This country’s intelligence culture is evident from two books that appeared in 2006. The first, the Mitrokhin Archive spoke of high-level penetration and influence-peddling by the KGB in India. It was politely ignored.
The second, by a former Intelligence Bureau (IB) official, Maloy Krishna Dhar detailed the political shenanigans of the IB, including the outrageous episode where Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi allowed his office to be used to bug President Giani Zail Singh in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Again, the book and the charge were coolly ignored by the entire political class.
The Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) arose from the disastrous defeat India suffered at the hands of China in 1962. Till then IB handled both internal and external intelligence as well as military intelligence. The R&AW got a good start under the leadership of Ramnath Kao, its first Director. But it would seem it has been downhill since.
India is one of the few democratic countries where the intelligence agencies are not supervised by the legislature. Actually there is little supervision by anyone at all. The misuse of money and facilities has become a byword. The Aviation Research Centre has aircraft for surveillance and liaison activities, yet there are reports of its aircraft being used to ferry politicians and provide joyrides for the bosses. Some of these were brought out in a book by Maj Gen V.K. Singh who’s now being prosecuted under the colonial Official Secrets Act.
Last month when a Pakistani minister announced that the ISI was being asked to shut down its political wing there was a great deal of amusement around the world and in India. But the fact is that the IB runs an equally big political operation. The IB may not funnel money to politicians, but it uses its machinery to spy on them for the benefit of the government of the day. The IB has a sophisticated secretariat to cover the entire political spectrum.
The result, naturally, is that these outfits don’t do their real job properly—protecting the country from external subversion and battling India’s enemies abroad.
Though a Group of Ministers’ decisions were approved in 2003, intelligence agencies used the 2004 change of government to block reform. The process got underway only in mid-2005 due to the sudden demise of National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit. The appointment of M.K. Narayanan as his successor led to expectations that reforms would be fast-tracked because he had himself been an IB director. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Narayanan brought in cronyism into the intelligence agencies, allowing them to revert to the pass-the-buck culture.
In the process, the country’s new high-tech spying agency — the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) was not allowed to come up as directed by the GoM decisions. The NTRO was created to centralise all high-tech, and hence expensive, assets under one organisation to look after imagery and communications intelligence. Predictably, there was a lot of hue and cry from existing agencies who had to surrender turf. Narayanan as the chairman of the Technology Coordination Group to mediate conflicting claims refused to push the R&AW and IB to allow NTRO to come up. The agency remains stymied by poor leadership and morale.
Narayanan’s poor leadership of the National Security Council system is now becoming clearer. The coordination expected from the Joint Intelligence Committee does not seem to be working. The deputy National Security Advisers, a position once occupied by first-rate officers like Satish Chandra and Vijay Nambiar, are today held by people who need to be
accommodated for one extraneous consideration or other.
Actually, our intelligence services, particularly R&AW, do not have much of an operations culture. The bulk of their work is done through electronic intercepts and imagery intelligence, therefore the reluctance to allow the NTRO to come up. Another significant part of the work is to use money to buy influence and information. But the gap in an operations culture means that India has not even been able to deal with the ULFA militants living in Bangladesh.
As it is, little effort has been made to create a wider knowledge base for the intelligence agencies.The country’s language and area studies disciplines are the places where they can find interpreters, translators and analysts. Yet that is the last place they would go for them. First, because the output of our academic institutions is second or third-rate and second because the suspicious and bureaucratised agencies think that the best option is to train people in-house. As a result they can barely get the vast numbers of people you need to translate intercepts, foreign language papers and assess information. Just how skewed the system has become is evident from the fact that there are no Urdu interpreters in government service. We have millions of people who speak, read and write Urdu, but they are Muslims, and our intelligence agencies do not hire Muslims. So is it any wonder that they cannot penetrate jihadi groups?
Our agencies require urgent restructuring to enable their monitoring in a two-tier process. The first tier is supervision by ombudsmen to prevent misuse of the powers they wield. The second is that by the political class to ensure that public funds are spent for the purpose they have been appropriated in Parliament.
