Why are the Congress and Comrades afraid of inquiry if they are innocent?
By M.D. Nalapat
If we wish to avoid a fresh millenium of bondage, then it is vital that the past be exhaustively scrutinised and the mistakes made exposed and rectified. This is why it is essential that a comprehensive inquiry by an impartial body be instituted immediately to go into the reports that the KGB had several influential Indians on its payroll. It is unlikely that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be permitted by his ?High Command? to ensure that the full truth comes out.
Should an inquiry take place, it would need to include such clear breaches of the national interest as the 1993 decision to gift the successor state to the Soviet Union with more than US$ 15 billion under the Rupee-Rouble pact that was negotiated that year. India was the only country in the world to have set an unrealistically high rate for the rouble in calculating the debts owed by New Delhi to the deceased Soviet Union.
The state that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 was entirely different in area, philosophy and population dynamics from the past.Hence the decision by the then Government of India to gift the new country such a huge sum can be explainable only in terms of fear. Those who took the decision were afraid that the misdeeds of those whose reputations they sought to protect would get tarnished by revelations made by Moscow, hence the people of India were made to pay a price that in today'svalue amounts to more than Rs 760,000 crores. So deep is the hold of ?KGB-friendly? elements over our political discourse that this horrendous decision has never been questioned.
There is no doubt that the Soviet Union did much that was of help to India, including using the veto several times when the US, the UK and China sought to delink Kashmir from India.While both Beijing as well as Washington competed with each other to give sophisticated arms to Islamabad (knowing fully well that the only victim of such supplies would be India), the only country that ensured that India was enabled to have a retaliatory capacity was the Soviet Union. However, the fact remains that the price paid by India for such support was substantial in both financial as well as geopolitical terms.Thanks to its refusal to criticise the USSR, India kept silent even when egregious breaches of international norms took place, such as the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or the military occupation of Hungary two decades previously, a policy that led to New Delhi being regarded with contempt as a Soviet satellite
Is it the fear of KGB files spilling out that is driving those responsible into making such prodigal purchases? Surely the country has a right to know the names of those who have sold themselves to the KGB, the CIA, MI6, the ISI and other foreign intelligence agencies.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, weapons and defence systems sold by Russia come at a very high price, which has the effect of preventing indigenisation of capacity in such sectors as the building of aircraft carriers. Recently more than Rs 12,000 crore (including the purchase of the untested-in-operations MiG29 aircraft) has been allocated towards the refitting of a Soviet-era aircraft carrier, when the country'sown shipyards could have produced two comparable vessels at the same cost. Is it fear of KGB files spilling out that is driving those responsible into making such prodigal purchases? Surely the country has a right to know the names of those who have sold themselves to the KGB,the CIA,MI6, the ISI and other foreign intelligence agencies. How is it that only a few foreign agents have been identified and apprehended in India, even while thousands sell sensitive information for a price each month? Dr Manmohan Singh needs to ensure that such individuals get neutralised before any more damage gets done to India'ssecurity
The statements by the Congress and the CPI that neither party has been the recepient of cash from the KGB should be taken at face value.Since they are innocent,they should have no fear in backing a full-scale enquiry into the activities of the KGB in India,specifically the revelations about the KGB that have come out as a result of the Albats and Mitrokhin books. Indeed, the Albats book was categoric that several influential individuals in India were on the payroll of the KGB,and yet no action was taken by successive governments to launch even the most preliminary of investigations into such serious charges. Was it fear of blackmail that was the basis for the decision to refuse to unearth the rotten apples in the basket?
When Sanjay Gandhi was killed in an air crash in 1980,there were muted whispers that the wires controlling the ailerons in his aircraft had been filed so that a few sharp tugs would force them to snap.It was well-known that Sanjay Gandhi was no admirer of the Soviet Union, and that he wanted a change in both economic and foreign policy that was different from the traditional Nehru family reverence for the USSR model. Sanjay was not simply the son of a Prime Minister, he was himself a political leader with overriding influence within the Congress Party.And yet there was not even an apology of an enquiry into the circumstances of the accident. Indeed, it is interesting to note that another individual who was truly ?non-aligned? when it came to the Soviet Union was felled by a presumed heart attack. Lal Bahadur Shastri was bullied by Alexei Kosygin into giving back Haji Pir to Pakistan. What was the information that was used by the Soviets to force the nationalist Prime Minister of India to thus surrender? Why was there no effort to bring the body back to India for a genuine post-mortem? Why was there no enquiry whatsover into the circumstances of a death that came soon after imbibing a liquid that had been prepared by his hosts?
Sadly, the NDA government during its six years in office did nothing to clear the fog that still hangs over the deaths of Sanjay Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri and Deendayal Upadhyaya even as it does over the passing away of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, another individual hated by the KGB. This failure to exhume the truth is a serious blot on the record of the NDA government, one that needs to be atoned for by the NDA vigorously pressing for an impartial enquiry now into the revelations made by the former KGB officer. What Albats and Mitrokhin said was that high-level Indians auctioned Mother India and feasted on the thirty pieces of silver that they got for their treachery.
Both authors have been shown to be accurate in their meticulous documentation of events and personalities. Rather than say that few individuals were named,it should be the responsibility of a patriotic government to find out the names and expose them.
Let us know who these Jaichands and Mir Jafars were, just as we have a right to know the names of those Indian officials who were the accomplices of the colonisers.They may be no more,but to help avoid a repeat of such treachery to the nation,their deeds need to be brought to light. Indeed, there are reports that an Indian official much favoured by Jawaharlal Nehru actually was sent to Washington by Winston Churchill to canvas against Independence for India.Why has the memory of this man been protected for so long ? In South Africa ,there was a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose the injustices of ?apartheid? and to heal the wounds through understanding and reconciliation.In India, apart from a handful of people,traitors have remained hidden from public knowledge,thanks to the deliberate policy of successive ?free? governments to avoid unmasking them.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,tell us who the traitors in the payroll of the KGB were, if you are true to the oath of office that you have taken.Mahatma Gandhi talked of truth.Who is so superior to the Mahatma that he or she can stop the Government of India from ensuring that Satyameva Jayate by agreeing to an impartial and thorough inquiry into allegations that have put a question mark on the security of the country?
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