Indian Defence Review

Rajiv Gandhi’s operational policy with regard to Sri Lanka was marked not by innovative change, but by bewildering confusion ultimately leading inexorably to his brutal assassination in May,1991, when he was the Leader of the Opposition. I call it his operational policy and not the R&AW’s policy because many of the twists and turns in the policy could not be attributed to a single agency of the Government of India. He was the source of much of the confusion, which came to charactetrize our operational policy. The way our operational policy with regard to Sri Lanka was mishandled by Rajiv Gandhi and his successor V.P.Singh has not been the subject of a detailed study in India. It was a typical example of how not to handle a sensitive operation.

As I had mentioned earlier, when Rajiv Gandhi took over as the Prime Minister, he was immediately convinced of the wisdom of the operational policies laid down by his mother in respect of Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, he was not clear in his mind about the policy of activism in support of the Sri Lankan Tamils laid down by her. This activism, which had initially remained secret, became public knowledge even when she was the Prime Minister when a well-known weekly of New Delhi came out with some of the alleged details of this covert activism.Some of these details were correct, but many wrong. Whatever might have been the merits of the policy of covert activism laid down by her, it must be said to her credit that she instinctively understood the importance of having a single nodal agency to pursue this covert option. And she had laid down two clear-cut objectives for this policy—- to make the Government of Sri Lanka responsive to the security concerns of India and to give the Sri Lankan Tamils a strong voice and a capability to find a negotiated political solution to their problems without the Government of India unduly getting involved in the process of finding a political solution.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was initially hesitant to pursue the policy of his mother, subsequently became—- for reasons which I was never able to understand—an over-enthusiastic follower of the policy.In his pursuit of the policy, he brought about changes which proved counter-productive and ultimately led to confusion and disaster. For the implementation of her operational policy, Indira Gandhi almost totally relied on the R&AW and on a triumvirate consisting of Kao, Saxena and the late G.Parthasarathi. While carrying out her instructions, they sought to exercise some caution and moderation in her thinking and actions. She valued their advice and listened to them.

Under Rajiv Gandhi, there was not a single nodal agency. In his over-enthusiasm to implement his policy, he inducted a multiplicity of agencies and dramatis personae into the scene—- the R&AW, the IB, the Tamil Nadu Police, the Directorate-General of Military Intelligence (DGMI), the Army and the MEA. These agencies kept stepping on each other’s toes. There was an awful lack of co-ordination. The chiefs and senior officers of these agencies—instead of exercising caution and moderation in his thinking and actions— vied with one another in egging him on into more and more unwise actions. There was a total lack of coherence in policy-making. The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which was supposed to bring about such coherence in thinking and actions, failed in its duty to do so.

The plethora of Sri Lankan Tamil organizations, which came into being with the benediction of the Government of India, pursued their own narrow partisan interests rather than the over-all interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils as a whole. They took full advantage of the lack of coherence and co-ordination in New Delhi to take assistance from a variety of sources inside and outside India in order to strengthen themselves not only against the Sinhalese, but also against each other.

They took money from the R&AW without the IB and the DGMI being aware of it. They took money from the IB without the R&AW and the DGMI being aware of it. They took money from the DGMI without the IB and the R&AW being aware of it. They took money from the discretionary grant of the MEA without any of the intelligence agencies being aware of it. They took money from the Tamil Nadu Police without the Government of India being aware of it. They took assistance from the Indian intelligence agencies. At the same time, they had no qualms over seeking and accepting assistance from foreign terrorist organizations such as Pakistan’s Harkat-ul-Mujahideen with the blessings of the ISI, the Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of George Habash.

When Prabakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was disinclined to accept the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement of 1987, which led to the induction of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) into the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, Arafat sent a message to Rajiv Gandhi offering his good offices for making Prabakaran accept the agreement. After politely declining his offer, Rajiv Gandhi asked the intelligence agencies to check up how Arafat claimed to have some influence over Prabakaran. Their enquiries brought out that the LTTE was in secret touch with the PLO’s so-called diplomatic mission in Delhi without the knowledge of the Government of India and that senior PLO representatives used to visit Chennai secretly to meet LTTE leaders.