This appeared in Mail Today December 5, 2008
Showing posts with label RAW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RAW. Show all posts
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The UPA has not even attempted to reform the national security system
Last week I wrote, perhaps a shade effusively, about the achievements of the Manmohan Singh government — the performance of the economy under its watch, the legislation it has passed and so on. On security issues, however, the comments were more by way of negative achievements — that no event like Gujarat or Kargil had marred its record.
Unlike in other fields, the government has little to show by way of positive achievement in the area of defence and security. In the last four years the country has not faced any major threat to its security. This was even more reason why the government could have taken the opportunity to reform and restructure the defence and security apparatus of the country. But that has not happened and in the main we must blame the political leadership for this. As the experience of the National Democratic Alliance revealed, so huge is the task that it can only have been done by the political class. The United Progressive Alliance government inherited a positive impulse in this area in the form of decisions taken by the NDA based on the recommendations of a Group of Ministers which looked into the issues of defence management of the country. The recommendations of the GOM were well thought out and reflected a system-wide consensus.
Integration
But the UPA government has not just dithered, they have simply ignored any effort towards reform. The key area in which they were to have taken a decision was that of a Chief of Defence Staff who would be the chief military adviser to the government, along with the Defence Secretary who would be the senior-most civilian adviser. The CDS would have channeled all defence purchases to ensure there was no unnecessary duplication of effort. More important, his appointment would have initiated the process of integrating the three wings of the armed forces into a single fighting unit. This is crucial because the technological imperatives of the revolution in military affairs are already upon us. The RMA, based on new technologies of situational awareness and precision strike, cannot be effectively exploited unless the services fight as an integrated unit.
In the hands of the UPA, the GOM has become an instrument of blocking or evading decisions. The one major opportunity that the UPA had for defence reform related to the Defence Research and Development Organisation, but that was wasted by having a review committee headed by a former scientist of the organisation itself and some other former defence officials. In other words, the opportunity to make a decisive break from the organisation’s unfortunate history has been wasted.
Intelligence
It is not as though that the services have been starved of funds and equipment. Things may work slowly, but the Indian armed forces are being equipped with the best money can buy and the UPA government has not stinted on this score. The charge against it, however, is that it has not bothered to monitor how and why the money is being spent. The government has paid little attention to the larger issues of restructuring and reforming the services. The steady attrition of the army’s officer corps, with the best officers putting in their papers, and fewer signing up, is not a consequence of their pay alone. The problem is of a wider loss of esprit de corps of the force, manifested by instances of corruption and moral turpitude.
Other reforms pertained to the intelligence services. Most of the recommendations of the task force led by former Research & Analysis Wing Chief G.C.(Gary) Saxena were classified, but it is known that they called for extensive reform of the system. The 244-page paper given to the GOM was prepared by, among others, current National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, former Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath and former R&AW official B. Raman.
It called for the creation of a new integrated Defence Intelligence Agency, a new agency called the National Technical Research Office which would own all the high tech assets of the intelligence services, and new data handling and inter-agency coordination systems. But in the four years of the UPA implementation of the recommendations have been fitful. They have been actively sabotaged by bureaucratic vested interests and undermined by inter-agency wrangling. The country’s ability to tackle the mutating terrorist threats is seriously in doubt, notwithstanding the hype about the recent SIMI captures. The key failure arises from the very fountainhead of the system — the National Security Council and its support bodies which were supposed to supervise this change. The NSC rarely meets and its support bodies are left to carry on routine tasks. Key decisions such as empowering the NTRO have not taken place. Neither have steps to ensure meaningful coordination among the MEA, IB, R&AW, the DIA and the state police intelligence services.
