B.RAMAN
A spook spends his
working life in a cloistered world---protecting himself, his relatives,
his feelings and his joys and sorrows from unwanted curiosity.
The special bonds that one develops in this world
last till one makes one’s peace with the Maker.
Amar Bhushan is one of the officers of the R&AW with whom I
developed special bonds of friendship, professional regard and affection.
He joined the Indian Police Service almost a decade
after I did and retired from the R&AW 11 years after me.
He was my junior colleague in my division for
some years after he set foot in the
organisation. Thereafter, he moved to other divisions with which I had nothing
to do, but the special bonds between us remained strong and unrusted.
He was a man of tremendous personal and
professional integrity, with an eye for thoroughness in whatever he did---- a
professional to his finger tips.
After a
distinguished career during which he became a highly valued expert on
Bangladesh, he retired as Special Secretary in 2005.
Amar wore many hats in that capacity. One of them
was as the R&AW’s Czar of counter-intelligence responsible for preventing,
detecting and neutralising attempts of foreign intelligence agencies to
penetrate the R&AW and subvert the loyalty of its officers.
Under that hat, he played a commendable role in
detecting, with the help of his junior colleagues, the penetration of the
R&AW by the USA’s Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) through Maj.Rabinder Singh, a retired officer of the
Army who joined the organisation in the 1980s.
One does not know when Rabinder became a mole of
the CIA? Was he already a mole when he was in the Army? Or was he recruited by
the CIA after he joined the organisation? If so, when?
What role his sister, who was a US citizen and who
was a US Government public servant, played in facilitating the penetration of
the R&AW by the CIA through her brother? Was it wise and professional on
the part of the R&AW to have taken into the organisation someone many of
whose relatives were US citizens and at least one of whom was a public servant
of the US?
What damage did he cause to the organisation and
the country during the period he was a CIA mole in the sanctum sanctorum of the
R&AW?
Penetration by a foreign intelligence agency is an
occupational hazard in the intelligence profession.
Rabinder was not the first mole of the CIA in the
Indian intelligence community.
We had another in the Chennai office of the
R&AW detected in the 1980s.He was allegedly being run by a CIA officer
working under Consular cover in the US Consulate-General in Chennai.
We had one at a very senior level in the
Intelligence Bureau detected in the 1990s. If he had not been detected in time,he
might have become the head of the IB. A woman officer of the CIA working under
cover in the US Embassy in Delhi for maintaining liaison with the Indian
intelligence had allegedly become close to him by exploiting her frequent
meetings with him for sharing intelligence on counter-terrorism.
We reportedly found a mole even after the detection
of Rabinder in the National Security Council Secretariat, which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office. A woman
cyber security expert of the US had allegedly played a role in this case.
These were the detected cases. One does not know
how many undetected cases are there.
Of the four detected cases, that of Rabinder was
unique. Whereas the other three were detected and acted against without their
being able to run away from the country. Rabinder was the one that got away
evading the surveillance that had been mounted on him.
His getting away was made possible by the active
assistance reportedly given by the CIA to him and his family.
In the other three cases, the CIA merely withdrew
its officers working under cover in India after it came to know that its moles
in the Indian intelligence community had come under suspicion by the Indian
counter-intelligence.
It did not try to help them to get away.
Only in the case of Rabinder, even at the risk of
an adverse impact on the State-to-State relations with India, the CIA seems to
have moved heaven and earth to help him get away into the safe sanctuary of the
US.
Why did it do so? Was it in gratitude for the
invaluable services that he might have rendered to the CIA? Or was it due to
fears that if arrested and interrogated by the Indian counter-intelligence, he
might under duress reveal the identities of other CIA moles in the Indian
intelligence community of whom he possibly had knowledge?
So many questions without answers in the public
domain.
When Aldrich
Ames, the notorious spy of the KGB in the sanctum sanctorum of the CIA,
was detected and arrested in the 1990s, there were detailed enquiries in-house
in the CIA as well as by the Congressional oversight committees.
The entire history of Ames as a KGB mole was
traced. How was he recruited? How did he manage to evade detection for many
years? What were the deficiencies in the CIA’s CI set-up which he and the KGB
exploited? What damage did he cause?
Many of the details of these enquiries were made
available in the public domain. You can find them in the Congressional records.
In India, any scholar who wants to reconstruct
L’Affaire Rabinder Singh on the basis of authentic data will not be able to do
so because nothing is available in public domain.
Whatever we have are speculative reports carried by
the media.
In this context, one has to welcome reports carried
by sections of the media on July 15,2012, that Amar has written a
semi-fictional narrative of the case ( Escape To Nowhere), which is being
published this week and will be launched in Delhi on July 23.
Knowing the central, active and leading role that
Amar played in this case, one can be certain it will not be just a semi-fiction
as it has been projected to be.
It will be a critical analysis incognito.
Amar needs to be hailed for writing this. It will
be an important contribution to the meagre history of Indian intelligence
available in public domain.
It will throw welcome light on a sad chapter in the
history of the R&AW.
Strength to you, Amar. (16-7-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
R&AW )
