from Mymensingh I left for Nowgong.

I must mention that Kathiatoli was not far from Nellie and other Muslim inhabited villages, which had witnessed ghastly communal carnage, only a couple of years later. The land hungry Ahomiya crowd had massacred the Mymensinghias of a couple of villages. My enquiries about the welfare of Kusum and Shiuli indicated that they had migrated to Barpeta in lower Assam. I lost touch with him after 1994.

Kusum and Shiuli are typical Hindu names. Modern day Islamic Bengalis may find the idea of assigning Hindu names to their children as abominable as eating forbidden meat. However, there were times when the Muslim populace of Bengal freely borrowed from the Bengali storehouse rather than falling back on characteristic Arabic and Urdu names.

Crouching on my cold bed at Shillong that night I did not reflect on the tasking assigned by the Governor. I did not even bother to browse my scrapbook that contained instructions from my boss. I had closed my eyes and concentrated on Kusum Mian and Shiuli Khatoon. They did not only save my life, but they rekindled the fond memories of another Muslim, Rehman, who was a bonded labour of my family in East Pakistan and who saved our lives from the riotous mob way back in 1950. Their faces helped me thinning down my anger and diluting my hatred. The angels do not come with fanfare and when they come their wings do not carry the stamps of religion. I developed a serious doubt about my concept of civilisational enmity between the Muslims and me. It was further diluted when I happened to meet Mirza Hatem Suhrawardy in 1980, in a serpentine narrow alley behind Delhi’s Jama Masjid.

A PEOPLE ON THE CROSS

“I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfil the scripture: ‘He who shares my bread has lifted his heel against me’.”

JOHN 12:18 (The Last Supper)

Jesus is the classic example of right thinking people being crucified for disagreeing with the Establishment, either for real or perceived faith in a cause. Jesus had run afoul of the Establishment of his time. He was killed cruelly. The Naga people had run into trouble because the British and Indian administrations did not really know what to do with an assorted people, who were different from rest of the Indians and who were not administered by any Establishment till the British overpowered them. The British did not hang them. They were happy to proselytise and pamper and often punish the unruly Nagas. The Indians, on the contrary, were not sure what to do with a people, who were so different from the rest of the Indians, and who were not acquainted with the norms of Indian Establishment. Caught in the euphoria of independence, after the British decided to escape from India, the mainstream Indians decided that independence carried the same connotation to each and every people of the geographical territory defined as India. In fact it did not. Independence to Punjabis and Bengalis meant a millennium of unsung exodus. To the Nagas it meant fear of the uncertain and domination by the people who were as stranger as Martian creatures.

To me independence meant uprooting from my home and seeking refuge in a strange place called ‘India’. To the Nagas independence brought in plenty of apprehension about their total incompatibility with the rest of India-culturally, linguistically and religion wise. India carried the connotation of a foreign land. It carried the meaning of ‘Hindustan’ and not ‘Bengal’ to me. In my case the fault line was repaired over years, as I was just like another Indian inhabiting its eastern wing. In case of the Nagas it took several years to repair to some extent the gaping fault line left by the escaping British. The edges are still dissimilar at several places of the land and minds.

Therefore, as a cog in the Establishment I had taken my posting to Kohima with lots of apprehension. I was apprehensive about my capability to ingratiate with strange people who had just started integrating themselves with the distant political and geographical entity called India. They still disagreed with the mammoth Indian Establishment but had started emulating certain aspects of the system that characterised the Indian fiscal and political ethos, not necessarily societal and moral ethos. They were not hanged. But the Nagas have suffered a lot because of their inability to embrace the Establishment overnight and their apprehensions about losing out to an overwhelmingly ancient and advanced civilisation.

We drove down to on February 02, 1972, in our brand new Fiat to take charge of my new assignment. The drive was short but the journey was long. I had an eerie feeling as I drove into the sleepy town covered in woolly fog and wearing a mask of deceptive peace.

The Naga problem was not new to me. But no one could claim to have known the problem till one lived with the Nagas. I knew very well that my brush with the fringe Naga affairs in Manipur wasn’t good enough to make me any wiser than a marine biologist trying to understand marine lives while leisurely examining the fossils ashore. To get into the grooves of the intricate Naga society wasn’t as easy as grappling with the slightly better defined Manipur affairs.