The primary reason for the failure in both the defence and security fields has been political. With the passing of J.N.(Mani) Dixit, the government lost whatever impulse it may have had to reform any part of the system. Former Intelligence Bureau chief Narayanan who succeeded him has been unable to overcome the limits of his own background and has been content to allow things to drift. But it is not his fault. He is by background a bureaucrat, accustomed to managing the system as it is. The onus for change lies with the political authorities. Unfortunately, this is where the problem lies. The Prime Minister, his other senior ministers and the chairman of the United Progressive Alliance are good people concerned about aam admi, social justice and India’s image abroad. Like Jawaharlal Nehru, they are not temperamentally inclined to bother about issues relating to security, especially since a threat does not appear to be imminent. The two key ministries dealing with security and defence have had very poor leadership. The less said about Mr. Shivraj Patil, the better. But equally both Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and Mr. A.K. Antony have proved to be failures in handling the defence ministry.
Guidance
The NSC system had been set up not to deal with the problems of today, but to anticipate those of tomorrow and initiate policy measures to counter them. In these circumstances, the past four years would have been a good time to push for restructuring the armed forces and the intelligence services. In these years, a new future has already come upon us. The Maoist threat does not have the capability of overthrowing our system, though it is exercising its ability to debilitate the country enormously. But all that the UPA has done is to acknowledge that there is a problem, not solve it. Terrorism has struck new and different roots in the country, expanding into urban centres in the South. For years there was an assumption that the situation in Tibet was stabilising and that the Indian agreements with China would lead to a border settlement. But recent events have belied that. The Tibetan rebellion and the Chinese response indicate that the region could remain a flashpoint in Sino-Indian relations for some time. The Maoist sweep in Nepal elections has introduced another area of uncertainty in our northern and unprotected border.
In the past decade or so, the Chinese have built up a formidable logistical capability in Tibet, including a railroad. In addition, the People’s Liberation Army has been completely modernised and restructured. Their Indian counterparts have not wanted for money or equipment, but they have not had the political guidance or leadership to take the steps needed to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
This article appeared in Mail Today April 16, 2008
Unlike in other fields, the government has little to show by way of positive achievement in the area of defence and security. In the last four years the country has not faced any major threat to its security. This was even more reason why the government could have taken the opportunity to reform and restructure the defence and security apparatus of the country. But that has not happened and in the main we must blame the political leadership for this. As the experience of the National Democratic Alliance revealed, so huge is the task that it can only have been done by the political class. The United Progressive Alliance government inherited a positive impulse in this area in the form of decisions taken by the NDA based on the recommendations of a Group of Ministers which looked into the issues of defence management of the country. The recommendations of the GOM were well thought out and reflected a system-wide consensus.
Integration
But the UPA government has not just dithered, they have simply ignored any effort towards reform. The key area in which they were to have taken a decision was that of a Chief of Defence Staff who would be the chief military adviser to the government, along with the Defence Secretary who would be the senior-most civilian adviser. The CDS would have channeled all defence purchases to ensure there was no unnecessary duplication of effort. More important, his appointment would have initiated the process of integrating the three wings of the armed forces into a single fighting unit. This is crucial because the technological imperatives of the revolution in military affairs are already upon us. The RMA, based on new technologies of situational awareness and precision strike, cannot be effectively exploited unless the services fight as an integrated unit.
In the hands of the UPA, the GOM has become an instrument of blocking or evading decisions. The one major opportunity that the UPA had for defence reform related to the Defence Research and Development Organisation, but that was wasted by having a review committee headed by a former scientist of the organisation itself and some other former defence officials. In other words, the opportunity to make a decisive break from the organisation’s unfortunate history has been wasted.
Intelligence
It is not as though that the services have been starved of funds and equipment. Things may work slowly, but the Indian armed forces are being equipped with the best money can buy and the UPA government has not stinted on this score. The charge against it, however, is that it has not bothered to monitor how and why the money is being spent. The government has paid little attention to the larger issues of restructuring and reforming the services. The steady attrition of the army’s officer corps, with the best officers putting in their papers, and fewer signing up, is not a consequence of their pay alone. The problem is of a wider loss of esprit de corps of the force, manifested by instances of corruption and moral turpitude.
