Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (22 page)

Later I was told that Hokise had rushed into his house and came out with a fistful of sugar. He had pushed the sugar into my mouth and made me to sip water. I regained consciousness after about 10 anxious minutes. The knowledge I gathered was very important for survival in the North East. The people, rich and poor, are in the habit of chewing
tambul
, with fermented areca nut and a spat of raw lime. The concoction generated sufficient body heat that kept the villagers warm even in the height of winter. I was aghast to see the village folks loitering in scanty cloth amidst wet wintry climate. I had drawn a hasty conclusion that their scantily clad bodies were warmed up by heavy consumption of
madhu
(rice beer) and
ruhi
(fermented grain spirit with high alcohol content). I was wrong. But I never tried to generate heat by chewing
tambul
again. Only lion hearted people of the North East could manage that deadly concoction. I remained happy with the occasional Benarasi
pan
(betel leaf) vended by odd Bihari entrepreneurs in the heart of the insurgency-infested territory.

*

I was immediately sucked into the vortex of the fast moving events. So immersed I was in my work that Sunanda had started expressing displeasure over my long hours in the office and long and risky tours to the interiors. The job load was tremendous. Besides the routine and operational intelligence generated by the IB operatives within the territorial jurisdiction assigned, I acted as the clearing desk for reports received from IB stations in Manipur, Dimapur, Mokakchung and Tuensang. There were too many reports to scan and too many despatches to prepare.

Generation of operational intelligence had always fascinated me. The Kohima post had offered immense opportunity to hone up the skill I had learnt in Manipur. I felt I was a fish in water waiting to display my aerobatics. I accepted the challenge and exploited the existing resources to the utmost benefit of the Army and Paramilitary forces. Some officers and a few freshly created human assets helped me breaking fresh grounds. General A.R.Dutt was fascinated by some of the accurate intelligence input, which was successfully executed by his troops. The end result was that Sunanda had to cook delicate Bengali dishes for the General at least three times a week. Brother of the legendary cine and theatre artist Utpal Dutt, the General used to regale us with the offbeat stories of his celebrity brother’s exploits and his own experiences in the Army.

I don’t think that it would be appropriate for me to delve deeper into the operational aspects. But the IB was credited with intelligence inputs that helped in thwarting and neutralising several Angami, Tangkhul and Chakesang insurgent groups. At least two gangs returning from China were intercepted in the Kheymungan territory bordering Burma and over two hundred rebels were induced to surrender before the authorities.

The operational pressure on the insurgents and occasional discreet applauses for the accurate intelligence that I catered did not satisfy me. I wanted to get into the groves of the psyche of the Naga people. All said and done A. Z. Phizo had succeeded in giving a ‘‘Pan Naga’ image to the movement. Narrow tribalism was and continues to be the bane of the tribal society in the North East. Tribalism is confused with nationalism. The barriers of language, dialect, tribal rituals and pride vivisected the 15 major Naga tribes. The common bondage of the Church could not obliterate the age-old barriers of tribe and clan feuds. Nagamese, a hotchpotch mix of Assamese, Bengali and Nepali was the lingua franca. The Nagas living in the interior hilltop villages were not adequately conversed in the use of Nagamese.

The separatist movement launched by Phizo had blurred to some extent the tribal and clan barriers. The geo-national entity of the Nagas was yet to be defined conclusively, though they had forced the government of India almost at the gunpoint to grant them a geo-political identity. This ambiguity still haunts the Naga people and they still aspire to complete their ethnic geography by the creation of a ‘Greater Nagaland’, encompassing the Naga inhabited areas of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and perhaps Burma.

A little deviation on the issue of Greater Nagaland is necessary. The toughest barrier to the process of negotiated peace is this very demand by Muivah group.

This is a highly debatable point. The Tangkhuls and the Zeliang and Rongmeis, as also the Mao-Maram and other lesser Naga tribes of Manipur are distinctly different from the Nagas of present political geography called Nagaland. Apparently they did not migrate from the same trans-Pacific or Sino-Polynesian stock. They look different; they speak different languages and follow different social customs. The Nagaland Nagas were given some Pan-Naga coherence by Phizo and the movement that followed him. The Manipur Nagas have always tried to maintain their separateness from the Nagaland Nagas. Over the centuries they had acquired a distinct Manipuri identity under the Meitei kings. No doubt they are now tied in the common bondage of Christianity, but most of them belong to different denominations. Conceding an enlarged political territory simply because they swear by the same Book would tantamount to falling prey to demands like the ones made by some Islamists; that religions commonality made a compact nation-Ummah.

