The Shah146;s Millions

RAW has had some major successes. It tipped the Indian government off that Pakistan planned to make a preemptive strike on the IAF in the western sector in 1971. It unearthed the conspiracy of the Bombay blasts of 1993 and pinpointed the Pakistani hand. In the old days, the agency had many uses. Once a senior RAW officer deposited 5 million in the Swiss bank account of the Shah of Iran8217;s sister8217;s bagman. In return, Reza Shah was persuaded to advance India a soft loan of 250 million and underwrite the Kudremukh iron ore project. But Raman maintains that contrary to the impression of some opposition leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, RAW did not spy on them.

But the agency has had its share of goof-ups and scandals. RAW was alerted in advance by the British MI5 about the arms drop in Purulia but it did not share this information with the IB. General K. Sundarji complained bitterly against both the IB and RAW for not giving a correct assessment of the number of Khalistanis in the Golden Temple and the amount of ammunition. He also blamed RAW for not alerting the Indian Army of the training it had secretly provided the LTTE. There have been instances when RAW officers have been happily providing information to the CIA without arousing the slightest suspicion in their own organisation. As late as 2004 Major Rabinder Singh, who was working in the National Security Council, was whisked out of the country by the CIA and permitted to settle in the US. P.V. Narasimha Rao once remarked sarcastically that RAW agents were easily identifiable abroad as they drove the swankiest cars of all the Indian diplomats.

Raman brings out the startling extent to which American intelligence agencies have penetrated our system. In the early 1980s, the French external intelligence agency even had a mole in the PMO and shared its information with the CIA. Khalistani activist Dr Jagjit Singh Chauhan was a creature of the CIA. Raman notes bitterly that the US State Department has always been protective of Pakistan and turned a blind eye to the ISI activities in India, even when they were confronted with solid evidence. When India handed American counter-terrorism experts some timers used in the Bombay blasts to establish that they were part of a consignment sent by the US to Pakistan, the American team did not return the timers claiming they got destroyed by mistake.

On occasion, however, the CIA seems to have selectively leaked bits of information on Pakistan to India. Raman mentions that the RAW archives contains taped conversations between Benazir Bhutto, when she was opposition leader, and the son of ambassador Kenneth Galbraith and other influential young Americans.

There were two intelligence agencies in India in 1947. The country now has eight. Most of them tend to step on each other8217;s toes and zealously guard the information they collect. Rajiv Gandhi8217;s assassination might have been averted if RAW and the IB had cooperated 8212; while the former had better code-breaking ability, the latter had superior interceptive capability. Clearly, as Raman recommends, there is a strong case for the monitoring of RAW8217;s activities by a neutral outside authority and establishing some accountability to Parliament. It is not the RAW bosses but the political leadership which has shied away from such reform, Raman claims.