Other reforms pertained to the intelligence services. Most of the recommendations of the task force led by former Research & Analysis Wing Chief G.C.(Gary) Saxena were classified, but it is known that they called for extensive reform of the system. The 244-page paper given to the GOM was prepared by, among others, current National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, former Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath and former R&AW official B. Raman.
It called for the creation of a new integrated Defence Intelligence Agency, a new agency called the National Technical Research Office which would own all the high tech assets of the intelligence services, and new data handling and inter-agency coordination systems. But in the four years of the UPA implementation of the recommendations have been fitful. They have been actively sabotaged by bureaucratic vested interests and undermined by inter-agency wrangling. The country’s ability to tackle the mutating terrorist threats is seriously in doubt, notwithstanding the hype about the recent SIMI captures. The key failure arises from the very fountainhead of the system — the National Security Council and its support bodies which were supposed to supervise this change. The NSC rarely meets and its support bodies are left to carry on routine tasks. Key decisions such as empowering the NTRO have not taken place. Neither have steps to ensure meaningful coordination among the MEA, IB, R&AW, the DIA and the state police intelligence services.
The primary reason for the failure in both the defence and security fields has been political. With the passing of J.N.(Mani) Dixit, the government lost whatever impulse it may have had to reform any part of the system. Former Intelligence Bureau chief Narayanan who succeeded him has been unable to overcome the limits of his own background and has been content to allow things to drift. But it is not his fault. He is by background a bureaucrat, accustomed to managing the system as it is. The onus for change lies with the political authorities. Unfortunately, this is where the problem lies. The Prime Minister, his other senior ministers and the chairman of the United Progressive Alliance are good people concerned about aam admi, social justice and India’s image abroad. Like Jawaharlal Nehru, they are not temperamentally inclined to bother about issues relating to security, especially since a threat does not appear to be imminent. The two key ministries dealing with security and defence have had very poor leadership. The less said about Mr. Shivraj Patil, the better. But equally both Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and Mr. A.K. Antony have proved to be failures in handling the defence ministry.
Guidance
The NSC system had been set up not to deal with the problems of today, but to anticipate those of tomorrow and initiate policy measures to counter them. In these circumstances, the past four years would have been a good time to push for restructuring the armed forces and the intelligence services. In these years, a new future has already come upon us. The Maoist threat does not have the capability of overthrowing our system, though it is exercising its ability to debilitate the country enormously. But all that the UPA has done is to acknowledge that there is a problem, not solve it. Terrorism has struck new and different roots in the country, expanding into urban centres in the South. For years there was an assumption that the situation in Tibet was stabilising and that the Indian agreements with China would lead to a border settlement. But recent events have belied that. The Tibetan rebellion and the Chinese response indicate that the region could remain a flashpoint in Sino-Indian relations for some time. The Maoist sweep in Nepal elections has introduced another area of uncertainty in our northern and unprotected border.
In the past decade or so, the Chinese have built up a formidable logistical capability in Tibet, including a railroad. In addition, the People’s Liberation Army has been completely modernised and restructured. Their Indian counterparts have not wanted for money or equipment, but they have not had the political guidance or leadership to take the steps needed to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
This article appeared in Mail Today April 16, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Spies are also human beings
The story of Kashmir Singh cannot fail to stir the heart of every Indian. Here is a man, convicted for spying, who spent 35 long years entombed on the death row in Pakistan. Singh says he was not a spy; that does not matter. Even if he was one, he was a pawn in a larger game that routinely has dozens of agents crossing the border, or the Line of Control in Kashmir, to gather low level military intelligence. Their task is to update what is called the enemy’s “order of battle”— the location of armoured or infantry units, artillery batteries, air force squadrons and cantonments — the pieces of a real life chessboard.
In the world of blacks and whites, espionage occupies a grey area. Those who spy for our country are considered heroes, while the ones who spy on us are reviled as the lowest of the low. In the old days, and that means till World War I and II, spies were routinely executed after a trial of sorts by military tribunals. With India and Pakistan stumbling towards peace and the perceptible decline of hostility towards each other, it’s perhaps time that some humane principles were introduced into this primeval gladiator pit as well.
