Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (62 page)

The Sangh Parivar and its umbilical organisations, the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, aggravated the situation for V. P. Singh. They were not content with the 86 seats that they harvested by way of cashing on negative vote against Rajiv Gandhi. They had propped up V.P. Singh on the hope that the state machinery would look the other way when they pushed the Hindu agenda as a sure weapon to score a near majority in the next parliamentary election. This was a renovated version of the strategy adopted by the Sangh Parivar during the Jayaprakash movement. The Parivar was keen to dismount from VP piggyback and charge with its own stallion.

In fact, L. K. Advani had spelt out some of the modalities of BJP’s conditional support to the National Front government. These involved vital issues like Article 370 (with reference to Kashmir), Uniform Civil Code, Human Rights Commission, and construction of Rama temple at Ayodhya. The RSS and Parivar members were acutely aware of the fragile nature of the NF government and they did not waste time to put their own agenda in motion.

The ostensible hitch started with V. P. Singh’s alleged Muslim appeasement. The high point of this allegation was a non-essential political action by which Singh had thrown open all protected mosques under the supervision of the Archaeological Survey of India for prayers during the Ramadan period. The short sighted and visionless visionary did not comprehend the cascading effect this innocuous concession might lead to. This was followed by a huge grant for the repairs of the Jama Masjid and public declaration that the birthday of the Prophet (pbuh) Mohammad would be observed as a public holiday. The Sangh Parivar responded to the hollow minority appeasement actions by demanding state holidays on Hindu festivals like Ram Navami.

Both V. P. Singh and Rajiv Gandhi had failed to take cognisance of the consolidation of the Hindu outfits by the Sangh Parivar. It had started soon after Congress had invoked the Hindu card through Dhirendra Brahmachari and political loyalists like Dr. Karan Singh in 1979-80 elections and gained active RSS support. Even before the 1984 Operation Blue Star the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had started the Shila Pujan (worshipping the holy stones) and initiated the holy
yatras
(marches). Launching of the
Ramjanambhoomi
Mukti Yojana (liberation of the birth place of Lord Rama) had, in fact, set rolling the Hindu juggernaut. It was evidenced in the centenary celebrations of K. B. Hegdewar (1988-89) and a very significant meeting of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat (Ahmedabad) on March 24, 1989. The stratagem for launching a determined bid to secure power in Delhi and in key states was given final shape in that meeting. The choice of Gujarat was symbolic. L. K. Advani had established his political base in Gujarat and the Somnath temple (destroyed several times by Muslim invaders) was considered as the symbol of ‘
Hindu maryada
.’ No wonder that after over a decade Gujarat was again selected as the laboratory of communal politics by some of the Sangh Parivar leaders.

Lal Krishna Advani’s
rath yatra
(chariot march), on a Toyota
rath
from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya pushed up the Hindu wave to an unprecedented crescendo. It whipped up anti-Muslim sentiment and blunted to a large extent the Mandal card of V. P. Singh. Advani was arrested at the fag end of his journey in Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the ‘secular’ chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, thwarted attempts of the
kar sevaks
(volunteers) from storming the disputed Babri mosque, in the process killing 50 odd followers of the Sangh Parivar.

There was no reason for the IB not to have access to the inner thinking process and operational strategy of the Sangh Parivar. The Hindu outfit was sufficiently infiltrated by the IB. Bombay based industrialists close to Rajiv Gandhi had successfully cultivated a couple of RSS/BJP leaders like Dinanath Mishra (a journalist), T.V. R. Shenoy (a journalist and pro-RSS trouble-shooter), another senior journalist attached to the tycoon-owned newspaper (now a MP) and one of the resident operators at Keshav Kunj, hub of the RSS. I am unable to disclose the last name due to certain constraints. But he enjoyed a top position. One of the industrialists was personally very close to a parochial chauvinist leader of Maharashtra. The Delhi bureau of the industrialist was in constant touch with Rajiv Gandhi and supplied him with vital ‘intelligence’ on the Sangh Parivar. On one occasion an operator of the industrialist was offered free access for a couple of hours to the ‘guarded’ documents of the BJP in its national office. An electronic hand held copier was used for taking out copies of vital BJP meeting proceedings and internal communications. These valuable unconventional intelligence inputs were shared with Rajiv Gandhi.

I want to be emphatic that the mole in the RSS who had given access to the Bombay industrialist was from the state of Maharashtra and not identical with any of my personal friends in the Sangh Parivar.

