Malice in Blunderland?

I was further intrigued to learn that the publisher was also raided; surely the publisher was not privy to violation of any official secrets, when the prosecuting agency itself is not clear about the whole thing. Have we moved from Lewis Caroll to Kafka territory? I should add that I have not read the book, but have only seen excerpts.

I recall that a couple of years back M.K. Dhar had revealed some activities of the Intelligence Bureau, of which he was an employee. There was some furore in public about disclosure of official secrets. I had read that book, and was quite disgusted, not by the fact that so-called secrets were revealed, but by the total lack of morality shown by the agency, and confessed to by Dhar, the perpetrator. Indeed the agency had been put to private use by those in power. In a couple of TV programmes, while attacking the contents and the method of working of the IB, I had expressed strong appreciation of Dhar’s courage in bringing into the public domain such sordid happenings.

In a democracy, there are no sacred cows. Every institution must be subjected to some public scrutiny; the degree and the extent of the scrutiny will depend on its sensitivity, appropriateness and relevance. Thus, the judiciary, much as we respect it, cannot hide behind the “contempt” screen, and keep all the inner goings-on from the public eye. I, as much as most Indians, appreciate the highly sensitive nature of the work of intelligence agencies. However, it does not follow that they are totally beyond any kind of examination by anybody in India.

From what little I have heard about V.K. Singh’s book, he had mostly criticised the RAW for internal corruption, lax procedures and profligacy. These are areas that may not require public scrutiny in the normal course but should merit strong examination on a continuing basis by the appropriate government machinery. Thus, for example, the DRDO’s expenditure patterns cannot be held away from scrutiny merely because it works on sensitive defence projects. Similarly, there is no licence for the Intelligence agencies to spend public money without accountability. Even the discretionary grant moneys at the disposal of chief ministers, etc, are subject to maintenance of some kind of accounts and internal checks, to ensure that these are not put to personal use. Blind protection of any agency, however sensitive, is not consistent with democracy.

I recall that in 1997, the first draft of the RTI Act had already been finalised and it had even cleared the cabinet committee stage. It took nearly a decade thereafter for it to be enacted. The present government has taken credit for RTI. Indeed, many other agencies, including many NGOs, have taken credit for ushering it in. The fact is the RTI Act was ready to be enacted in early 1998 when the then government fell. Again, in 1997, the proposals to amend the Official Secrets Act had been finalised within the government and, in fact, a final draft was prepared for clearance by the cabinet. This did not happen for the same reason. It is indeed high time that the Official Secrets Act, a legacy from British rule and enacted to protect foreign interests on the principle of ‘need to know’, was replaced with a new act based on the principle of ‘right to know’.

I was also amused to read that the government is contemplating issuing a ‘gag order’, contractually binding all intelligence agency officials to ensure that they will never write a book about their careers. If true, this is draconian. In the first place, I believe it will be unconstitutional. Secondly, from the point of view of natural justice, preventing a government employee from sharing his experiences in public is indefensible.

Indeed, my own book, Journeys through Babudom and Netaland (2004), ought to have attracted the attention of CBI for “revealing official secrets”. In other words, I wrote about government’s mismanagement in various sectors! By the same token, heaven forbid, my publisher also ought to have been raided; fortunately, that did not happen.

That brings us to the CBI. Though the present director is a thorough professional and personally beyond reproach, it is sad to see the CBI progressively becoming another implementation arm of the government — to be precise, an agency to meet the private objectives of those in power. The CBI is no more seen as an independent investigating agency. To some, it may even seem the CBI is no better than the vigilance directorates in many states, which function under the chief minister. I have also found, in the last three or four years, that various Intelligence agencies (IB, Army Intelligence, RAW) have now been brought under some kind of unified command, controlled from the prime minister’s office. While coordination and cooperation between intelligence agencies is of utmost importance, their independence and ability to search the territory their own way needs to be protected for maximum effectiveness.

V.K. Singh is basically to be seen as a whistleblower. The points he has raised need to be looked into with a constructive approach to see how the top-secret agencies can be made to function with greater efficiency without financial profligacy. Checks and balances are the essence of democracy. Some of these sensitive agencies need carefully structured ‘oversight committees’, comprising independent experts, carefully chosen, to ensure that these are geared to continually serve national interest optimally, rather than cater to the personal needs of those in power.

The writer was cabinet secretary to the GOI between 1996 and 1998