Pawns
Spying was considered a distasteful, if necessary, part of the contest between nations. However, an interesting twist was brought on by the enormous threat of global destruction that came with the emergence of arsenals of nuclear weapon-tipped missiles. Early arms control treaties between the US and USSR worked with the assumption that both sides would keep track of compliance by the other through, what were called national technical means — spy satellites, electronic and other kinds of surveillance. The idea was to provide assurance that no one side was sneaking ahead with a technology that could undermine the peace brought on by the capabilities of mutually assured destruction. In our era, for the big powers at least, the spy was recast as a regulator.
The problem is that both India and Pakistan treat spies like Kashmir Singh as expendable pawns. Most of them are recruited from villages of Punjab — Pakistani and Indian — and belong to the lower strata. Being pawns, they are simply ignored when arrested. So casual is the approach towards them that neither country ever acknowledges their existence and therefore shows no interest in assisting those arrested, or rehabilitating those who have served their time after conviction.
In September 2005, in the wake of the Sarabjit Singh case, several former field agents organised a gathering under the leadership of Vasdev Sharma, a former spy, who had spent eight long years in Pakistani jails. They complained that despite their suffering, no one bothered about their families or recognised their services after their release. Spies of an even earlier generation like Kishori Lal and Gulzar Masih, too, complained of indifference of officials after their release from Pakistani jails in 1974 in the wake of the 1971 Simla Agreement. They also revealed that in 1968 three Indians — Kapur Chand, Gurcharan Singh and Sham Sunder had been hanged in Sialkot jail.
Surinder Kumar, an Indian spy who returned home in 2006 after serving 15 years in Pakistani jails, told The Tribune that Balbir Singh, who was arrested in 1989 on spying charges was hanged in Sahiwal Jail in 1997, perhaps the last Indian spy to be so punished. Kumar said that the Punjab High Court in Pakistan had upheld the death sentence for Kirpal Singh, of Gurdaspur, on the charges of spying. Kirpal Singh is in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore and apparently has an appeal pending with the Pakistan Supreme Court.
Kumar’s story is perhaps typical. He was in the Indian Army from 1970 to 1978 and was persuaded by the intelligence agencies to serve as a spy with the promise that his family would be looked after if he was caught. This brave man went to Pakistan five times and stayed there for a total of about five years. But in 1992 he was caught in Khiara village in the Narowal district of Pakistan and went through the familiar routine of torture and incarceration.
Knights
The treatment to these pawns contrasts sharply with upper class suspects. Each country has hinted at having high level informants in the other, but no one has offered any conclusive proof. In her book My Feudal Lord, Tehmina Durrani, accused her ex-husband Ghulam Mustafa Khar of being in the pay of the R&AW. Last year, Gauhar Ayub, the son of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, claimed that a high level Indian military officer (he virtually hinted it was Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw) had provided Pakistan Indian battle plans in the 1950s.
An Indian R&AW officer has claimed that a high-level mole had tipped off New Delhi of Pakistan Air Force’s plan for a surprise attack on December 3, 1971, an action that led to the outbreak of the third India-Pakistan war. Jaswant Singh has claimed that a high-level mole in the Prime Minister’s Office had tipped off the US in 1995 and blocked India’s plans to test nuclear weapons. Till now, at least, no high-level person has been tried for espionage by either side. It is entirely possible that such people have been detected and forcibly retired or side-tracked because neither side wanted to be embarrassed by a revelation of betrayal at a high level.