R. P. Joshi was personally in touch with Murli Manohar Joshi, who was about to replace Advani as the President of the BJP. There was no lack of intelligence. The country lacked a cohesive government that could chalk out a comprehensive plan. It was not supported by credible administrative machinery. Most of the top bureaucrats had deserted VP and had started aligning either with the BJP or with the Congress.

Moreover, the Hindu upsurge between 1980 and 1990 had become inevitable, almost a historical necessity. Indira Congress had replaced the Indian National Congress and Rajiv Congress was in no position to hold the country together. The growing influence of the regional satraps and caste polarisation of the polity was further confounded by communal stratification. This was the historic moment for the Hindutwa elements to make determined bid to emerge as the national alternative to Indira Congress. In the absence of any stronger political force it was difficult to halt the process of the Hindu resurgence.

Hindu sentiment was fortified by a few other factors. The ‘
upri
sing’ in Punjab, atrocities on the Hindus in Kashmir, fast accretion of Muslim population in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and ascendance of the Islamist fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Pakistan had bolstered up Hindu resolve to build new political and social bridges that could ensure safety of the majority community.

It may also be mentioned that the consecutive Congress governments and the government of V.P. Singh had embraced the policy of ‘minority appeasement’ as gospel truth. The Indian National Congress was responsible for creating
apartheid segregation
between the Hindus and the Muslims, in as much as the Muslim League and other Muslim organisations were. Most of the eminent Muslims had very little to do with the independence movement. They had dubbed the Congress movement as a Hindu movement. The extreme Hindu strain had opposed this attitude of the Muslims. Even the moderate Hindus never cherished this kind of Hindu-Muslim
apartheid segregation
in the name of protecting the minorities and securing vote banks. They were, and still are, of the opinion that the so-called secular political parties appeased the Muslims unmindful of the strategic and tactical moves taken by a large section of the Indian Muslims in collaboration with the resurgent international Islamist elements. These elements were, even now they are, engaged in radicalising the Muslim community and link them up with the jihadist forces.

A Hindu backlash was on the card and the Sangh Parivar simply took advantage of the tottering political edifices of the Congress and other so-called secular parties to revive that strand of Indianness, which believed in Hindu supremacy. In a vastly Hindu majority country this was not an unnatural political dream. No one should forget that ideas of Bande Mataram movement, Tilak’s and Lajpat Rai’s contribution, the Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha movement and the RSS activism had aimed at promoting and protecting the Hindu identity of
Bharatvarsha
. These ideas could not be smothered to extinction by the apartheid policy of secularism and ism-less communist protagonists. The post-independence rulers had failed to assuage the feelings of the Hindus that in an independent country their interests would not be sacrificed in the name of promoting minorityism. The collapse of the Congress and failure of V.P.Singh to ensure that a fine balance would be struck between the Hindu and Muslim aspirations had inevitably given rise to the ‘neo Hindu-resurgence.’

This was my understanding of the current of history of the subcontinent. I had never ceased to share these views with the leaders of my agency and even with my political friends across the spectrum. I could have been incorrect.

I had discussed the entire gamut of the Hindutwa strategy with my Sangh Parivar friends. I was left with no doubt that the coming decade would be dominated by the Hindutwa forces and India would have to make a long haul over the fire of internal disturbances, caste and communal polarisations and regional conflict. The
kalachakra
(wheel of time) had taken an inevitable turn and I expected India to brace for new socio-political experimentations in an ambience of more power sharing between the Centre and the States and a prolonged phase of ‘coalition governments.’

I did not snap my relationship with my friends in the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. I could not. Minus the elements of rabid anti-Islamism I believed in the essence of unity of the Hindu society and the need for a Hindu resurgence. Hinduism is not the only building block of Indian nationalism, but on it rests the foundation of the nation

My RSS friends, however, told me that the ‘free world’ powers would like the idea of Hindu resurgence in a geopolitical area dominated by fundamentalist Islam-from North Africa, to Central Asia, to South Asia and a major part of South East Asia. What was the harm if Hindus flaunted their religion when the Zionist, Christian and Muslim world never tired in flaunting their religious flags? Was it a crime to say ‘I’m a Hindu?’ Historically it was a correct logic, I knew. But, was it not a faulted logic? Were we going to experiment the civilisational war on Indian soil again? Was the 1946-47 one not enough? Answers for and against this argument would be, I knew, as eternal as history is.

