Regardless of whether the Rama Swamp espionage case is sub-judice or not, it raises certain important political issues which need to be brought into the open so that people are aware of what is happening.
To begin with, it should be plain to anyone who knows anything about the goings on in New Delhi that this is not an ordinary espionage case in that the intelligence agencies have not suddenly discovered Rama Swarup’s activities. They have been fully aware of them as have been many others who have taken the slightest interest in communist and anti-communist front organisations in the country.
Rama Swarup has been a prominent anti-communist for decades and this has helped him attract prominent people. ‘Join the peace movement and see the world,’ Nehru said in the fifties in criticism of the communist-dominated Peace Council. Rama Swarup provided one of the answers to the Council’s appeal. Join him and see Taiwan with Hong Kong and Bangkok thrown in, he proclaimed from the housetop.
Foreign Patrons
It is also common knowledge that most of the front organisations, whether communist or anti-communist, have had foreign patrons and that the so-called friendship societies have more often than not been such front organisations. The Union government has on certain occasions encouraged and even helped set up such societies to match similar bodies in the other countries in question.
We had to establish an India-China friendship society,for instance, since the Chinese had set up a China-India friendship society to serve as a platform for making protestations of friendship. But regardless of whether the organisers have ideological or entrepreneurial considerations – often both factors have been at work -, most of them have not been averse to receiving direct or indirect support from the relevant embassy or embassies.
We need not beat our chests or breasts and condemn ourselves for lack of moral values. The story is not very different in most other non-communist countries. Those who wish to promote friendship with India, say in the United States, would expect some form of assistance from the government of India. The promotion of friendship is no different from promotion of exports. It is a commercial activity. Only being a poor people, our price is rather small. Life in India is cheap; so is honour.
Sad Commentary
All this is not a matter of speculation, certainly not in Rama Swarup’s case. He made no secret of his sympathies and activities. It would be a sad commentary on the country’s intelligence agencies if they were to claim that they were not cognisant of them. It would be equally extraordinary if they connived at them without some good reasons. We have no evidence in our possession which can enable us to say that if a Rama Swarup was a foreign agent, he was also a double agent, that is, he worked for Indian agencies as well. But such things are not unknown in the world of espionage. Indeed, they are quite common. As Khrushchev told Kennedy, both sides often read reports from the same individuals. Import-export is generally one business.
So if it is accepted that Rama Swarup’s activities were well known to Indian intelligence agencies and that they connived at them for pretty good reasons of their own, it follows that the decision to frame him up now is guided by some urgent considerations. We do not know for sure what these considerations are. And those who have decided to prosecute Rama Swarup and in the process expose many others to public obloquy, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent, are not likely to tell us. But the charge-sheet provides
some clues.
Not to beat about the bush, these clues point to one conclusion. Those who are calling the shots in this connection are out to confirm the impression that the CIA was indeed involved in some way in a conspiracy to kill Indira Gandhi.
I for one have not believed that the CIA was involved in the actual murder of the former Prime Minister. The recently concluded Indira Gandhi murder trial has confirmed me in my view at least to the extent that the prosecution has not produced the smallest shred of evidence to show that she died as a result of a high-level conspiracy in which some foreign agency was involved.
But Indira Gandhi’s assassination and a conspiracy to assassinate her are two different propositions. There could have existed a conspiracy involving the CIA which did not come into play because the job was done by someone else. I am not suggesting that such a conspiracy was in fact hatched by the CIA. I am obviously not in a position to opine either way. For the purpose of this discussion, it is also not necessary for me to speculate. For I am only concerned with the above proposition that the intention behind the decision to prosecute Rama Swarup is to confirm the suspicions against the CIA.