While there does appear to be a clear record of Indian nationals hanged for espionage in Pakistan, no one accused of spying for Pakistan has been executed in India, at least in recent decades. This is in keeping with India’s generally relaxed attitude towards spying and betrayal. Spying has not been a hanging offence in India for quite some time now. Leave alone spies, India is uncommonly lenient with traitors as well. This is best evidenced by the way the government handled the case of R&AW official Rabinder Singh who was allowed to get away, or of the Larkins brothers — one a Major General and the other an Air Vice Marshal — who got ridiculously light sentence for selling military secrets to the US. There have been other important traitors, too, who have been allowed to live their normal lives.
Chessboard
It would be difficult to persuade countries not to punish spies, leave alone treat them leniently. But there is no reason why they should be denied due process and humane treatment. By definition war is a barbaric thing, but that has not detracted from the efforts of the world community to make it, howsoever much of an oxymoron it may sound, humane. The Geneva Conventions ban the use of certain kind of munitions and other conventions prohibit the use of chemical weapons. The campaign against land mines is an effort to expand the prohibition to a new and significant area.
India and Pakistan can also perhaps explore another option —exchanging spies. During the Cold War, some top level operatives were exchanged. Colonel Rudolf Abel, a Soviet sleeper agent arrested in 1957, was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers who was shot down in a U-2 in 1960. Gordon Lonsdale aka Konon Molody, a Soviet sleeper in UK, was exchanged for Greville Wynne, a British spy caught in Moscow. The fate reserved for traitors, however, has been different. In the Soviet Union they were, like Oleg Penkovsky, almost always executed, while in the US, people like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment that will ensure that they are never free.
The quality of an intelligence service is best brought out by the effort it makes to retrieve its agents. The Russians have excelled in this — getting spies back through exchange, or, in the case of George Blake, springing them from jail. The Americans and British, too, managed to get back some of their own, and also made enormous efforts to get Soviet traitors out of the erstwhile USSR. The Israelis have not given up on lobbying the US to release Jonathan Pollard, one of their agents. Abandoning spies and leaving their families to fend for themselves does not speak too highly of the professionalism of the Indian intelligence services.
This article was first published in Mail Today March 5
In the world of blacks and whites, espionage occupies a grey area. Those who spy for our country are considered heroes, while the ones who spy on us are reviled as the lowest of the low. In the old days, and that means till World War I and II, spies were routinely executed after a trial of sorts by military tribunals. With India and Pakistan stumbling towards peace and the perceptible decline of hostility towards each other, it’s perhaps time that some humane principles were introduced into this primeval gladiator pit as well.
Pawns
Spying was considered a distasteful, if necessary, part of the contest between nations. However, an interesting twist was brought on by the enormous threat of global destruction that came with the emergence of arsenals of nuclear weapon-tipped missiles. Early arms control treaties between the US and USSR worked with the assumption that both sides would keep track of compliance by the other through, what were called national technical means — spy satellites, electronic and other kinds of surveillance. The idea was to provide assurance that no one side was sneaking ahead with a technology that could undermine the peace brought on by the capabilities of mutually assured destruction. In our era, for the big powers at least, the spy was recast as a regulator.
The problem is that both India and Pakistan treat spies like Kashmir Singh as expendable pawns. Most of them are recruited from villages of Punjab — Pakistani and Indian — and belong to the lower strata. Being pawns, they are simply ignored when arrested. So casual is the approach towards them that neither country ever acknowledges their existence and therefore shows no interest in assisting those arrested, or rehabilitating those who have served their time after conviction.
In September 2005, in the wake of the Sarabjit Singh case, several former field agents organised a gathering under the leadership of Vasdev Sharma, a former spy, who had spent eight long years in Pakistani jails. They complained that despite their suffering, no one bothered about their families or recognised their services after their release. Spies of an even earlier generation like Kishori Lal and Gulzar Masih, too, complained of indifference of officials after their release from Pakistani jails in 1974 in the wake of the 1971 Simla Agreement. They also revealed that in 1968 three Indians — Kapur Chand, Gurcharan Singh and Sham Sunder had been hanged in Sialkot jail.