I did, in my small way, whatever I could do to help my friends. I had lost faith in V.P. Singh’s political skill and Rajiv Gandhi’s capability of steering the nation out of the rotting morass. Rajiv had reached the tether’s end and all the god’s soldiers could not put him back to power. His ‘reign of error’ was the main cause of his political downfall. He had failed to appreciate, amongst other failures, the imperative of the emergence of a fresh Hindu wave. Indira Gandhi’s death had churned out new political forces and equations, and that was the time to delicately measure up the Hindu Fahrenheit, by all concerned political and social forces. Rajiv Gandhi and the IB had failed to measure the rising heat. The subsequent explosion was a historical culmination of tectonic clashes between the Hindu (branded) and so-called champions of secularism.

FLEETING RETURN TO THE PRE-HISTORIC STATE

(PRAG-JYOTISH-PURA)

Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

Abraham Joshua Heschel.

I have had strong filial and emotional connectivity with Assam, called Assom by the people of the Brhmaputra valley, pronounced Ahom, and Prag-Jyotish-Pura (Prehistoric place) by the Aryan historiographers. It was Prag (pre)-Jyotish (calendar) because the tract was considered existing as a civilised unit even before the Aryan calendar was implemented in Aryavarta. However, I had never served in Assam. The opportunity came rather abruptly.

In the midst of political uncertainty in Delhi my services were withdrawn from Punjab and Pakistan operations and I was asked to assist the Assam Operations, handled by a veteran North East expert, O. N. Srivastava. He was married to an elegant Angami Naga lady, daughter of H. Zopianga, former chief secretary of Nagaland. With his record of long stints in the North East and his association with the Assam affairs since 1980 Srivastava was, by any imagination, the most competent person to handle the delicate and dangerous operations in Assam.

The woes of Assam, accumulated over a period of about 75 years, partly by the British administration, Muslim League and mostly by the Indian National Congress and Indira Congress had burst the banks of patience of the people. Assam, well in the midst of 1988-89, faced uncertain prospects of being overrun by hoards of illegally settled foreign nationals. Assam was again threatened with the bleak prospect of its ethnic geography being redrawn. Assam, in fact, is a portrait of national mismanagement of the affairs of a delicate state that was surrounded by ethnic insurgency. This vital bridge to the North East was still being eyed by Pakistan as a part of its original scheme of territorial claims, based on ethno-religious dominance.

I don’t think I should use the scalpel of history to unravel the sedimented layers of mistakes committed by the national leaders in Assam and elsewhere in the North East. It should be sufficient to say that senior Congress leaders like Nehru and Patel had almost agreed to cede Assam and Eastern Bengal to Pakistan as demanded by M. A. Jinnah. Nationalist leaders like Gopinath Bordoloi and Mahatma Gandhi had saved Assam and the rest of the North East for India. There are ample scopes for a dispassionate analysis of the historic imbalances that Assam suffered from for over seven decades and the dubious roles played by the Indian National Congress, Indira Congress and the fanatic Muslim political and religious organisations. The gaping fault line created in Assam was not overlooked by Pakistan and its successor regimes in Bangladesh.
Assam for Muslims
was and continues to be a potent programme of the communalist Muslim organisations in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

I did not like the idea of being drafted to Assam. I have had enough of the North East and I had no illusion about the ticking volcano on which Assam was placed by wrong policies pursued by the Congress leaders in Delhi and Shillong/Guwahati. Moreover, I did not want my family relationship with some of the leaders of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) as potent reasons for exposing me to a situation that could compromise my personal position.

I had another genuine objection. The vital Assam operations of the IB, starting from the AASU agitation, Assam Accord and the latest operations against the ULFA hinged on Hiteshwar Saikia (pronounced Hai-kia), a veteran Indira Congress leader and a former (future too) chief minister.

Hiteshwar and I were not strangers. Accompanied by my wife’s maternal uncle, secretary public works department of Assam, Hiteshwar had landed at my Delhi residence soon after the Election Commission declared the election schedule for Assam in January 1980. His grapevine had enriched his knowledge about my supposed proximity to Indira Gandhi and her all-important aide R. K. Dhawan.

