Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (56 page)

The new term ‘coercive diplomacy’ coined by the BJP led NDA government in post 9/11/20001 situation was a nerve wrecking exercise of sterile brinkmanship that looked like a kid’s tantrums aimed at emotional blackmailing of the international community. The guile of coercive diplomacy was not directed at peeling off the inner derma of aggression of the hostile neighbour. It was aimed at befooling the Indians at large and to cry wolf to the international community. It is evident that neither Washington nor London had taken these cries seriously and none of them had ticked off Pakistan and its ruler Musharraf. The USA and UK, as history testifies, act only on their respective national interests and not on woeful cries of maidens in distress. However beautifully dressed up and however heartrending were the distress cries of the NDA government the ‘free world’ knights did not come to India’s rescue. So much so for brave patriotism of the Sangh Parivar’s political face: the BJP!

The height of diplomatic sterility was exhibited by the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1994, when he took the trouble to call me up personally and demanded to know the circumstance under which the PCIU team had picked up a non-diplomat of the Pakistan High Commission from under the prominent city flyover. I explained the circumstances that involved prolonged surveillance, identification of the Pakistani official and his Indian agent belonging to a wing of the defence services. The mighty Principal Secretary demanded video evidence of the event. The exchange of sensitive defence related document had taken place under the flyover that was a busy public thoroughfare. No intelligence sleuth could afford to place a clandestine camera at that carefully selected rendezvous. The PS to the PM was not happy with my ‘undiplomatic’ approach. I had to visit his office with the recovered documents, which pertained to intelligence leakage relating to India’s suspected nuclear activities in Pokharan area and an inventory of missile system in the process of acquisition from Russia. He was convinced that the action taken was correct but demurred through cigarette smoke that I should have been more ‘diplomatic’.

My perception of application of diplomacy—first, second and third track diplomacy— did not militate against the proverbial ‘hyphenised’ actions that kept nations away from war. Diplomacy is not only a tool of peace. The collapse of the USSR has proved beyond doubt that diplomacy can also be a great weapon of war. I continued to advocate for an aggressive and pro-active counter and forward intelligence thrust against Pakistan. My voice was rarely heard and mostly ignored. But I did not stop at the opaque window of diplomacy. My agenda of pursuing the policy of aggressive postures against Pakistan’s policy of demolishing Indian unity continued unabated. I had virtually decided to overshot the runway and fly over the forbidden territory. The rogue squirrel had the better of the saner one.

Did I want to emerge as a one-man army against Pakistan, as a later DIB tried to label me with that stamp? I do not think so. I perceived the task as an important national duty, which was being neglected by the politicians and the ‘establishment.’ However, I received adequate support only when V. G. Vaidya took over as the Director, Intelligence Bureau. This small statured person was a powerhouse of action. We did many things together. I would like to say more about that productive partnership in the subsequent narrations.

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Several volumes can be written only on forward intelligence thrust by Pakistan inside India. While I don’t intend to resort to a lilaceous presentation of intelligence tradecraft, it is necessary to give a brief tour to the unsuspecting Indians who often are trapped by the well-trained Pakistani operators. Pakistani forward intelligence operators operate from different locational positions:

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Diplomatic premises,

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Cover positions in media and commercial organisation,

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Short term shallow penetration itinerant agents, Pakistani as well as Indian nationals,

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Long term resident agents,

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Networking by the resident agents,

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Sleepers inside India based ethnic and religious organisations which are activated either by the operators at category one and four above and sometime by ‘home based’ handlers,

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Operators operating from third country based diplomatic missions and ‘safe houses’, etc.

Targeting is done with meticulous care. Main target areas are:

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Defence establishments and installations,

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Economic ministries,

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Defence related research and scientific organisations and production facilities,

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Movement, ORBAT, deployment and locational details of the Army, Air Force and Naval units,

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Naval stations in the west and east coasts,

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Weapons system testing grounds,

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Intelligence organisations and key positions in the civilian administration and security system,

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Media personalities,

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Members of the parliament and legislatures and officials of these august bodies,

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Key political personalities

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Intellectuals and,

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Society birds, etc.

This list is illustrative. Options are numerous and improvisation is the name of the game.

Pakistani associates in the Indian ethnic-religious insurgent and terrorist groups often carry out some of the major intelligence, sabotage and subversion operations. The scenario underwent vast changes when Pakistan started deputing its own intelligence recruits and trained mujaheedins to carry out major sabotage and subversion operations, like attacks on the Red Fort and Parliament. These talents also help Pakistan out in inducting weapons and explosives through land and sea routes. It may be borne in mind that almost all ‘
mujahideen
tanjim’ attacks in India are either sponsored or approved by the ISI and the military establishment. In that country even leaves cannot pulsate without command from the top or near top. The latest nuclear leakage charade should be considered as geopolitical ointment applied by the USA on the festering sores of Pakistan’s endangered military dictator. There must be free air somewhere in Pakistan but there are no brave souls like Mujibur Rahman around to blow it in the direction of freedom and democracy.

