Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (69 page)

The other failure was related to modernising the TechInt unit by importing certain sensitive devices. The baboos again stood like firewalls in between the burning needs of the IB and their genetic cranial deformities. Most of them were of the opinion that sophisticated TechInt equipments were as mundane as the ashtrays on their tables. However, Narayanan had succeeded in squeezing out some juice from the ministries and I was allowed to import some sensitive equipments. Later, during my visits to the South East Asian markets and the markets in the USA, UK, Germany and France I was astounded by the abundance of such miniature equipments that were regularly purchased by foreign nationals including the Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. For some reason or other the Indian saints had put a screw on procurement of such equipment through independent efforts of the IB. The mandarins exercised and even now exercise strict control on the procurement system that is plagued by kickback and commission benefits.

I did not like to remind them that Pakistan had acquired its nuclear technology through open market shopping and shoplifting. In any case, the baboos are supposed to be brake appliers to any locomotion system that tends to roll forward.

I expect the readers’ anxiety to peep into some of the sensitive TechInt operations that were undertaken during my tenure. I must restrict the temptation of dramatising some of the sensitive operations. A few innocent expose would not perhaps break the vaults of national security.

A unique opportunity was offered by a friend who had bagged the contract for constructing the chancery and residential premises of an embassy somewhere in Delhi. He offered me a free tour of the construction site. I was astounded by the defensive and offensive security and intelligence measures taken by the concerned country in designing and securing the sensitive segments of the chancery and the residential premises. The heart of the security core was the chamber of the ambassador, his three deputies and the communication room. These were treated with thick lead sheets and other soundproofing materials with a view to denying energy emission from communication equipments. The concerned country imported most of the screws and bolts and electrical circuits and switches. They were suspicious about Indian supplies.

I was offered an opportunity to install three infinite radio microphones connected to the main power source at some targeted locations. The proposal to permanently bug the heart of the mission was turned down by the Ministry of External Affairs and the PMO. The IB lost an excellent opportunity that could provide important leads to the acceleration of Islamist thrusts in India. A senior functionary in the PMO later called me to explain that India hadn’t yet accepted the culture of pro-active intelligence gathering at the cost of diplomatic constraints. I was not given an opportunity to explain that aggressive intelligence gathering is as much a part of diplomacy as diplomacy itself was.

Around February 1992, soon after the flop Ekta Yatra of Murli Manohar Joshi, I was directed to arrange technical coverage of a key meeting of the BJP/Sangh Parivar. The meeting, I was told, was to be attended by Lal Krishna Advani, M. M. Joshi, Rajju Bhaiya, K. S. Sudarshan, Vijaya Raje Scindhia, H.S. Sheshadri, Vinay Katiyar, Uma Bharti, Champat Roy etc. I literally faced a crisis of faith. I was a self-proclaimed friend of the Sangh Parivar and I genuinely expected them to do better in the forth-coming national elections. But my bondage to the agency and profession forced me to overcome the reservations. I took necessary measures to get equipments planted to record the proceedings of the meeting.

Thank God, I did. The audio and videotapes rattled my emotional attachment to the Hindutwa protagonist organisations. The February meeting tapes disillusioned me. The contents proved beyond doubt that the high priests of hatred had helped the Sangh Parivar to adopt a strident Hindutwa programme soon after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The Rajiv interlude had sent them to political oblivion but the lessons learnt during the JP movement and anti-Rajiv campaign had convinced the Parivar leaders that the right moment of history had arrived for the Hindu forces to make a determined bid for political power. The February meeting proved beyond doubt that they had drawn up the blueprint of the Hindutwa assault in coming months and choreographed the
pralaya nritya
(dance of destruction) at Ayodhya in December 1992 that had disfigured the India I knew. The RSS, BJP, VHP and the Bajrang Dal leaders present in the meeting amply agreed to work in a well-orchestrated manner. A particular advice to Uma Bharti that she should hold back her emotional leanings to Gobindachariya till the assigned mission was complete, intrigued me. My family and I were witnesses to several intimate moments shared by Uma and Gobind. I would like to comment on this a little later.