I have a genuine feeling, which I am able to state with certain degree of certainty that the Nagaland Nagas would not welcome the Manipuri Nagas. The Tangkhuls are as domineering in nature as the Angamis, Aos and Semas are. It is a case like the desire of the Bengali people living in India and Bangladesh reuniting as one ethnic-nation. There is ethnic and linguistic uniformity amongst the Bengalis and Punjabis living on two sides of the international borders. But that does not prove a case for reunion. It’s a dream, often a bad dream. Similarly the desire of the Naga people of Nagaland, Manipur and Burma uniting on the singular basis of a generalised nomenclature assigned to them by the Ahoms and the British is a chimera. It is like the nomenclature Hindu that carries the burden of some ethnological and philological peculiarities of certain people who could not pronounce ‘S’ and used ‘H’ instead. Everyone living in Hindustan is not a Hindu. In the stricter sense of interpretation of the word H (S) indu the people of Pakistan are better claimants to the nomenclature, as they are supposed to be the original Sindhuja (people of the River Sind) or Hindu. Would this be acceptable to our umbilical brothers in Pakistan? The word Hindu is a geopolitical description and not a religious marker.

The word Naga was used in pejorative sense to indicate that compared to the civilised people of Assam the people inhabiting the hills were
Nagna
(naked) as they were inadequately clothed.
Nagna
is the source word of the name Naga, like the word
Naga Sannysis
(naked saints) used by the Hindus to describe some of their holy men. The Jain faith has a
digambara
sect, which means the sect that shuns clothing.

I had gathered satisfactory knowledge about the Naga tribes of Manipur. They were distinct from each other not only by language, but also by their physical features and the social practices they performed. A section of the Zeliang and Rongmei Nagas under Rani Gaidinlieu refused to embrace Christianity. They liked to be described as Hindu Nagas. A small group in south Manipur claimed to be Jews. Still smaller groups liked to pass themselves as Hindus, though the Hindu organisations like the Ramkrishna Mission were not encouraged by the government of India to penetrate into those areas for fear of adverse reaction from the predominant Christianised Naga tribes. The RSS too did not venture beyond the urban area of Dimapur, Haflong. Their Hindutwa pretensions dried up before the Pakistani and Chinese bullets.

Nagaland, therefore, cannot be the home of the Nagas living anywhere in the general geographic area. A common given name and faith in a common religion cannot be the basis of creating a new geopolitical entity. It may not be acceptable to the Nagas living in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. These people are Nagas in as much as Bangladeshi Bengalis and the Pakistani Punjabis are Bengalis and Punjabis.

Anyway, history does not care for individual perceptions. However, if any weak government in Delhi allows the wheel of history rolling in the direction of ‘Naga unity in a common geo-political boundary inside the Indian Union’ it will not strengthen the security scenario of North East India. It will lead to serious explosions in Assam, Arunachal, Manipur and other ethnic areas where ethnic geography is still undergoing tectonic convulsions.

*

I was, however, far away from the diaphragm of the mystic of the Nagaland Naga tribes. Before launching myself on the adventurous course of gaining entry into the Naga society I brushed up my knowledge of Nagamese with helps from the staff members like Vesalho Chakesang, and a young student friend Zaivito Sema (not real name). Gradually Sunanda and I were granted entry into the Naga homes of the enigmatic and feared Kohima Bara Basti (big village) and villages like Chedema, Phesama, Phek, and Jessami.

Sunanda detested the food cooked in Naga way, especially pork, beef, and various kinds of meat. But she enjoyed the simple chicken soup boiled with locally grown vegetables and ginger roots. Served with rice and roasted trout from the local rivers satisfied her palate. I too suffered from a disadvantage. I did not take any hard drink but managed to develop a taste for not so aromatic
madhu
and Naga tea. My dislike for hard liquor did not prevent me from carrying crates of rum, the virtual legal tender, whenever we visited the interior villages and homes of the important Naga leaders. Scotch replaced the rum whenever we visited the homes of the elite.

