09-26-2005, 06:09 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Time to detoxify our politics </b>
A Surya Prakash
The Congress party and the Communist Party of India have dismissed the explosive revelations in The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin as "baseless"and "preposterous" but the truth is that Mitrokhin's account of the former Soviet Union's deep penetration into the Indian establishment and these political parties is corroborated by other equally knowledgeable and credible sources. These sources include IA Benediktov, Soviet Ambassador to India in the early 1960s and Maloy Krishna Dhar, former Joint Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau, who kept a close watch on the activities of the KGB in India. In addition, there is Daniel Patrick Moynihan, US Ambassador to India in the early 1970s who has said that even the Americans had funded the Congress.
The main points made in The Mitrokhin Archive II are as follows : "Krishna Menon was the first Congressman to be 'bought over' by KGB. Many others followed; Indira Gandhi was won over; KGB funded the Congress party and the Communist Party of India in 1967; after the Congress split in 1969, the Soviets funded Indira Gandhi and her party; in 1971, the Soviet politburo gifted Indira Gandhi's Congress ® Rs 2 million. In 1971, a leading Congressman who was a KGB mole was paid Rs 1 lakh a year; KGB penetration into the Congress and Government was so complete that its head, Andropov, turned down the offer of a Union Minister to sell secrets for US $50,000; KGB funded Communists through import-export and publications businesses; KGB backed imposition of Emergency and pumped in funds to bolster Indira Gandhi's popularity." For want of space, I will not go beyond this summary of The Mitrokhin Archive II because sections of the media have extensively reported the contents of this book. Instead, I will turn my attention to the other sources that lend credence to Mitrokhin's account of how the Soviets had infiltrated the Congress, the Government and the Communist Party in those days.
The first of these is IA Benediktov. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of India is laid bare in the noting of Benediktov. Excerpts from his diaries are available in the New East-Bloc Documents on the Sino-Indian Conflict, 1959 and 1962 as part of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars website. I would appeal to every concerned Indian with access to the internet to please visit this website. The contents are shocking and are bound to make every self-respecting Indian hang his head in shame. One noting talks of how Bhupesh Gupta, secretary of the CPI went to him pleading for money on the eve of the February, 1967 general elections.
Benediktov says he met Bhupesh Gupta 10 days later and at this meeting Gupta expressed his gratitude to the Soviet leadership for its positive response to his request. In another noting Benediktov records the pleadings of another great Communist EMS Namboodiripad. This leader, Benedivtov says, thanked Moscow for supporting China after hostilities broke out between India and China war in 1962!
<b>Our own 'Mitrokhin', Maloy Krishna Dhar, former Joint Director of the Intelligence Bureau,</b> comes up with equally startling information in his book, Open Secrets - India's Intelligence Unveiled, which was published earlier this year. <b>This is what he has to say about our "patriotic" Congressmen and MPs in his book: "My painstaking research and intelligence penetration had succeeded in identifying over four Union Ministers and over two dozen members of Parliament who were on the payrolls of the KGB operatives. Some of them were still around. One of them, a journalist of sort, is now on the payrolls of a Bombay based tycoon. He masquerades as an evergreen 'troubleshooter', a Pakistan expert and an avatar of Track II diplomacy. For obvious reasons I would not like to name them." </b> { Kuldeep Nayyar}
As regards the Communists and left intellectuals, Mr Dhar says he was "surprised and shocked" by the vast sweep of Soviet penetration. His study of left controlled publications showed that the main parties and front organisations received considerable subsidies from the Soviet Embassy. "Several writers, poets and artists were on their payrolls. Over a dozen of them were on regular visits to the Soviet Block countries for fraternal meetings, education and treatment etc. The roster was so long that it became well nigh impossible to keep surveillance on all of them. The most interesting case was that of a Member of Parliament, who regularly received a pay packet from the Soviet Embassy for covering certain segments of the kitchen cabinet of Indira Gandhi. In fact, the Soviets had succeeded in considerably influencing a large number of educationists, litterateurs, artists and opinion makers."
Mr Dhar also talks of a top CPI(M) leader with Soviet links. He says he planted a long-range radio transmitter in the car of this leader and gathered evidence of his conversations with a Soviet intelligence man. When the evidence was presented to Mrs Gandhi, she was disinclined to declare the Soviet operative persona non grata.