The focal arrows of operations, therefore, emerge out of the production lines of the Inter Services Intelligence, PDMI, PAFI, PFO (Pakistan Foreign Office) and the hardest core of the ‘Establishment’ that normally consist of the top military, bureaucratic and political leadership. Pakistan, unlike India, adopts a unified as well as spectrumised approach depending on the task assigned by the “Establishment’. It is a unique example of focal state approach rather than mere agency based operational thrust. The battle that we are offered is both multi-fanged and unified. The Indian agencies, rather an agency has the monopoly of running intelligence and act as adjuncts to diplomatic operations inside Pakistan. The consumers are the best tasters to testify the quality of the curry manufactured by the prime and only foreign intelligence organisation of the country. I have no comment to offer.

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Though the Hindutwa protagonists have been crying wolf about Pakistan’s proxy war basically after 1998, the neighbouring country’s dalliance with the Indian insurgent and terrorist groups can be dated back to 1956.

The honeymoon started with the Naga rebels and still lingers on in the North East, where the operatives of our umbilical twin cast their nets from Bangladesh soil. While the ‘unfinished agenda of partition’ is being pursued in Kashmir, the proxy-war is being carried out in Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura. The Islamist mujaheedins and Pan-Islamic fundamentalists are propped up in the rest of the country. The International Islamist modules have set up strong bases almost all over India. The Pakistani Establishment has turned India into a battleground, some of them like calling it a civilisational war, a war started in the 8th century AD and temporarily terminated with the British occupation. I do not have the scope to discuss this perceived concept of civilisational war between the
jahiliya
Hindus and the faithful Islamists. We must move on from the battlefield, which is being projected on the sub-continental screen for the last 52 years.

Pakistan’s aggressive intelligence thrust is better exemplified by the active participation of its senior diplomats (not cover intelligence officials) in intelligence generation. Between 1989 and 1995 I had logged at least five members of Pakistan’s Foreign Service successfully penetrating several strata of the Indian society. One of them, a hefty Frontier Pathan, had cultivated several members of the media and parliament. Some of the ‘conquered’ targets worked as conscious agents of Pakistan. One of them, my linguistic kin, was thoroughly inundated by booze and plastered by green bill. He is still around and adorns the columns of a Kolkata based national weekly. The susceptibility of the fourth estate to the intelligence community had tied our hands down. They are one of the too many holy Indian cows. Some of them, as described by a senior member of the fourth estate, ‘taxi on hire.’ Any paymaster can hire this particular brand. We were, therefore, forced to intervene in a very delicate manner. Messages shared by us were often received coolly and the disengagement process with the Pakistani handlers ensued promptly. I think in a civilised democratic society this is the best way of awakening the conscience and sense of patriotism amongst the volatile classes of people, the intellectuals and persons of art and letter. The process is slow but fail-safe.

I have been approached by politicians of various hues to comment on a particular politician from Uttar Pradesh and to supply materials with a view to crucifying him on the Pakistani Cross. My argument was very clear. The political breed in India cannot be crucified on any such Cross. They, like various amoebas, keep on developing resistance against all conceivable provisions of the Law and the Constitution. The celebrated politician, often described as the messiah of the minorities and the suppressed and the oppressed was in clandestine contact with the Mission based intelligence officials of a couple of Islamic countries. My bosses must have had the occasion to share such information with their consumers. But a politician in India cannot be hanged simply because he is funded by certain extraneous forces. Moreover, I did care for the security of my family. I was not afraid of the Punjab and Kashmir terrorists. But I feared the next-door killers bred in the backyard of the criminalized politicians. The terrorists believe in some ideology, these killers believe in money alone, which is the surest licence to purchase the ballot boxes and end the breathing process of a conscientious civil servant.

While on the intelligence games played by the accredited diplomats I would like to display one or two illuminated slides of the glitterati and chatterati of Delhi. My knowledge on this exalted class of Delhi is shallow. But I am better equipped to unravel a few snippets which are based on ‘truth and nothing but the truth’.

A few senior accredited diplomats of the Pakistan High Commission pursued a pleasant tradecraft for accessing live human tools, which were capable of penetrating any targeted parlours and beds of the novo rich. My surveillance had laboriously logged and video-graphed some of these pleasant freyas who normally painted Delhi’s night joints, hotel rooms and a few exclusive watering holes with rainbow colours. Most of them belonged to awfully affluent homes and some of them were related to renowned media persons and key political figures. Stealing of joyous moments may not be an act of crime in their social dictionary, but allowing the momentary joy to be blackmailed by an itinerant diplomat is a crime. And to facilitate critical access to sensitive areas of national security under pressure of such blackmail is a heinous crime.

The sister of a reputed journalist, supposedly a close buddy of the Prime Minister of India (Rajiv Gandhi), had access to almost all the secrets that passed through the PMH. She had succumbed to the blackmailing tool of a NWFP origin Pakistani diplomat. The PCIU had documented several of their intimate meetings with appropriate light and sound. The Prime Minister received the initial reports about the likely penetration of the PMH through this ‘reverse honey trap’ with boyish pique. I was required to embarrass him by playing not too subtle a videotape to convince that he was sitting on a volcano and it could explode any moment. The Prime Minister acted promptly to rectify the leaking holes. National interest prevents me from detailing the actions taken by the Prime Minister.