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| The Mitrokhin Archives II |
The Mitrokhin Archive II is a very important work and all important policy makers in India, particularly those involved with the not so glamorous but necessary world of Espionage, and those involved in making and analysing policy alernatives must read this book. The authors include the reputed historian who has written comprehensive histories of British Intelligence Services, MI I and MI IV,and a life time KGB Vasili Mitrokhin who created a huge archive of secretely copied KGB Reports from the field agents located in different parts of the world. This book contains a great deal of information on KGB operations in Africa and South America as well. But I will concentrate on what the Archives reveal about India, the Indian National Congress and the manner in which the fellow travellers associated with the CPI acquired a stranglehold on the Indian print media and the academic institutions. This sad situation continues until this day.
The Soviet Union for some reason did not take Indian struggle for Independence seriously. Probably the Marxist ideology had somehing to do with this. An underdeveloped colonized country without a "bourgeoise"can scarcely aspire to "Nationhood" has always been an article of faith amongst traditional Marxists. And hence the Soviet Union dismissed Indian leaders as having litte impact on world events. Gandhi was particularly savaged in the pages of the Soviet Encyclopedia. Right from the beginning the KGB started trapping Indian Embassy officials, usually by honey trapping them, exploiting the well known Indian weakness for white women. Almost all documents transmitted to New Delhi were read by the kGB operatives as an Indian diplomat code named PROKHOR was recruited by the secret service, Mitrokhin records that this diplomat was provided a monthly retainer of 4000 Rupees. Apart from bribing Indian diplomats, the KGB was successful in recasting Indian political parties particularly the Indian Communist Party (CPI) as a subsidiary of the KGB, Important Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and even the Prime Minister's Office were drawn into an ever expanding web of bribery which extended all the way to the KGB Office in the Soviet Embassy. The authors argue that by the 1960s the KGB had succeeded in completely subverting the Indian Intelligence Bureau (I B) and had turned it essentially into a prop for its own activities. The CPI an received regular subventions from the Russian Embassy though the communist leaders pretended to follow an independent "Indian Line". When Ajoy GHosh was the Genneral Secretary anImport and Export Firm was set up so that the profits could be used to carry out Party Programmes in India. It did not strike anyone at that time that such diversion of funds was both illegal and undemocratic. When Rajeswar Rao was the General Secretary of the Party, he was summoned to the Embassy in Delhi to receive his instructions from the "Centre" there. One direct and unfortunate effect of the closeness of the cPI with the Soviet brand of "Communism" was to be felt in the fields of the Press and Higher Education.
Lenin was a great believer in the efficacy of Agit Prop, Agitation and Propaganda and for successful implementation of its propramme the Soviet Union needed "useful idiots" and intellectuals and journalists came in handy. The Mitrkhin Archives documents in great detail the manner in which the Soviets penetrated the Indian Press and used it to carry on propaganda against the US while simultaneously protecting their own image, Articles critical of USSR were seldom published in Indian Newspapers and the Soviets were able to buy the support of the Indian Press by large scale use of money. Forged documents were regularly supplied to select Indian journalists who published "exclusive" exposes based on forged documents. The KGB succeeded in convincing Indira Gandhi that the Khalistani Movement was being funded by the CIA though it is well known that Zail Singh her Home Minister encouraged the separatist faction in order to slip the Skh vote which was tilted heavily in favour of the Akali Dal. The shadow of the Soviet patronage of the Press was long lasting as till this day the English Press is inherently leftist in its ideological underpinnings.
Indian intellectuals did not redeem themselves either. In the 1960s, a cabal of leftist supporters members of the CPI perhaps with money taken from the Soviets established the Seminar, a journal which was pro Soviet and pro Congress. The power couple, Raj and Krishna Thapar provided a platform for left wing "intellectuals" to propagate their views which were largely in tandem with the Soviet view. Te left ward swing that took the shape of Bank Nationalization and the Abolition of the privy Purse were all populist measures which were first discussed in the Sminar. And with the appointment of the CPI member Nurul Hasan as the Minister of State for Education the entire educational apparatus was staffed with fellow travellers and till this day the sterile domination of the left continues.
This book mst be read by all those who want to know the sordid reality of Indian politics under the Congress rule. Mitrokhin even states that a Cabinet Minister in Indira Gandhi's cabinet offered a whole trance of secret documents for 50,000 US Dollars. The Soviets did not take the offer only because they had already acquired the documents. The role of the defense lobbyists which almost derailed India's Military took shape during these dark years.