However, Mr Dhar says, his tryst with the Soviet counter-intelligence unit in the IB was short-lived: "I had started trampling over too many powerful toes and focusing the arc lamp on a grey area that was dear to the Communists as well as to some factions of the ruling party. Deeper penetration of the forces won over by the Soviet Block by an intelligence agency irked a number of important secular and democratic opinion makers."
He was soon transferred to another unit. I would appeal to every Indian democrat to read Open Secrets to know how perilously close we often are to losing our democratic and constitutional rights. This book must also be read to identify political parties and organisations which are inimical to the idea of a democratic India.
Finally, evidence from America. Patrick Moynihan in the book, A Dangerous Place, which he co-authored with Suzanne Weaver (published in India in 1979), says that in 1974 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was making allegations about "the ever present danger of subversion by the CIA". This prompted him to investigate "what we had been up to" in the preceding quarter-century in India. This is what he found, in his own words: "In the end I was satisfied we had been up to very little. We had twice, but only twice, interfered in Indian politics to the extent of providing money to a political party. Both times this was done in the face of a prospective Communist victory in a State election, once in Kerala and once in West Bengal, where Calcutta is located. Both times the money was given to the Congress, which had asked for it. Once it was given to Mrs Gandhi herself, who was then a party official. Still, as we were no longer giving money to her, it was understandable that she should wonder just to whom we were giving it. It is not a practice to be encouraged."
All this evidence, when collated, adds up to just one thing - a story of perfidy. The accounts of Benediktov, Moynihan and our own 'Mitrokhin' lend credence to the conclusion drawn by the authors of Mitrokhin II that India was up for sale during the Cold War. This evidence, when aggregated, leaves one with a sinking feeling. A lot of people in our politics have, for a few pieces of Soviet silver, compromised India's interests. All of those identified by these sources were either Communists or members of the Congress. Sadly, one of those accused of securing foreign assistance to advance the politics of the Congress was a Prime Minister of India - Indira Gandhi.
While a lot more work needs to be done to identify every act of treachery, the material currently at hand is indeed substantial. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>All those who wish to preserve democracy and India's self respect must pursue this enquiry to its logical end. We must detoxify our politics. </span>www.dailypioneer.com/inde...nter_img=3 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A Surya Prakash
The Congress party and the Communist Party of India have dismissed the explosive revelations in The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin as "baseless"and "preposterous" but the truth is that Mitrokhin's account of the former Soviet Union's deep penetration into the Indian establishment and these political parties is corroborated by other equally knowledgeable and credible sources. These sources include IA Benediktov, Soviet Ambassador to India in the early 1960s and Maloy Krishna Dhar, former Joint Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau, who kept a close watch on the activities of the KGB in India. In addition, there is Daniel Patrick Moynihan, US Ambassador to India in the early 1970s who has said that even the Americans had funded the Congress.
The main points made in The Mitrokhin Archive II are as follows : "Krishna Menon was the first Congressman to be 'bought over' by KGB. Many others followed; Indira Gandhi was won over; KGB funded the Congress party and the Communist Party of India in 1967; after the Congress split in 1969, the Soviets funded Indira Gandhi and her party; in 1971, the Soviet politburo gifted Indira Gandhi's Congress ® Rs 2 million. In 1971, a leading Congressman who was a KGB mole was paid Rs 1 lakh a year; KGB penetration into the Congress and Government was so complete that its head, Andropov, turned down the offer of a Union Minister to sell secrets for US $50,000; KGB funded Communists through import-export and publications businesses; KGB backed imposition of Emergency and pumped in funds to bolster Indira Gandhi's popularity." For want of space, I will not go beyond this summary of The Mitrokhin Archive II because sections of the media have extensively reported the contents of this book. Instead, I will turn my attention to the other sources that lend credence to Mitrokhin's account of how the Soviets had infiltrated the Congress, the Government and the Communist Party in those days.
The first of these is IA Benediktov. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of India is laid bare in the noting of Benediktov. Excerpts from his diaries are available in the New East-Bloc Documents on the Sino-Indian Conflict, 1959 and 1962 as part of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars website. I would appeal to every concerned Indian with access to the internet to please visit this website. The contents are shocking and are bound to make every self-respecting Indian hang his head in shame. One noting talks of how Bhupesh Gupta, secretary of the CPI went to him pleading for money on the eve of the February, 1967 general elections.