Surinder Kumar, an Indian spy who returned home in 2006 after serving 15 years in Pakistani jails, told The Tribune that Balbir Singh, who was arrested in 1989 on spying charges was hanged in Sahiwal Jail in 1997, perhaps the last Indian spy to be so punished. Kumar said that the Punjab High Court in Pakistan had upheld the death sentence for Kirpal Singh, of Gurdaspur, on the charges of spying. Kirpal Singh is in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore and apparently has an appeal pending with the Pakistan Supreme Court.
Kumar’s story is perhaps typical. He was in the Indian Army from 1970 to 1978 and was persuaded by the intelligence agencies to serve as a spy with the promise that his family would be looked after if he was caught. This brave man went to Pakistan five times and stayed there for a total of about five years. But in 1992 he was caught in Khiara village in the Narowal district of Pakistan and went through the familiar routine of torture and incarceration.
Knights
The treatment to these pawns contrasts sharply with upper class suspects. Each country has hinted at having high level informants in the other, but no one has offered any conclusive proof. In her book My Feudal Lord, Tehmina Durrani, accused her ex-husband Ghulam Mustafa Khar of being in the pay of the R&AW. Last year, Gauhar Ayub, the son of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, claimed that a high level Indian military officer (he virtually hinted it was Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw) had provided Pakistan Indian battle plans in the 1950s.
An Indian R&AW officer has claimed that a high-level mole had tipped off New Delhi of Pakistan Air Force’s plan for a surprise attack on December 3, 1971, an action that led to the outbreak of the third India-Pakistan war. Jaswant Singh has claimed that a high-level mole in the Prime Minister’s Office had tipped off the US in 1995 and blocked India’s plans to test nuclear weapons. Till now, at least, no high-level person has been tried for espionage by either side. It is entirely possible that such people have been detected and forcibly retired or side-tracked because neither side wanted to be embarrassed by a revelation of betrayal at a high level.
While there does appear to be a clear record of Indian nationals hanged for espionage in Pakistan, no one accused of spying for Pakistan has been executed in India, at least in recent decades. This is in keeping with India’s generally relaxed attitude towards spying and betrayal. Spying has not been a hanging offence in India for quite some time now. Leave alone spies, India is uncommonly lenient with traitors as well. This is best evidenced by the way the government handled the case of R&AW official Rabinder Singh who was allowed to get away, or of the Larkins brothers — one a Major General and the other an Air Vice Marshal — who got ridiculously light sentence for selling military secrets to the US. There have been other important traitors, too, who have been allowed to live their normal lives.
Chessboard
It would be difficult to persuade countries not to punish spies, leave alone treat them leniently. But there is no reason why they should be denied due process and humane treatment. By definition war is a barbaric thing, but that has not detracted from the efforts of the world community to make it, howsoever much of an oxymoron it may sound, humane. The Geneva Conventions ban the use of certain kind of munitions and other conventions prohibit the use of chemical weapons. The campaign against land mines is an effort to expand the prohibition to a new and significant area.
India and Pakistan can also perhaps explore another option —exchanging spies. During the Cold War, some top level operatives were exchanged. Colonel Rudolf Abel, a Soviet sleeper agent arrested in 1957, was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers who was shot down in a U-2 in 1960. Gordon Lonsdale aka Konon Molody, a Soviet sleeper in UK, was exchanged for Greville Wynne, a British spy caught in Moscow. The fate reserved for traitors, however, has been different. In the Soviet Union they were, like Oleg Penkovsky, almost always executed, while in the US, people like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment that will ensure that they are never free.
The quality of an intelligence service is best brought out by the effort it makes to retrieve its agents. The Russians have excelled in this — getting spies back through exchange, or, in the case of George Blake, springing them from jail. The Americans and British, too, managed to get back some of their own, and also made enormous efforts to get Soviet traitors out of the erstwhile USSR. The Israelis have not given up on lobbying the US to release Jonathan Pollard, one of their agents. Abandoning spies and leaving their families to fend for themselves does not speak too highly of the professionalism of the Indian intelligence services.
This article was first published in Mail Today March 5
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