I retrieved the tapes after about two days by resorting to a minor break in and personally handed over the materials to my boss. I have no doubt that he had shared the chilling contents with the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. But the man at the helm of affairs of Indira Congress was an indecisive person. He had regained some jest for life and had started dreaming of short-circuiting the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and writing his name on the tablet of time. He dithered. And L. K. Advani and his colleagues crossed the ramparts of history and generated passion that demolished an insignificant mosque, which was converted to a symbol of civilisational conflict between Hinduism and Islam that had taken roots in India for over 1200 years. History cannot be corrected by demolition. A civilisation can be rewritten by hatred.

The recent Gujarat pogrom also rattled my bones. I wish there were some mad people like me to gather audio and video evidences of the scheme of minority annihilation by Narendra Modi, the third ‘lauha purush’ (iron man from Gujarat). Anyways, history has the bad habit of re-running like a stuck film spool.

*

I tumbled against another TechInt operational coup rather accidentally. In January 1992, I was assigned the task of electronic sweeping/cleaning of the PM offices in South Block by using certain bug detecting equipments. I tumbled against an unexpected bug and a forgotten micro-radio monitoring machine. The bug was implanted inside the phone of an aide to the Prime Minister, planted by the IB during V. P. Singh’s regime. That provided IB with vital clues to the happenings in the PMO. The end products, I understand, were delivered to Rajiv Gandhi even when Chandrashekhar warmed the seat for the former. In the melee of fast political and bureaucratic changes someone had forgotten to remove the spy contraption from the PMO. I carried out the rescue operation while doing some electronic debugging operations.

So much so for the sanctity of the highest office of the land!

The other device was installed at a point of time when Rajiv Gandhi and Zail Singh had developed irreparable hostility. The device mounted somewhere on top of the PMO picked up telephone conversations from certain ‘treated’ phones in the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The recorded tapes were regularly made available to Rajiv Gandhi, which provided him with deep insight into the machinations inside the walls of the Luyten’s palace. I would rather refrain from narrating some of the choicest expletives used by the intriguers. The thet (rural) Punjabi was no less beautiful than any other accomplished language that described the user’s adversaries in most colourful idioms and phrases.

Some of the tapes also included, fortunately and unfortunately, some delicate talks by personalities in the PMO, which amply highlighted financial deals and favours. A few reels pertained to an efficient and infamous field gun that has not stopped chasing some of the hidden skeletons in political cupboards.

To the best of my knowledge these highly sensitive tapes were consigned to the archives of the Intelligence Bureau.

The other TechInt operation was thrust upon me a little before the Indira Congress cabal installed Narasimha Rao. I was directed to gather technical intelligence on a particular woman journalist whose friendship with the ‘Prime Minister to be sworn in’ was a hot topic among Delhi’s chatterati and glitterati. It was a dirty order. I could only presume the source from which the request had originated. After a detailed survey of the living accommodation of the journalist I advised against mounting the intended TechInt operation. The place was congested and it was very difficult to break into the home for implanting listening and recording devices. The authorities did not relent.

Finally I bribed the domestic hand and gained access for three hours. That valuable time was utilised to implant bugs in the home telephone and a miniature video transmitter in her bedroom. The results gathered over a period of one month did not leave anything to imagination.

I have no idea about the exact utilisation of the exotic audio and videotapes. But I can presume that the innermost core of the Indira Congress establishment might have had used these at some point or other against the man who was catapulted by destiny to the highest slot of the political system.

Cryptic narration of the above TechInt operations has obviously not quenched the thrust of the readers. The nasty sides of human life are often more charismatic than the cultivated saintly paradigm. Certain truths, I believe, are better protected when buried under permafrost. But the events signify that the ruling class has all along misused and abused the intelligence apparatus. The machineries have mostly been used for spying on political opponents rather than on priority areas of national security. The Establishment has perpetuated this aberration. No sane political and judicial luminary has yet come up with the demands for bringing the intelligence organisations of the country under Acts of the Parliament and making them responsible to statutory bodies. Personalised use of the powerful internal and external intelligence organisations militate against the constitutional and democratic edifices of the country. My personal efforts to arouse reasonable response from the opinion makers inevitably ended in prophetic replies like ‘why waste your sleep’ and ‘you don’t legislate to give better rights to your housemaid’. Well! That’s what the status of the spy outfits is. They are better off below bed sheets and inside kitchen pots.