We did not have much difficulty in setting up our new home. I inherited the house that the IB had rented for my predecessor. It was a dark and dinghy house, next to a burial ground. Sunanda hated the place. Her problems were sorted out within 5 months of my reporting at Kohima, when Koramoa Jamir, the Public Works Department minister in Hokise Sema government, built a fine glasshouse for us atop a hill just below the Governor’s palace. It stood just over the knoll from where the mighty Kohima hills rolled down the Zubza valley.

The funniest aspect about the new home was a query from Delhi: Who paid for it? How come you took a graft from the state government? It took a couple of months to convince Delhi that the house was a gift to the IB by the state government of Nagaland.

J.N. Roy introduced me to some of the leaders of the Naga Nationalist Organisation (NNO), a couple of ministers and a few helpful government officials, who were known to dwell in the shadow zone of divided loyalty. It is better to understand in the context of Nagaland that the smoky screen between the over ground Naga gentry and the underground rebel outfits was very thin. A strong faction in the NNO was supportive of the Naga National Council (NNC), the Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the Naga Army. The United Democratic Front (UDF), a motley collection of pro-Phizo politicians, acted as the float and sinker of the underground movement.

I stepped into a well-organised office and inherited a dedicated band of officers. It was unlike my wild crash-landing in Manipur, where I was denied the benefit of briefing by my predecessor and occupied an office that was hardly geared for tackling the complicated problems of the territory.

Most of the drawbacks of the new office were compensated by the presence of R.P. Joshi over my head. A fine human being and a balanced officer, Joshi had reposed intrinsic trust in me during my Imphal tenure. My resolve to work harder and strengthen his hand was fortified by his trust and faith in me. While Joshi offered me a congenial atmosphere in the office, his wife Tara
didi
(elder sister), who belonged to an illustrious family, took Sunanda and our son
Babu
under her indulgent wings and took care of our home front. That helped me in diving deep into the affairs of Nagaland, which was passing through a crucial stage.

The 1971 war and emergence of Bangladesh and Indira Gandhi’s soaring popularity at home and abroad had generated conflicting reactions among the divided Naga underground movement. The predominant Sema group headed by Kukhato Sukhai, Kaito, and Scato Swu had broken away from the Angami dominated NNC/NFG and had floated the Council of Naga People. The event had later culminated in the formation of the Revolutionary Government of Nagaland (RGM) that challenged the hegemony of the NNC/NFG headed by G. Mehiasiu, the President of the NFG. Z. Ramyo, Home Minister, Mowu Angami, the Naga Army chief, Thinuselie Angami, and Thuingaleng Muivah and others ably supported him. Kevi Yallay, the elder brother of A.Z. Phizo, maintained a hawk eye on the performance of the Phizoites with able assistance from the over ground political leaders, sympathetic bureaucrats and a few church functionaries.

The Phizoite camp too had started developing some fault lines. Th. Muivah an accomplished Tangkhul Naga, was appointed the Naga Ambassador Plenipotentiary to China. He had led a Naga gang to China assisted by Thinouselie Angami in 1966. He returned in 1968 with huge quantities of Chinese arms and a cadre of indoctrinated fighters. However, General N.C. Rawlley of the 8 Mountain Division had engaged the gang at Jotsuma and inflicted heavy casualty.

This incident and the impact of the Sema revolt had sent chilling messages to the Naga underground leaders. The incompatibility between Z. Ramyo and Muivah, two Tangkhul personalities, had come into the open. The two rebels fought for hegemony over the Tangkhul undergrounds, the tribe that provided important vertebrae to the movement.

The concept of ‘Nagaland for Christ’ suffered a jolt from the open bonhomie between the NFG and Communist China. The Naga people were aghast over the idea of surrendering to the atheist Chinese, who were opposed to the values imbibed from the Baptist Mission by the Naga people over decades. They did not like Muivah selling the Christian Nagas to the godless Chinese Communists. These developments had prompted some of the top underground leaders to start weighing the ideas about settling the festering problem with the government of India on honourable terms.

The over ground politics too had taken a murky turn. Hokishe Sema, the Chief Minister, was in favour of making a separate settlement with the breakaway Sema group. His moves had brought about fissure in the ruling party, the NNO. S.C. Jamir, a prominent Ao leader and a former deputy minister in Indira cabinet, spearheaded the breakaway movement. Chuba Toshi Jamir, also an Ao and a minister in Hokise cabinet, joined him. They were supported by the pro-NNC/NFG elements, which strengthened the pro-Phizo United Democratic Front.

But the expectation that the NNC/NFG had started wilting under the physical operations by the Indian Army, headed by General A.R. Dutt, and psychological pressure of losing its base in East Pakistan did not materialise. The Indian Army marked this interim period by the ding-dong scenario of return of Naga gangs from China and interception of several gangs on its own and with the help of the RGN.

