The skeletons are out. The Mitrokhin Archives II has suddenly added colour to the Indian political tamasha, which in my view had become somewhat reticent in the past few months. The Acorn has–as usual–voiced its perspective. And Secular Right too weighs briefly on the issue:

We knew this about the CPI, long suspected this of the media, but the Prime Minister’s establishment itself? If true, this represents a mind-numbing betrayal of India by the party we’ve generally endorsed.

And strongly demands:

…a really good explanation

So does Atanu Dey who has in a lengthy post also contemplated on what constitutes a “real” democracy.

The article says that between 3 and 5 thousand stories had been planted in the Indian press and that the prime minister had been bribed. The press and the prime minister’s office, I guess, are important democratic institutions. They were compromised. It hardly speaks to the strength of our democratic institutions.

The Prime Minister’s Office

Secular Right and Atanu Dey’s remark on the PMO being compromised hardly surprises me. Nor the fact that Indira Gandhi was bribed or that she accepted it. The PMO was compromised precisely when she was in power. A Kannada biography of Sanjay Gandhi mentions this fact, clearly citing instances of these compromises: a lowly mechanic who grew to become a confidant of Sanjay, and various assortments of thugs and scumbags who roughshod the PMO and all norms and decency. The fact that Sanjay became–much like his sister-in-law now–an extra Constitutional PM is also evidence of the said compromise. Sanjay and his gang of goons in the heydays of the Emergency decided state policy–from the twisted mass castration operations to the disastrous indigenous car manufacturing, every idea of his was ridiculous if only they didn’t result in large-scale suffering. What the Prime Minister did is anybody’s guess: she supported these monstrosities only because she was convinced they would help keep her in power. The same reasoning can be more or less accurately applied to her covert approval of the Russian game of infiltration.

Her principal fundraiser, Lalit Narayan Mishra, however, knew that he was accepting Soviet money. Short and obese with several chins, Mishra looked the part of the corrupt politician that he increasingly became. Particularly after Mrs Gandhi signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation with the Soviet Union, the KGB was anxious to do what it could to keep her in power.

Nilanjana Roy writes in the Business Standard:

The situation in the 1970s sounds like a bizarre free market for intelligence: “It seemed like the entire country was for sale; the KGB-and the CIA-had deeply penetrated the Indian government. After a while neither side entrusted sensitive information to the Indians, realizing their enemy would know all about it the next day.”

Andrew says the KGB was better at exploiting “the corruption that became endemic” under Indira Gandhi’s regime…

Indeed. It is on record that corruption flourished precisely in Communist countries; does anybody remember Ayn Rand’s We the Living where she exposes the modality of corruption in Communist Russia. Small wonder that the KGB was adept at applying the same modality here.

It Started with Nehru

I believe the KGB could get away with a penetration of this magnitude only because of the precedent set by the most True Blooded Communist of all: Jawaharlal Nehru. I’ve written on this earlier. Mrs.Gandhi like her father, fostered and even depended on the commies during most of her tenure. She also inherited Nehru’s schizophrenia regarding the US, which helped the KGB in no small measure. However, Indira Gandhi supported the Communists not out of any ideological commitment; she used them as they did her. It was pure chance and perhaps the Gandhi Myth that she was more powerful of the two, she could draw votes while they moved into key positions in the establishment and media using her as the lever.

Damning Evidence

It took me less than 10 minutes to reach this website, which provides more fodder on the overwhelming love Nehru had for Russia and communism. It also exposes the Chinese designs and contains some invectives the Right Honourable Comrade Mao hurled at Nehru (privately, of course), and Nehru’s own “stature” in the Communist Fraternity:

Nehru is a well-known politician. One cannot exclude that to some degree he was involved in the intrigues against the PRC. But Nehru is far-sighted enough to recognize the vital importance of India’s friendship with China, with the Soviet Union and the whole socialist camp. Nehru behaved with reserve. In his numerous speeches he admitted that Tibet is a part of China, he spoke against the establishment of a so-called “government of Dalai-Lama in exile,” [...] One should ask, what aims did Chinese comrades pursue in attacking Nehru so uncompromisingly? As they explained it themselves, they stood by the principle of “cohesion and struggle.” According to com. Mao Zedong, they unmask Nehru as a “double-dealer,” “half a man, half a devil,” “half a gentlemen, half a hooligan,” and in doing this they allegedly “force” him to strengthen friendship with the PRC.
A question, naturally, was raised how to live side by side with this “devil”? How to build relations with India? The Chinese comrades found a solution in forcing Nehru to repent and in pressuring him into cooperation with China. At the same time the Chinese said that they visualize the possibility of the downfall of the Nehru government and see no great trouble if a reactionary pro-Western government comes to power in India. In their opinion, this would only bring us closer to a revolution in India.