BACK TO MY LOVE

He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.

Thomas Fuller.

My tenure with the TechInt unit came to an end soon after V.G.Vaidya took over the reins of the Intelligence Bureau from M. K. Narayanan in March 1992. Vaidya was a small statured and slightly built person and could be easily passed on as a Charlie Chaplin clone, if he had sported that famous butterfly moustache. But he was no joker and entertainer. A man of serious business sense he had developed appreciable grip on the entire panorama of the security and intelligence parameters of the country. He was a thorough but low profile professional. Little later I discovered that he was not averse to taking risk and resorting to ‘pro-active’ intelligence operations inside Pakistan.

I had my first brush with Vaidya in Calcutta, way back in 1975, when he dropped in at my modest office and asked me to brief him on the affairs of the North East. He was on his way to take charge of his new assignment at Kohima. We spent a couple of hours together and exchanged operational information and discussed the appropriate keys to certain individuals, both in the political set up and the underground set up, who shaped the course of history in the North East. I was impressed by his keenness to learn operational details and I hoped he was impressed by my earthy linkages with that yet to be integrated part of India.

Vaidya was honest enough to call me to his office and ask if I wanted a change. I enjoyed my work in the TechInt unit. But my first love was operational intelligence, especially operations pertaining to terrorism, insurgency and Pakistan.

We frankly discussed the aspects of my closeness to some of the RSS and BJP leaders and my proximity to a couple of leaders in Indira Congress. He wanted to know if it was possible for me to sever linkages with my political friends. I admitted that I had been suffering from contradictory pulls from my young days. Son of a gun wielding revolutionary congress worker, not a
satyagrahi
(non-violent) type, I felt a natural attraction to Congress, as a symbol of mainstream political force. As a victim of the partition I had acquired a passion for hating the Muslims and I had chosen the RSS and the Jan Sangh as my ideological vehicle to avenge the civilisational vermin. I was often torn within myself. As said by Robert Frost, I was… “a both insider as well as a rank outsider,” in matters related to the ruling party.

Like most young Maharashtrians, Vaidya too had his tryst with the saffron brigade during early adolescence. He appreciated my dilemma and did not demand my severance of linkages with them but expressed in clear words that I should keep him informed at personal level about sensitive developments in these organisations; particularly, events that could have direct bearing on national security.

I was immediately shifted to the Pakistan Counter Intelligence Unit (PCIU) with additional responsibility of certain operations in Punjab and supervision of the Computer and Satellite Communication wings.

*

By the time I reported back to my favourite unit the battle order inside battleground India had drastically changed.

P.V. Narasimha Rao was directed by the Indira Congress cabal to unpack his baggage and shift over to the South Block prime ministerial seat. He was supposed to be a night watchman and make space either for Sonia Gandhi or a cabal satrap, more acceptable to the regional power traders. Narasimha Rao was saddled with a couple of intractable problems. He did not have a clear majority in the parliament and was desperately in search of defectors and allies.

India’s war against its own citizens in Punjab was still not won. Pakistan was still pumping in weapons and imparting training to the directionless kamikaze type terrorists. Punjab was still smouldering. K.P.S.Gill’s ruthless operations did not remain confined to legal policing. The police, military, and intelligence agencies perpetrated murder, rape, looting, inhuman torture and amassing of wealth like their terrorist counterparts did.

The Kashmir walnut was still in blazing fire that was fuelled by Pakistan and its dreaded Establishment arm, the Inter Services Intelligence. Mishandling of the gangrenous fault line both by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had added new dimensions to the problems even before Rajiv Gandhi demitted office and made way for his rival V. P. Singh. The new
Intifida
launched by the Kashmiri militants with active support of the ISI signified a strategic victory for Pakistan. Afghan experiences had taught the Islamic nation the important lesson that low-key proxy war with heavy religious overtone was a less expensive way to grab Kashmir.