Benediktov says he met Bhupesh Gupta 10 days later and at this meeting Gupta expressed his gratitude to the Soviet leadership for its positive response to his request. In another noting Benediktov records the pleadings of another great Communist EMS Namboodiripad. This leader, Benedivtov says, thanked Moscow for supporting China after hostilities broke out between India and China war in 1962!
<b>Our own 'Mitrokhin', Maloy Krishna Dhar, former Joint Director of the Intelligence Bureau,</b> comes up with equally startling information in his book, Open Secrets - India's Intelligence Unveiled, which was published earlier this year. <b>This is what he has to say about our "patriotic" Congressmen and MPs in his book: "My painstaking research and intelligence penetration had succeeded in identifying over four Union Ministers and over two dozen members of Parliament who were on the payrolls of the KGB operatives. Some of them were still around. One of them, a journalist of sort, is now on the payrolls of a Bombay based tycoon. He masquerades as an evergreen 'troubleshooter', a Pakistan expert and an avatar of Track II diplomacy. For obvious reasons I would not like to name them." </b> { Kuldeep Nayyar}
As regards the Communists and left intellectuals, Mr Dhar says he was "surprised and shocked" by the vast sweep of Soviet penetration. His study of left controlled publications showed that the main parties and front organisations received considerable subsidies from the Soviet Embassy. "Several writers, poets and artists were on their payrolls. Over a dozen of them were on regular visits to the Soviet Block countries for fraternal meetings, education and treatment etc. The roster was so long that it became well nigh impossible to keep surveillance on all of them. The most interesting case was that of a Member of Parliament, who regularly received a pay packet from the Soviet Embassy for covering certain segments of the kitchen cabinet of Indira Gandhi. In fact, the Soviets had succeeded in considerably influencing a large number of educationists, litterateurs, artists and opinion makers."
Mr Dhar also talks of a top CPI(M) leader with Soviet links. He says he planted a long-range radio transmitter in the car of this leader and gathered evidence of his conversations with a Soviet intelligence man. When the evidence was presented to Mrs Gandhi, she was disinclined to declare the Soviet operative persona non grata.
However, Mr Dhar says, his tryst with the Soviet counter-intelligence unit in the IB was short-lived: "I had started trampling over too many powerful toes and focusing the arc lamp on a grey area that was dear to the Communists as well as to some factions of the ruling party. Deeper penetration of the forces won over by the Soviet Block by an intelligence agency irked a number of important secular and democratic opinion makers."
He was soon transferred to another unit. I would appeal to every Indian democrat to read Open Secrets to know how perilously close we often are to losing our democratic and constitutional rights. This book must also be read to identify political parties and organisations which are inimical to the idea of a democratic India.
Finally, evidence from America. Patrick Moynihan in the book, A Dangerous Place, which he co-authored with Suzanne Weaver (published in India in 1979), says that in 1974 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was making allegations about "the ever present danger of subversion by the CIA". This prompted him to investigate "what we had been up to" in the preceding quarter-century in India. This is what he found, in his own words: "In the end I was satisfied we had been up to very little. We had twice, but only twice, interfered in Indian politics to the extent of providing money to a political party. Both times this was done in the face of a prospective Communist victory in a State election, once in Kerala and once in West Bengal, where Calcutta is located. Both times the money was given to the Congress, which had asked for it. Once it was given to Mrs Gandhi herself, who was then a party official. Still, as we were no longer giving money to her, it was understandable that she should wonder just to whom we were giving it. It is not a practice to be encouraged."
All this evidence, when collated, adds up to just one thing - a story of perfidy. The accounts of Benediktov, Moynihan and our own 'Mitrokhin' lend credence to the conclusion drawn by the authors of Mitrokhin II that India was up for sale during the Cold War. This evidence, when aggregated, leaves one with a sinking feeling. A lot of people in our politics have, for a few pieces of Soviet silver, compromised India's interests. All of those identified by these sources were either Communists or members of the Congress. Sadly, one of those accused of securing foreign assistance to advance the politics of the Congress was a Prime Minister of India - Indira Gandhi.
While a lot more work needs to be done to identify every act of treachery, the material currently at hand is indeed substantial. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>All those who wish to preserve democracy and India's self respect must pursue this enquiry to its logical end. We must detoxify our politics. </span>www.dailypioneer.com/inde...nter_img=3 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->