During one such visit to Khonoma village, where we were greeted by a dance performance by the village belles, a few armed people belonging to the underground accosted us. They questioned the purpose of the visit of an Indian intelligence officer to their village. My stock reply was: I was not on a mission of collecting intelligence. My wife and I were the village guests and we were more interested in learning the Naga way of life. I was not sure if they were impressed by my bold reply, but the dance performance was followed by a sumptuous dinner and presentation of a colourful Angami shawl to Sunanda. I presented an amount of 500 hundred to the village church.

Gradually the icy barriers started melting and wielding to
tambul
tinted broad grin. The process culminated in our reception at Jessami, in the heartland of hostile Chakesang territory and ritual killing of a
mithun
(hybrid ox) in our honour. This time the Naga Woman’s Society, a body affiliated to the Naga Federal Government, presented me a Naga tie in addition to a beautiful Chakesang shawl to Sunanda and a scarf to our son. The presence of my family during my visits to the interior villages had opened up many a Naga heart. I was convinced in my assessment that the Nagas valued the family system as dearly as they valued their loyalty to their respective tribes. It was well understood that an invitation to our home meant invitation to an entire family of a Naga guest. Diplomatic stag parties mostly ended in exchange of formal views. A family get together often melted the barriers between the Nagas and the ‘hated Indian Dogs.’ My strategy of involving my family with my work paid high dividends. In those days of ideology based insurgency the civilians and women were not attacked by the Nagas. We moved freely and our carefree attitude bemused the Naga people.

AMIDST A LOVEABLE PEOPLE

It is only after time has been given for cool and deliberate reflection that the real voice of people can be known.

George Washington

Our visit to the Naga villages did not blind me to the requirement of my profession. The intelligence officer in me ticked away like the cosmic time machine. I had succeeded in generating a number of intelligence assets, which helped in gaining insight into the Naga psyche and inner functioning of the Naga underground apparatus. It offered me chances of generating very valuable operational intelligence too.

Reeling under the impact of the government ban and apprehensive of the contradiction of growing Chinese link and increased obduracy of Muivah and Isak some Phizoite Naga leaders had started thinking in terms of renewal of the peace process. I was aware that peace in Nagaland was a chimera and it could not be approached again unless Phizo blessed the process. I was aware too of the approaches being made by the MI Directorate through Rano Shaiza, a niece of Phizo, and her husband Lungshim, a Tangkhul Naga. Their marriage was a diplomatic bridge between the two domineering Naga tribes of Nagaland and Manipur-the Angamis and the Tangkhuls. Some Calcutta based operatives of the Research & Analysis Wing of the Cabinet Secretariat were also sounding out Reverend Longri Ao. On top of it S.C. Dev, the Commissioner of Nagaland, M. Ramunny, the advisor to the Governor, and M. L. Kampani, a Nagaland veteran and now a senior officer in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, were making their own efforts to break the ice. I was too puny a figure to compete with them.

My luck and efforts brought a real breakthrough by a Khonoma based friend. I earned the distinction of the first Indian intelligence operative meeting Kevi Yallay, the elder brother of A. Z. Phizo, somewhere near Chedema just before the Christmas of 1972.

I was picked up from behind the Naga Bazaar by the Khonoma friend and walked up and down the low hill features for about one hour before we climbed up a shoulder to reach an unpaved road that led to Chedema. A jeep waited for us near a humped bend. We drove for about 30 minutes only to be stopped by three armed men. The friend asked me to get down and submit to the frisking carried out by a chap who managed to hang a piece of smile on his face as smoothly as he slung up the automatic rifle on his shoulder. The smile, I understood, was a part of his physical feature. Perhaps his face would beam the same muscular contortion even when he faced enemy bullets.

We passed through the eye of the needle only to walk another two kilometres and to be taken to a thatched hut with tin roof. The imposing figure wearing a robe like dress and an Angami shawl wrapped over his shoulder received me at the door. His long hair gave him the look of a brown Moses.

We were seated around a massive sawed off log table and served with normal English tea and crunchy biscuits. My attention was diverted to the Chinese letters on the biscuit packets.

“Welcome to the Darjeeling tea and Shanghai biscuits.”

Kevi Yallay spoke in his characteristic manners.

“Nice biscuits.”

I commented.

“Should be nice. May be bitter for you. These were brought from China by my friend Muivah.”

“I am fortunate indeed.”

“Indeed you are. You are the first Indian officer to meet me. I must offer you the best.”

“A Naga rice-cake would have been a better snack.”

“Well said Kolkatta (Calcutta)
babu
. I like it.”