Amidst politically fabricated violent movements in Assam and Punjab Indira Gandhi had staked her personal reputation in the Kashmir assembly election of 1983. Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference had badly humiliated Indira Congress by securing 46 of the 75 seats. Indira Gandhi refused to accept the defeat gracefully. G. M. Shah, who was known as ‘Gul-e-Curfew’ (the curfew flower) interlude had exposed the raw side of the political personality of Indira Gandhi. It widened the fault line fissure. The sense of alienation was deepened after Rajiv Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah carried out a blatant rigging of the 1987 elections. By 1989 the valley of flower was turned into a valley of death. The situation was aggravated by V. P. Singh government’s action of inducting the ‘Turkman Gate bulldozer’ and Sanjay Gandhi acolyte Jagmohan as the governor. India had again entered into a war against our own citizens in Kashmir, where Pakistan had already occupied the elevated strategic ground.

Narasimha Rao government was simply not equipped to meet the proxy war challenges from Pakistan. Mere military domination was no answer to the ailments that afflicted the people and the strategic territory.

Pakistan too had experimented with certain democratic interludes with personalities like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. But the regime of Zia-ul-Haq had permanently changed the soul-texture of Pakistan. The process of ‘
gradual sacralisation of the national political discourse
’ was elevated to the pedestal of radical Islamisation and the inheritor of the sub-continental civilisational and cultural values tagged itself to the tail end of Islamist fundamentalist values of certain Middle Eastern Arab countries. The Civil Service of Pakistan, the Armed Forces and the ISI had hijacked the country and Benazir and Nawaz Sharif were in no position to reverse the process of aggravated segmentation of the Pakistani society and changing the course of confrontation with India.

Zia-ul-Haq had initiated the process of catapulting the ISI to the pedestal of a parallel state and it served Zia’s strategic aim of converting Afghanistan to a client state. He also gave a free hand to the organisation to turn the heat on India by actively exploiting the Indian fault lines in Punjab and Kashmir. According to an estimate the ISI pumped in over $5 million every year to carry on Pakistan’s proxy war in the western sector alone. Most of the dough came from drug money.

Narasimha Rao was also saddled with growing Hindu militancy that aimed at providing an alternative and viable political plank to the Sangh Parivar. The night watchman perilously swerved between the extremes of alleged financial scams, flexible indecisiveness towards Hindutwa protagonists and not too nascent hostility towards the widow of Rajiv Gandhi. He also depended on god men and manipulative advisors.

Starting with the June 1989 Palampur (HP) resolution of the BJP on Ram Janambhoomi the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates did not look back. It made a giant leap in 1989 elections and made dramatic gains in 1992 by bagging 120 seats and 20% of valid votes polled. It virtually emerged as a national alternative to Indira Congress. A Hindu upsurge was clearly visible. In the absence of charismatic national leader and powerful regional satraps the Congress fumbled along the route to putting India back on the constitutional rail. Damages caused by the Mandal programme of V.P. Singh and the ‘kamandal’ (religious bigotry) programme of the Sangh Parivar had threatened the inner soul of India. P.V. Narasimha Rao, a mere political passenger on the gravy train, was in no position to stem the rot. Sonia Gandhi, for well-considered reasons, did not like to take the mantle on from her late husband and Indira Gandhi. This provided the Sangh Parivar a unique opportunity to ride the dual tiger: the socially engineered caste parabola and religiously hypnotised Hindutwa tigers.

Perilously enough both the Congress and the BJP failed to take into consideration the regional strategic factors and global strategic developments while pursuing their respective internal political policies. They also failed to measure up the intensity of Pakistani interference along the existing Indian fault lines before opening up newer tectonic fissures. The Indian political leaders did not take into consideration that Islamist
jihadi
forces had almost assumed the stature and character of a state within the state of Pakistan and that international Islamist terrorist forces had embarked upon a global programme against the
jahiliya
(non believer) enemies of Islam

The growth of Hindutwa passion and the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar, therefore, generated reactions amongst the Muslim organisations all over India and it offered a unique opportunity to the Pakistani Establishment to implement a well-researched action programme of radicalising the ‘secular’ Indian Muslims. The Islamist and fundamentalist organisations spawned by the ISI were directed to infiltrate the Indian Muslims and establish ‘modules of sabotage and subversion’ in India and adjoining countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. It was a virtual ‘intelligence encirclement’ programme adopted and executed by the Pakistani establishment.