There was not only a multiplicity of agencies and Departments of the Government maintaining contacts with the different Sri Lankan Tamil groups, but there was also a multiplicity of privileged interlocutors holding secret talks with Prabakaran and other Tamil leaders on behalf of Rajiv Gandhi—with one not knowing what the other was doing. The decision to induct the IPKF into Sri Lanka to restore normalcy and to make the LTTE amenable to accepting what it viewed as a dictated peace seemed to have been taken without a proper assessment of the ground realities in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka and the likely difficulties in carrying out counter-insurgency tasks in a foreign territory.The Indian Army seemed to have imagined that since it was familiar with counter-insurgency operations in different areas of the Indian territory, the operations in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka should be no different. One was told that an over-confident and over-enthusiastic Gen.Sunderji, the then Chief of the Army Staff, told Rajiv Gandhi that the IPKF would be able to accomplish its mission within a month. When this did not happen and the IPKF got involved in a quagmire, he put the blame on the intelligence agencies—particularly on the R&AW— for not warning him in advance of the capabilities, strength and motivation of the LTTE. As a Lt.Gen., he did the same thing in 1984 when he was put in charge of the military operation against the Khalistani terrorists, who had occupied the Golden Temple in Amritsar. When the operation took a longer time than expected and became messy due to a fierce resistance put up by the terrorists, he blamed the intelligence agencies for not providing adequate intelligence about the capability of the terrorists inside the Temple.

While not a single agency or department of the Government of India had a complete picture of what was being done by various agencies and departments in relation to Sri Lanka, there was one agency outside India, which must have had a complete picture. That was the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It was getting from the French external intelligence agency copies of all reports being sent to the PMO by the IB and the R&AW which the French agency was getting from its source in the office of the then Principal Secretary to the PM. It was also getting a large number of sensitive documents and information from the office of the R&AW in Chennai through its head, who was allegedly being run as a source by a CIA officer posted in the US Consulate at Chennai.

The IB’s surveillance team, which used to take video-recordings of the movements and meetings of this CIA officer, once reportedly noticed in one of its video clips the local R&AW chief jogging along with the CIA officer on the Marina beach. Further enquiries gave cause for suspicion that this officer had been won over and recruited by the CIA. He was called to Delhi ostensibly to attend a meeting with the head of the R&AW without making him aware that he was under suspicion. On his arrival, he was taken into custody and interrogated by a joint team of counter-intelligence experts from the IB and the R&AW. He reportedly confessed and was detained in the Tihar jail in Delhi for a year under the National Security Act. One was told that Rajiv Gandhi was against jailing him, but Joshi, the then chief of the R&AW (1986-87), insisted on his being sent to jail in order to convey a firm warning to other officers not to fall a prey to the temptations offered by foreign intelligence agencies.

When Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, an IPS officer of the R&AW, who used to deal with Sri Lanka and who had made a name as an upright and religious-minded officer, approached Kao and requested him to have his name recommended by the R&AW for the Indian Police Medal. At Kao’s request, the R&AW did so. The procedure was that the R&AW used to send the recommendation to the MHA, which would put it up to the Prime Minister along with the personal file on the officer kept in the MHA. This personal file used to contain all papers on the work and conduct of the officer ever since he joined the IPS. The MHA did so.

After some days, the file came back from Indira Gandhi with the following note: “Please see the report in his personal file at Flag X. I am surprised that an officer with such a background should have been recommended for the Police Medal.” In the personal file was a report sent 20 years earlier by the Chief Secretary of the State of the officer to the Home Secretary of the Government of India.

In his report, the Chief Secretary had stated as follows: After joining the State, the officer had got engaged to a girl and taken a dowry of Rs.one lakh from her parents. Before the marriage, his parents started demanding more money as dowry.When the girl’s parents expressed their inability to pay more, the officer cancelled his engagement to the girl and refused to return the amount paid initially.

In fact, he and his parents denied having taken any amount. The girl’s parents sent a written complaint to the Chief Secretary, who ordered an enquiry. The enquiry could not find provable evidence against the officer. The Chief Secretary personally interviewed the girl and her parents. While forwarding the enquiry report to the Home Secretary, the Chief Secretary had remarked that while no evidence could be found against the officer, he had no reason to disbelieve the allegations of the girl and her parents.It was this officer who was subsequently recruited by the CIA. The inherent defect in his character, which was unnoticed by the R&AW, had apparently been noticed by the CIA and he was targeted for recruitment.

Possibly by unintended coincidence, even as the penetration of the R&AW’s office by the CIA through this IPS officer was detected after he had caused some damage, another officer joined the R&AW’s headquarters when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister and managed to ingratiate himself with the senior officers to such an extent that he was considered a blue-eyed operative of the organization. He claimed to have access to the documents of a division of the US State Department, which dealt with external economic assistance, through his sister, who was a US Government servant working in that Division. He managed to get from her copies of a number of classified reports of her Division relating to South Asia.

