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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, SEPT 28: An ambitious plan by Union Home Minister L.K. Advani to present a white paper on the activities of Pakistan’s ISI was given a quiet burial following objections raised by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), it is learnt.
Official sources say the paper on ISI, which was to be tabled in the last session of Parliament, will never be made public since it gives away “hard-earned trade secrets” as put to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) by the counter-intelligence wing of the IB.
Director, IB, Shaymal Dutta and RAW Secretary A.S. Dulat took the unprecedented step of getting together and formally asking Advani to reconsider his decision to table the ISI paper in Parliament. They are learnt to have argued that the paper and its annexures would give the ISI easy access to all the sensitive material “painstakingly” collected by them and make their counter-insurgency parameters public.
Instead, the chiefs of the internal and external intelligence agencies suggested that the present practice of briefing heads of foreign missions with exact details of ISI activities could also be extended to individual MPs if they were interested.
A senior official associated with the exercise said: “The two chiefs were unanimous before the Home Minister that the white paper, far from buttressing our case against the ISI, would prove to be counter-productive. The Home Minister was very receptive and bowed to their wishes.”
While no formal statement has yet been made on why the the ISI paper has not been tabled, sources say the Home Minister may make the clarification in the winter session of Parliament.
The first objections to tabling the white paper came in around February last year by the IB whose Pakistan and counter-insurgency cell took up the matter with the DIB. The written objection, according to sources in the IB, made at that point was that they had “noticed while providing inputs for the preparation of the paper that some sensitive information was likely to be siphoned out.”
In order to allay their fears, the matter was discussed with the RAW in March where a few identical objections were raised. Advani was approached even then but he assured the IB that they would introduce certain safeguards to ensure that sensitive information does not filter out.
Once the white paper was ready in November last year, it was “vetted extensively” by the IB and RAW which still had serious objections to some of the chapters which they felt were “revealing”.
The impasse resulted in the paper not seeing the light of day. With the opposition within the MHA and the intelligence agencies growing, Advani gave in. Now, just four copies of the white paper are kept in the MHA’s vault. Senior intelligence officials say this is where they should lie.