I am not qualified to comment on the correctness of the decisions of Indira Gandhi and the Election Commission to hold elections in the strife torn state. The convenient slogan that in a democracy election is a great leveller appeared to be empty when the communal massacre at Nellie, in which more than a thousand Muslims, mostly women and children, were killed by the rampaging mob of Assamese Hindus, Nepalis and Lalung tribals. Elsewhere there were hellish fight between the Bodos and the Assamese. Finally little more than 30% voters turned out to restore the democratic process and to initiate another chapter of bloody strife in the state.

Harendra Nath Talukdar, president of the Assam unit of Indira Congress, had challenged Hiteshwar. Harendra Nath had succeeded in establishing a bridgehead to quarters nearer to Sanjay Gandhi. Hiteshwar worked through triple network headed by R. K. Dhawan, Dhirendra Brahmachari and M. L. Fotedar.

I had taken him to R.K. Dhawan out of exasperation and pity for my wife’s uncle. Hiteshwar had declared that he would camp at my home until I helped him out. At that point of time Indira Gandhi often allowed me to approach her informally. One evening I ventured to tag Hiteshwar under my arms and approached the Prime Minister. She listened patiently and referred him to Sanjay and Dhawan.

A slick operator as he was, Hiteshwar had succeeded in influencing O. N. Srivastava, IB’s operational spearhead in Assam. His case was strongly recommended by the Director IB too. In fact, Hiteshwar and the IB had influenced Indira Gandhi to give electoral nomination to over 30 Muslim candidates. This decision caused serious concern to the AASU and the Hindu Ahomias in general. The upper Assam Muttock Hindus disliked the pattern of ticket distribution.

A soft speaking Ahom and a person of good administrative ability Hiteshwar managed to grab the top seat in Guwahati and prepared for a long ditch battle against the ASSU, AAGSP, Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA) and hitherto dormant United Liberation Front of Assam.

I must admit that Hiteshwar, after being sworn in, visited my house and offered a
tusser
silk sari to my wife and a currency note filled briefcase to me. We kept the sari and returned the briefcase. My wife’s uncle had received a boost in his service. Hiteshwar and I maintained cordial relationship until the scion of Assam politics expired.

I had done what I had to do to help Hiteshwar. But I had no illusion that he was the person responsible for aiding and abetting Indira Congress leaders like Santosh Mohan Dev to incite the Muslims, North Cachar tribals and the Bodos to organise dirty games against the ASSU and the AGP. Hiteshwar’s hands were clearly discernible behind the formation of the ULFA in 1979. Hiteshwar’s Ahom ethnicity had helped him in establishing equation with Ahom Muttock (Thai-Ahom origin) leaders like Arobindo Rajkhowa, Golap Baura (Anup Chetia), Prodip Gogoi, and Paresh Baruah. Some chilling details of Hiteshwar’s linkages with the breakaway AASU leaders, who cobbled up the ULFA, were narrated to me by Samiran way back in 1981, during one of his clandestine visits to Delhi. At that point of time I had treated his story as another application of dirty tricks by the inner coterie of Indira Gandhi.

I met Samiran again after Indira Gandhi foisted Anwara Taimur as the chief minister of Assam. The non-Muslim Congress leaders were equally unhappy with her and her pet minister A. F. Golam Osmani for their pro-Muslim policies. Both these leaders encouraged large scale Bangladeshi Muslim migration to Assam. That was the salient point of time when Indira Congress leaders like Hiteshwar Saikia and Lalit Doley extended tacit support to the ULFA faction of the AASU/AAGSP. They blindly tried to use the Ahom Nationalism card against the Muslims. Hiteshwar did not do anything new. The insurgent groups in neighbouring Nagaland and Manipur enjoyed some patronage from the so-called democratic and mainstream political parties. The Congress party has the distinguished history of supporting divisive forces in the North East to its political advantage.

My personal awareness of the complicated interrelationship between the ULFA and AASU/AGP on the one hand and the cream of the Indira Congress leaders on the other gave a creeping feeling. The feeling arose not out of aversion for Hiteshwar. He was one of the illustrious flag posts of Indian nationalism in the North East. The allegation that he had patronised the early ULFA ideologues and extreme separatists was not unique in Indian politics. He followed the footsteps of his illustrious political colleagues, who, almost around the same time, had crafted out another Frankenstein in Punjab.

I got the creeping feeling because I was aware of the jealous-cat character of my senior colleague, O.N. Srivastava. He would have not taken kindly my off the shelf relationship with Hiteshwar. IB handled the North East tribal affairs through a single window system. And Srivastava was the keeper of that window.