The bantering continued for a while till I led Kevi Yallay to substantive points. We talked for over two hours and left as good friends. I presented Kevi a thin chain with a Jesus on the Cross pendant. He looked at it intently and broke into laughter.

“Clever indeed,” he spoke, “I believe you visit our villages with your wife and child.”

“Yes I do.”

“Keep it up. Try to understand the Naga people. You Indians are as far from us as the Eskimos are from New York. Tell your people that to make us Indian they have to prove that India is worth living for the Nagas.”

I decided not to reply to this comment of Kevi, because I had noticed a streak of conciliation in him during our discussions. A Naga was naturally suspicious and inquisitive of the Indians who suddenly descended on them after the transfer of power in 1947. The process of integration, I understood, would take more time than India is taking to shape up as Bharat.

On my return to Kohima I took two days to record the details of the discussions with the Naga leader. I am barred by the Official Secrets Act to share the details with my readers. But Delhi was stunned by the report. There was initial disbelief about the meeting itself. How could a kid in the service manage to hook a veteran Naga rebel like Kevi? But the analysis desk finally agreed with the contents of the report and I received a congratulatory letter from R. D. Pandey, who was considered as the lynchpin of the North Eastern operations of the IB. He was the police head of Nagaland when I was posted in Manipur. His congratulation was accompanied by a veiled warning: I should take care of my safety and that of my family.

The contents of my report on Kevi Yallay, I was told, had helped the government of India in formulating the peace talks later in 1974-75.

*

A planned meeting with Z. Ramyo followed the meeting with Kevi. Ramyo was an enigmatic Tangkhul leader, who had piloted the drafting of the
Yehzabo
(constitution) of the parallel Naga government in 1967-68.

My contact with Ramyo was established at a time when he had come under suspicion of the Angami and Chakesang faction of the NNC/NFG. Another enigmatic Tangkhul, Thuingaleng Muivah thought very little of Ramyo. This was not surprising. The Tangkhuls are a jealous lot. They cannot tolerate a thriving fellow Tangkhul. That’s why the Tangkhuls could not produce another towering political figure like Rishang Keishing and a balanced headed underground leader like Ramyo.

It gives pain to knowledgeable persons to see that the government of India thinks that Muivah is the key to the solution of the Naga problem. Muivah has very little following in his home district and his Tangkhul dominated armed group is not acceptable to the major Naga tribes of Nagaland. This Chinese and Pakistani protégé had succeeded in creating an illusion that his Tangkhul problem is the problem of Nagaland. He is no Phizo, who was able to give a Pan-Naga identity to all the Naga tribes of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Arunachal and Burma. His dictate, unless Kalashnikov follows that, will not be acceptable to the villagers of Grihang (Ukhrul), Chandel (south Manipur) and Maram-Khullen (North Manipur). Strange are the ways of the ignorant politicians and the self-seeking bureaucrats, who continue to sell fake peace to the people of India!

My bridge to Ramyo was built by the old faithful, L. Hungyo. He made a few trips to the hideout of the Naga ideologue and spanned the planks of trust. Ramyo needed some urgent medical supplies and used Hungyo to procure the same from Imphal market. Once he was deputed to Gwahati to procure a particular life saving drug.

Hungyo cleverly used the services of Rashimi (not real name), a young Naga girl from Tolloi village, to carry the drugs to Ramyo. She used to come down to Hungyo’s residence near Mantri Pokhri locality of Imphal to pick up the medicine and other supplies for the ailing Naga leader.

I accompanied Rashimi and Hungyo in a private jeep to the outskirts of Tolloi and waited for the nightfall to avoid army patrols. After nightfall the brave girl guided me to the village church. Hungyo stood guard outside. We were together for over two hours and discussed matters of mutual interest. I was surprised to notice that the much praised and maligned Naga leader possessed a child like simplicity and displayed deep faith in Christianity. He believed rather more on the mystic aspects of Christianity, though he did not carry the air of a mystique. He was a sort of Revivalist. His unabashed praise of the “Bengali baboos’ and their understanding of the Naga problem had rather embarrassed me.

I managed to have three meeting with him, including one near Ghaspani, an intermediate post between Kohima and Dimapur. I was left with no doubt that Z. Ramyo was in favour of peace and supported an honourable settlement within the Indian Union. Our discussions covered the aspects of betrayal of Pakistan by the Chinese during the 1971 war and the persecution of the Christians in China. The march of history, I explained to him, was inexorably going to favour India and the Nagas should not live in the past of their ties with the British. The frontiers of India, he agreed with me, did not end at the imaginary ‘Inner Line’. It extended to the Chinese and Burmese borders and China was not going to fight another war for resettling the political geography of the Nagas.