The R&AW was priding itself on the fact that it had succeeded in penetrating the US State Department through a mole. Years later, in 2004, it came out that this officer was a mole of the CIA in the R&AW. He must have been of even a greater value to the CIA than the head of the R&AW office in Chennai because it had him whisked out of India and gave him shelter in the US after he came under suspicion. To enable him to escape from India without being caught, it reportedly issued to him and his wife  US passports under different names. This extraordinary action of the CIA, which amounted to its admitting that he was its mole, gave an idea of what should have been his value to the CIA. It apparently wanted to prevent at any cost his interrogation by the Indian counter-intelligence experts. Even at the risk of a serious misunderstanding with the Government of India, it helped him to flee to the US and settle down there. His name is Major Rabinder Singh.

Shortly after the exit of Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister, there was another worrisome incident in the R&AW headquarters. A conference of the Directors-General of Police and the heads of the central police organizations on security-related issues was held in the conference hall of the R&AW. Among those, who attended the conference was K.P.S.Gill. Shortly before his arrival, a dummy improvised explosive device (IED) was found in a corner of the Control Room of the organization. It was dummy in the sense that it had been properly assembled, but there was no explosive charge in the cavity meant for it. The person, who planted it, apparently did not want to cause any explosion. At the same time, he wanted to show that he had access to the Control Room. Who was he—an insider or an outsider? What was his identity? It could not be established. 

In 1996, the IB was reported to have detected a penetration of their organization at the headquarters by the CIA at a very senior level. In 2006, there were reports of the penetration of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which is part of the PMO, by the CIA. These detections show serious weaknesses in the counter-intelligence and internal security set-ups of the IB and the R&AW. The IB and the R&AW act as watch-dogs of the internal security set-ups in other Government departments—-the IB internally and the R&AW externally— but who is to act as an independent watch-dog of the counter-intelligence and internal security set-ups of the IB and the R&AW so that our policy-makers are assured that they are competent enough to prevent a penetration of their own offices by foreign intelligence agencies. It is time to pay attention to this, if this has not already been done.

There are two options. The first is to appoint an IB officer as the head of the Counter-intelligence and internal security set-up of the R&AW and vice versa. The second option is to emulate the CIA and some other foreign agencies and create a post of Inspector-General in the intelligence agencies to act as an independent watch-dog of the performance of the intelligence agencies and the state of their internal security and counter-intelligence. In the US, only officers known for their independence, objectivity and personal integrity are considered for appointment to this post. Their reports go directly to the Congressional Oversight Committees with copies to the head of the agency. In India, till we set up the system of parliamentary oversight of the intelligence agencies, his reports can go directly to the Prime Minister, with copies to the head of the agency.

Rajiv Gandhi enthusiastically shared his mother’s interest in Africa and ensured that the requests from the African countries for training and other assistance and from the ANC and the SWAPO for any assistance were met. By the time apartheid came to an end in South Africa and Namibia became independent, Rajiv Gandhi had lost the elections. After his release from decades of detention, one of the first countries visited by Nelson Mandela, the ANC leader, was India when V.P.Singh was the Prime Minister. At the celebrations to mark the independence of Namibia—-again when V.P.Singh was the Prime Minister— the Congress (I) delegation led by Rajiv Gandhi as the Leader of the Opposition was accorded greater honours by the Namibian authorities than the delegation of the Government of India. It was their way of expressing their gratitude to India, the Congress (I), Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for what they did to help the anti-apartheid movement and for the independence of Nambia.

Future generations of R&AW officers should know and should be proud of the role of the R&AW in this. It shows what good the R&AW can do for the country if it gets the right guidance and encouragement from the political leadership of the country. The R&AW has immense potential for promoting the national interests of the country.It is for the political leadership to be aware of this potential, to nurse it and make full use of it. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did. The other Prime Ministers didn’t.

No other Prime Minister of India—-not even Indira Gandhi— took such an active interest as Rajiv Gandhi did in the IB and the R&AW and its officers and in encouraging initiatives to improve their working. Rajiv Gandhi computerized the working of the R&AW, made the officers at all levels become computer-literate and made the level of computer-literacy of an officer an important quality to be reflected in his Annual Confidential Reports. He initiated proposals for improving the conditions of service of intelligence officers while in service and their quality of life after their retirement, keeping in view the harsh and almost anonymous life led by them. Despite his being an active and powerful Prime Minister, he could not push his proposals through due to opposition from the IAS officers. One understands that some of these proposals for serving officers have since been implemented by Dr.Manmohan Singh, the present Prime Minister, on the advice of M.K.Narayanan, the National Security Adviser.