Money For Counsel
The clues are, of course, indirect but not all that indirect. Rama Swarup, the charge-sheet alleges, worked for the Taiwanese, Israeli, West German and US agencies; these agencies operated in close operation with one another; Rama Swarup got most of his funds from the CIA; that agency was keen to find out what kind of evidence the Thakar Commission had dug up in support of the theory of foreign involvement in plans to murder Indira Gandhi; P. N. Lekhi, counsel for the assassins in the Indira Gandhi trial, was a friend of Rama Swarup and received Rs. 20,000 from him which money was provided by the CIA. Other names figure in the charge-sheet. But they appear as part of the narration of Rama Swarup’s activities. They do not seem to be central to the CBI’s purpose, though apparently the CBI and its political bosses do not care if some reputations are ruined.
Clearly it is not for me to say whether or not the charges against Rama Swarup and Lekhi are accurate, that is, whether each charge is valid in itself. It is also not for me to say whether or not they are interconnected. I do not possess the necessary information. But assuming for the sake of argument that the CBI has tied up its case neatly, the case could not have been launched without a political decision by someone at the top, or close to the top, of the present set-up in Delhi.
We all know that Indira Gandhi had been highly suspicious of the CIA for years. She had little doubt that it was determined to destabilise her government and throw her out of office. She was fully convinced that the CIA and Pakistan were deeply involved with the Akali extremists in India and abroad. It is reasonably certain that this alleged involvement figured in the first draft of the White Paper on Punjab issued after Operation Bluestar in the summer of 1984. But this reference was deleted at her own instance for “diplomatic reasons”, a euphemism for the desire to avoid grave offence to the United States. Apparently she either felt that the evidence was too thin to stand scrutiny, or that the United States was too powerful to be provoked without fear of consequences.
Again, we are not concerned with Mrs. Gandhi’s calculations and motivations. We are concerned with the fact that despite her deep distrust of the United States in general and
the CIA in particular, she found it advisable not to make a reference to them in an official document.
If anything, the new rulers should have been even more cautious unless they have some overriding compulsion. The alternative inference could be that they have acted without sufficient forethought. That, however, appears unlikely. For the political bosses in the Union home ministry are not known to be moral crusaders out to establish the reign of righteousness. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that a case of this nature could have been launched without the Prime Minister’s consent.
Shift In Policy
Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s overall approach, it is hardly necessary to emphasise, is quite different from his mother’s. Under his stewardship there has taken place a marked shift in India’s foreign policy and economic development strategy. The two are inter-linked. A programme of economic liberalisation and modernisation must strengthen ties with the West and Japan; similarly wider cooperation with the West and Japan can make sense primarily in the framework of a programme of economic liberalisation and modernisation.
Equally important, the West, especially the United States, has responded to Rajiv Gandhi and and his policies, both domestic and foreign, with an enthusiasm which this country has never witnessed ever before. It is a moot point whether or not the Americans have been lyrical about him because they hope to be able to manipulate him, and whether or not their expectations are justified. But the fact remains that they have been keen on developing the closest possible ties with the Rajiv Gandhi government. They distrusted Indira Gandhi as much as she distrusted them. Indeed, many of the Americans interested in India could not suppress their feeling of relief over her disappearance from the scene. It has been a different story since Rajiv Gandhi’s installation as India’s Prime Minister.
Cultural Revolution
The point about all this is that the disclosures, valid or otherwise, about the CIA’s long-term activities in India and possible involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Indira Gandhi have come in this context of a new level of Indo-US understanding and cooperation. That makes it difficult to explain the decision to prosecute Rama Swarup. But the move cannot be sui generis and it cannot be explained in terms of what has has happened in the past unless the prosecution of Rama Swarup is on a par with raids on business houses, that is unless it is part of a “great cultural revolution”, Indian style.
Some possible explanations offer themselves. First, someone has forced the Prime Minister’s hand in this case, as VP Singh is believed to have done in that of raids on business houses. Secondly, Rajiv Gandhi is trying to put the Americans on notice that non-interference by them in India’s internal affairs is a precondition for Indo-US friendship and cooperation. Thirdly, the case can help him at once to meet the charge that he is unduly pro-American and to decimate what remains of the opposition.
The first explanation would suggest that Rajiv Gandhi is inept and the second and third that he is a skilled practitioner of the art of realpolitik. Only time will show whether he is one or the other.
The Times of India, 1 February 1986