Only IB insiders know that the window owners often guarded their space with more ferocity than a trench-embedded soldier. One window talking to the other was deemed as a violation of the principle of restrictive security. They often talked through memos.

I was dead sure that Srivastava would not have tolerated another expert North East operative intruding into his territory. I did not resent his handling of the affairs in Assam, Tripura, Manipur and rest of the wild North East. He swam alongside the politicians to reach accord with the Bodos, TNVF, AASU/AAGSP and laboured shoulder to shoulder with them to widen the fault lines in the forgotten ‘outland’ of India. A bleeding India is the witness of the degree of success and failure of these accords, which are more of paperwork than real repair work of the fault lines.

Here again I leave the field open to intellectual entrepreneurs to chronicle the contribution of the Indian ruling classes and bureaucrats in playing with the sub-nationalist aspirations of the North Eastern tribals to seek out a new political geography for them. In particular I would expect them to unearth the dirty tricks played by Buta Singh, Rajiv’s home minister in inciting the Assam tribals to float a demand for ‘Udayachal’. Senior officers of the Intelligence Bureau collaborated with Rajiv Gandhi’s troubleshooters in crafting out new Frankensteins in the North East. I wonder as to why the ‘Frankenstein’ of the Punjab has been dissected so much by the intellectuals as against very little attention they paid to the Frankensteins of the North East!

I was not keen to walk into the minefield.

In any case my reservations against an undefined shift to Assam theatre were overruled. I did not like to hurt R. P. Joshi either.

I landed on the Assam scene with plenty of reservation and trepidation as the ruling National Front government dithered helplessly to push its coalition partner, the AGP, for taking decisive action against the ULFA. The drift and alleged collaboration had allowed the ULFA to strengthen grassroots bases in upper and lower Brahmaputra valley and to establish contact with the Kachin rebels of Burma for training and weapons. The ULFA had infiltrated the veins, arteries and capillaries of Assam’s administration. At the fag end of his disastrous regime V. P. Singh agreed to impose President’s rule in the troubled state. The governor of the state was far removed from the ground realities. His late night drinking binge clouded up his mornings and day times. He had very little clue about the situation around him. A superannuated former IB officer was taken out from the cold to advise the governor. This former seasoned North East hand was out of tune with the ground realities as the state administration had become incapable of either generating intelligence or policing effectively.

My classification as a dare devil field operator pushed me into the thick of the problem that called for a well planned military action against the ULFA hideouts and its hideous activities. Two human assets were made available to me by O. N. Srivastava and I was left to the daunting task of locating fresh human assets from crucial ULFA infested areas like Nalbari, Haulighat, Chaparmukh, Nowgong, Jakhlabantha, Hathi Khuli, Tengapania and Barbara. A few Muslim, Nepali and Bengali friends assisted me out of their genuine desire to restore normalcy in the state. I must salute a Bengali professor of Nowgong College, Muslim friends from Kathiatoli (near Nowgong) and Amingaon (north of Brahmaputra) and a few Nepali friends from Dhing (south of Brahmaputra) and Bihuguri (north of Brahmaputra).

Srivastava had worked out his blueprint and I assisted him in briefing the Army command in Calcutta and Shillong. The Army Command was reasonably concerned over the exact location of the ULFA camps, routes leading through forested and riverine tracts and expert guides to lead the columns. These details were discussed over maps provided by the HumInt assets and transplanted on the grid maps. At that point of time we did not think of resorting to the Punjab experimentation with aerial imaging, as most of the camps were located inside deep forests and swampy riverfronts. We did not have access to thermal imaging technique that could fortify the HumInt inputs.

The nitty gritty of Operation Bajrang was worked out in collaboration with Hiteshwar Saikia and certain key human assets provided by him. The wily Ahom leader had developed key human assets, mostly drawn from the Nepali, Bengali and Muslim communities. He knew the terrain better than he knew his grassy lawn. These assets were contacted in Calcutta and in certain rural locations in Meghalaya.

A particular rendezvous point beyond Khanapara, deep into the foothills between Assam and Meghalaya, a little before the launching of Operation Bajrang had almost jeopardised my life. We drove in a hired jeep and went past a few tribal hamlets before reaching the dried up bed of a stream. We waited for the human asset to turn up at the rendezvous exactly at 8.15 p.m. At about 8 p.m. two shots rang out from the wooded hill forcing us to take cover behind massive boulders. The area did not have any ULFA hideout and Assam police hardly ventured out beyond the city limits.