Ramyo was not an intelligence agent. We met as friends at personal level after sufficient trust was generated. Some of the reports of my discussions with Ramyo provided deep insight into the thinking process of some of the Phizoite Naga underground leaders and the over ground offshoots. Ramyo was later cheaply exploited by the military intelligence and was badly exposed. I felt sorry for him when Hungyo carried a message from him seeking immediate medical and financial help. I did what I could do under the circumstances to help him.

I must share with my readers here that in theatres like Nagaland the intelligence agencies and the executive arms of the government habitually crossed each other’s path out of professional jealousy. A constant hide and seek game was played by the agencies to compromise each other’s operations. Such initiatives came more from the FIU formations of the DMI and the field intelligence detachments of the Divisional headquarter. In this unfair competition of upping the ante I had to regulate my meetings with Ramyo. However, we continued to work together which culminated in the signing of the Shillong Accord after my departure from Nagaland.

*

My efforts to cultivate the top underground Naga leaders did not stop with Ramyo. An important Chakesang leader of the UDF, who happened to become the Chief Minister of Nagaland in 1992-’93, had prepared the ground for my meeting with Biseto Medom Keyho, the self styled Home Minister of the NFG. The initiative for the meeting came from Biseto. I was surprised when Veni Iralu (not real name), a tantalisingly beautiful Angami belle from Chumukdima, a foothills town ahead of Dimapur carried the request to my Kohima home. Veni studied medicine in a Calcutta college and her brother Jessiloeu Iralu (name changed) was perhaps the first Angami to be recruited by me as a security assistant in last two decades. I fondly called him Jessie.

The Angamis hated almost everything Indian, especially the Intelligence Bureau. A proud people as they are the Angamis carried around them an air of superiority and considered themselves as numero uno amongst the Naga tribes. Educationally more advanced Ao people thought very little of the Angamis and the upcoming Semas too were not ready to concede the assumed demand of superiority of the clan of A.Z Phizo. The Tangkhuls in Manipur are as assertive as the Anagmis are.

Jessie was courageous enough to accept the assignment and I had to push aside the objections of my colleagues. Their prejudice against the Angamis was pathological. My gamble worked out and the daring young man succeeded in facilitating my approach to the rigid Angami community and its underground leaders.

I did not take IB’s prior permission to meet Kevi Yallay and Z. Ramyo. In case of Biseto I considered it necessary to consult the IB as I was not sure of the ground and I did not have intrinsic faith on the UDF leader. Delhi approved the proposal and added a detailed questioner for debriefing the self styled Home Minister of the NFG.

I did not have to negotiate tough terrain in the heartland of the Angami country to meet the rebel leader. Our meeting was fixed at an insignificant hut in the midst of the Angami sector of Diphu Par village. Jessie guided me to the end of a mud road where the Chakesang leader joined me. We walked for about 30 minutes before two shawl wrapped persons took charge and guided us silently. Their bulging shawls indicated presence of automatic weapons on their persons. They peeled off at the gate of a hut and Veni greeted us. Her presence surprised me. I did not expect her at the rendezvous.

I was later told that Veni and Jessie were related to Biseto Medom and she had come down to Diphu Par to treat the underground leader suffering from a festering skin disease.

Biseto received us warmly but asked the UDF leader to stay out of the meeting. We were left alone after Veni served tea and snacks. Biseto and I talked for over one hour. His questions about the likely response from the government of India on a renewed peace talk surprised me. Till that point of time no one in Nagaland including Reverend Longri Ao was taking peace. The developing ties between the Naga insurgents and the Chinese had hardened the attitude of the Indira Gandhi government. A section of the Phizoite leaders and the church leaders were perturbed over Muivah’s newfound friendship with the Chinese communists.

I would like to skip the details of our discussion in the first and subsequent meetings with Biseto. Some of the discussion points encompassed the possible Chinese threat to Christian Naga people and the possibility of limiting recruitment to the underground army and slowing down the process of armed conflict. All that I can assert that Biseto was not a close minded person. His conviction in the Naga cause was genuine. But he did not suffer from tunnel vision like Muivah and Isak. His flexible attitude had helped the peace initiatives at a later stage, which culminated in the Shillong Accord.