The Chinese links and internal resilience of the underground movement had propped up the resolve of the Naga insurgents to carry on their struggle. Support from the breakaway NNO leaders and the UDF too had emboldened the rebel forces. New ties with the Burmese Nagas and Kachin rebels compensated for some of the lost ground in Nagaland-Manipur. New havens were created on the Burmese soil. The Phizoite group initiated a major strike back by ambushing the motorcade of Chief Minister Hokise Sema on national highway 39, just below Kohima, on August 8, 1972. This daring daytime attack had signalled a change in the underground movement.

Following this the Naga underground outfits were declared illegal by the government of India. Governor B.K. Nehru’s broadcast on September 1, over the All India Radio Kohima, had made it clear that the individuals and institutions, which aided and abetted the underground, would be liable to arrest and prosecution. This temporary shock treatment did not deter the underground from escalating its jungle warfare. They responded by recruiting heavily to the ranks of the underground army. The Naga army exhibited its resolve to continue the war of attrition by staging ambushes nearer to Kohima during the evangelical crusade of Billy Graham, the famous US evangelist.

Th. Muivah and Isak Chisi Swu had in the meantime struck understanding with the Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council under the aegis of the Chinese mentors. A separate protocol was reached with the Kachin Independent Army, which later provided sanctuary to Muivah and Isak and facilitated their sojourns to China. The seeds of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) were sown during this period of bonhomie between Muivah, Isak and the Chinese policy planners. Peace took a back seat.

Nevertheless, Hokise Sema was not deterred by the unexpected developments. He was supported by worthy colleagues like J.B. Jasokie, Chingwang Konyak, and Koramoa Jamir and a band of dedicated officers headed by H. Zopianga, the Chief Secretary, and M. Ramunny, who had shifted to Nagaland from Manipur almost around the same time I was transferred out. S. C. Dev, the Commissioner played a central role in fashioning the government approaches to peace and war. In Hokise and Jasokie I found rare specimen of staunch Indian nationalists who were determined to put Nagaland on the rails of peace and economic development. Jasokie, a Catholic in predominantly Baptist Nagaland, was more reserved in nature, but was equally committed to the integrity of the nation.

Here I must mention about a perverted perception of some of the policy planners in Delhi. They treated the Baptist Christians as lesser nationalist than the Catholics. They made some conscious efforts to strengthen the Catholic Missions in Nagaland by encouraging them to open more schools, hospitals and philanthropic organisations. I did not essentially subscribe to this view. The Church in Nagaland played a big role. But there was no tangible evidence that this institution was subversive in nature. Absence of political voice and distances between the vox populi and the ruling elite had facilitated the Church to speak up on behalf of the people. They filled in a gap that existed between the government and the people. However, as an intelligence operator I had to arrange for piercing coverage of the questionable activities of a section of the Church personalities.

In any case, I welcomed the accretion of Malayalee (Keralite) Christian priests and teachers who took advantage of the growth of the Catholic Church in Nagaland and Manipur. They were acceptable to the remotest Naga villages and they did not demur in assisting the security concerns of the country.

I had developed a healthy respect for Hokise Sema even before I joined the Kohima unit of the IB. It happened in September 1969, when the insurgents littered the minister’s hills and other residential areas of Kohima town by mortar shells. I was seated with some colleagues. Hokise did not try to take cover. Instead he went on a whirling tour of the affected areas and some military areas. I witnessed a unique resolve in his face.

“Like the fun?”

He asked while chewing
tambul
(concoction of betel leaf, fermented areca nut and lime).

“Sure I do.”

“You’re welcome. I must make these bloke heads to understand that they can’t get independence. They’ve to settle down within India.”

He moved around the town like a military general and comforted the ordinary policemen shakily guarding the vulnerable areas of the town.

My second strange encounter with him was at the badminton court at the backyard of his official residence. Kohima did not offer any place for games and entertainment. One had to drive down to Imphal or Dimapur to see a movie. The Assam Rifles and the 8 Mountain Division offered some sporting facilities. Hokise’s backyard, therefore, had become a sporting ground for me and some other officers.

That particular day Hokise warmly offered me a
tambul
, which I chewed merrily. I was not aware that
tambul
could have devastating effect on uninitiated connoisseurs. The fermented areca nut juice and the pylocarpin toxin immediately generated heat in my body and I fainted from choking.