Sell your Country for Communist Milk and Honey

Is what the Indian Comrades did. Before I present the relevant details of the transaction, I’d like to note what the Communists are saying now to whitewash their past record.

• Allegations in Mitrokhin Archives vague: Congress
• Book a mere spy thriller

Nice eh? Says one worthy AP Bardhan:

Outrightly rejecting claims made by former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin’s book that the CPI comrades were paid by the Russian intelligence agency, party general secretary A B Bardhan termed it “a spy thriller” and raised questions on the timing of the book. [...] “communists have survived all slander and would survive this one also” and said the book has come at a time when Left’s stock is going up for raising pro-people issues. “We survive on people’s money. I have never smelt roubles.

One, nobody has named Bardhan as a recipient of KGB money and two, you can always convert roubles into rupees. But wait, there’s always a conspiracy theory around the street.

Bardhan said US and British intelligence could be behind this. Taking potshots at them, he said a big story of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was created by them only to discover that none existed.

Sure. Iraq didn’t have WMD, therefore Indian commies didn’t receive money back in the ’70s. Perfect. But let’s move on to serious things.

“This is pure sensationalism, not based on facts or records,” he said. “These are vague allegations. It is the version of a person whose work is being published 15 years after his defection and 50 years after everybody involved in the incidents was present…Almost everyone has died…There is no way of checking…”

There is, there is. The website I linked to under “Damning Evidence” has a section entitled Benediktov Diaries. Benediktov was the Russian ambassador to India in 1962; he recorded proceedings of various meetings he had with Nehru and other Communist luminaries at that time. The section that interests us opens with an editorial preface that reads thus:

II. Russian Foreign Ministry Documents on Soviet-Indian Relations and the Sino-Indian Border Conflict, 1962 (excerpts)
[The first excerpt is from a 17 January 1962 entry from the journal of Soviet ambassador to India I.A. Benediktov describing a conversation with the Secretary of the National Council of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Bhupesh Gupta. During the conversation, Gupta urgently requests Soviet financial aid for the Indian party for use in an upcoming election campaign; the answer conveyed by Benediktov ten days later suggests that the Soviets responded positively to the request, although the amount is not indicated:]

Followed by:

Today I received Gupta at his request. Gupta communicated that on 16-17 January a meeting of the Secretariat of the CPI took place in Delhi, at which was discussed the future work of the party apparatus in connection with the death of A[joy]. [Kumar] Ghosh….Gupta said that he desires that the ties of the CPI and CPSU do not become weakened in any way after the death of Ghosh. The assistance in various forms and the comradely advice of the CC CPSU have always been enormously useful to us, he underscored….Gupta said that no other party, not even the communist party of China, can occupy in the hearts of Indian communists the place which belongs to the CPSU…
Gupta reported that after the death of Ghosh at the present time in the party there is an acute insufficiency of means for the preelection campaign. He expressed the fear that with the death of Ghosh the source for receiving means for the communist party from the CPSU might be closed. These questions were handled by Ghosh alone, Gupta underscored. He never consulted with him /Gupta/, and even less with [Elamulam M.S.] Nambudiripad and G. Nair/ with the latter two only about using the assistance/. All these matters were held in strictest secrecy from other leaders of the party and members of the National Council. This explains the fact that not a single report on this question has appeared in the press. Gupta said that he cannot singlehandedly take on responsibility in questions of assistance, therefore he considers it necessary to consult with Nambudiripad, whom he characterized as a person of crystalline honesty and whom Ghosh trusted. Gupta confidentially reported that A. Ghosh had not consulted on this problem with Akhmed or with [Shripad Amrit] Dange, who once proposed that he entrust to him alone all matters connected with the receipt of aid from abroad.

Someone was talking about “not based on facts and records?” But you guys can read the whole–actually excerpts–diary and judge the worth of our Comrades and understand how they cringed and crawled before the all-powerful USSR.

And now they deny this. Naturally. They’re probably born with Doublespeak, and have perfected it over the years. In a book review I wrote long ago, I mentioned their role in sabotaging the Quit India Movement; Arun Shourie had to write it because over the years, they claimed the mantle of “freedom fighters.” And now they claim that the timing of this report is suspect, that it is a capitalist conspiracy.

Bardhan…said the book has come at a time when Left’s stock is going up for raising pro-people issues.

Such is the character of the people now wield enormous power–without responsibility–in the present government.