My interactions with the Sangh Parivar and BJP friends left no doubt that they were determined to use the Ram Janambhoomi card in a decisive manner for electoral benefits. I vehemently opposed the idea of destroying the mosque at Ayodhya and tried to convince them that brinkmanship had its limitations, especially when it played with human sentiments for love and religion. Most of them, especially K.N. Gobindachariya, Ved Prakash Goel, Rajinder Sharma, S. Gurumurthy and Sushma Swaraj etc were of the view that accelerated Ayodhya campaign was not likely to result in the demolition of the mosque. It would rather build up ‘Hindutwa Bhavna’ (Hindu sentiment) and bestow electoral dividend to the party. However, O. Rajagopal, a former police officer, who happened to visit me with Rajinder Sharma, gave an impression that the Sangh Parivar was determined to ‘correct the course of history’ and put the civilisational aberrations in correct perspective. S.C. Dikshit, a retired IPS officer and a course mate of Sunanda’s father, expressed similar views. His views were fortified by an important acquaintance in Uttar Pradesh unit of the Shiv Sena, the extreme parochial organisation headed by Bal Thakre. Other evidences gathered by the Intelligence sleuths left no doubt that the Sangh Parivar was determined to demolish the mosque.

While I shared my concerns with the Director IB I tried to argue, at least once, with Rajendra Sharma that demolition of the mosque was sure to unleash communal upsurge and the instable regime in Pakistan was sure to mount retaliatory operations.

From my talks with the Sangh Parivar stalwarts I gathered impression that they had adopted a multi-layered operational plan by assigning specific role to each segment of the Parivar. The VHP, Bajrang Dal and other associate bodies were under instructions to go ahead with the demolition of the ‘vitarkit dhancha’ (disputed structure) and their volunteers were trained at different locations under expert supervision.

The BJP leadership was assigned the role of putting on ‘mukhotas’ (masks) of political rhetoric mixed with frenetic religious appeal. Leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani managed to display the moderate face of the plan. However, most of them, especially Lal Krishna Advani was fully aware of the plan of demolition of the mosque on a date coinciding with an auspicious Hindu celebration. The Sangh Parivar was determined to ‘avenge the demolition of the Somnath Temple in the Muslim ruled state of Junagarh seven times over by the Mahmud of Ghazana (modern Gazhni in Afghanistan) that arose virtually from the ruins of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Caliph had rewarded the Gahnivids for these acts of destruction of
jahiliya
icons. The Parivar friends pointed out that, soon after renovation of the temple the Muslims in Karachi and other places in Pakistan had demonstrated against dedication of the temple to the nation. The Parivar friends were determined to demolish the “Babri Mosque” seven times over if it were possible. It was an act of faith, I was told, when I pleaded with some of them to stop that action of madness.

Uma Bharti and Gobindachariya had, in the meantime, suffered severe emotional stresses. Their personal relationship had flourished into a full-blown affair of love and affection. My late wife and I were close witnesses to the intimate relationship between the two. Unfortunately for them the South Indian Brahmin man and the tribal woman from Madhya Pradesh were not destined to be united around the holy fire and amidst the Vedic mantras, not at least in the near future. The RSS had disapproved the affair as Gobind was a
pracharak
. The BJP did not approve of any diversion at a critical point of time when the party was preparing for a definite bid for power. Uma Bharti was directed to concentrate on the Ram Janambhoomi movement as a force multiplier to Sadhwi Ritambara. We were pained to share the pains of the couple. But they gulped the poison of rejection and submitted to the Fuehrers of the Sangh Parivar. I sincerely believe that the bonds of love between the two are intact and sooner than later they are going to formalise it around the sacred fire.