Seriously Sandeep

The grand melange of Communist parties is furious that their secrets, which for more than three decades were guarded by their loyal soldiers in the media and the establishment should tumble out from the Imperialist West.

The Communist Party of India is livid with the claims made in Christopher Andrew’s book based on the KGB documents smuggled out by former spy Vasili Mithrokhin when he defected to Britain.

In my earlier entry, I had quoted AP Bardhan who had issues with the timing of the book’s release. For clarity’s sake I’ll quote him again:

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.

The timing issue in one word is: absurd. If this was indeed an imperialist conspiracy, the West wouldn’t have waited until now to release the book. It would have made sense to publish it when the Congress and the Indian Left’s chips were down: during the NDA rule. The counter-argument to this in Bardhan’s words is: this is a ploy to discredit the Left, whose “stock is going up for raising pro-people’s issues.” Agreed. However, if this was published during the NDA’s rule, the NDA would’ve surely set up an investigation committee and gone after their blood. That would’ve been far tougher for them to handle than now, when the Left is powerful enough to ban the book in India. Again, even if this was an imperialist conspiracy, does it in anyway alter the fact that the Congress and the Communists were bribed? Irrespective of the motive, the truth is that the Communists accepted money from the KGB.

Rediff reports some names that the Mitrokhin Archives has revealed:

The supposed KGB papers claim that deceased CPI leaders S A Dange and C Rajeshwar Rao regularly received bribes and favours from the Russians in mid-1970s and Dange even issued receipts for the money he received.

And the response?

“This is utter nonsense. We have said this before and we say it again that these documents haven’t been verified and no one knows if these are real KGB papers,” said CPI leader Manju Kumar Majumder.

Say that again. But I’ll go with Majumder. These documents haven’t been verified as sourced from the KGB so I’ll believe Majumder. However, the Benediktov diaries confirm Dange’s role by way of a first-person report. Here’s the portion that relates to SA Dange.

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. [...] The interlocutor further underscored that the only other channels of aid from abroad are the aid received by the Punjab organization from Sikhs living in England and also the aid at the trade union level through Dange.

The Communists are finding this very hard to swallow because the Archives have exposed people like Dange and Rajeshwar Rao who have a demigod status in the Indian Communist Pantheon. Even a superficial gleaning of this material is enough to learn the nature of Dange and Co’s “struggles” in building Communism in India: from the freedom struggle days where they struggled against India through the post-Independence period where they actively colluded with the KGB to betray the nation. Hence the denial, and the rubbishing, which are but tactics to whitewash Dange and Co’s role. And then there’s the proverb that truth always hurts.

In related news, K Subramhanyam writing in the Indian Express makes some thoughtful points.

This book and similar books from the US and other countries should provide valuable insights into the mechanics of our party system and why in spite of such inflows of foreign money our democratic system has been relatively stable. It would appear democracies have some self-corrective immunity mechanisms which help to fight against the infection of foreign money inflow.

This is a pretty contentious point. I wouldn’t call Indian democracy “stable.” For the most part, it was one-party rule: one-man and one-woman rule to be precise. Compare the number of elections this country has witnessed post-Independence with that of really stable democracies–US & UK for instance (for the same period of course). Also notice the government-toppling games our “leaders” have indulged in the past. And let’s not forget the Emergency. Here I beg to digress a bit. Indira Gandhi lifted the Emergency on her own accord, not because she yielded to public pressure or other factors. She was convinced that she’d win a landslide majority in the post-Emergency poll. Imagine the converse scenario where she would have refused to lift the Emergency? What stability is the author talking about when a fully functioning democracy allows its top person get away with dictatorial measures; worse, when the selfsame dictator is re-elected three/four years later? And the “self-corrective immunity mechanisms” is partly the result of self-delusion. The majority of India–the rural voters–does not have any idea about what Democracy really stands for. Also, as I indicated in my previous post on this issue, the most probable reason why “foreign money inflow” didn’t work in India was due to the relative powerlessness of the Communists in face of the overwhelming personality of Indira Gandhi.

The author writes:

There is a growing literature of espionage experience in India by foreign operatives. There are at least three books by CIA operatives. The present Russian disclosure is most probably the first of a series that may emerge. We may end up in a situation, as we have done in respect of our history of the last 58 years, that most of the espionage activities in India would be revealed in foreign literature even as our politicians maintain a stodgy silence.

Which is good. The “stodgy silence” can easily be explained, again with reference to the Nehru-Indira-Communist era. Does the author seriously believe that the present government would declassify stuff that would be potentially dangerous to them? It might take a lot many years for the “Indian” side of the story to come out. For these documents relate the misdeeds done by people who are still around. Hell, the Golden Congress Years ensured that no document/book that portrayed the Dynasty in poor light saw the light of the day. That cult although diminished greatly, still persists in subtle forms.

It is significant also that these documents were not released by Russians officially: they were smuggled by the (ex) KGB man, Mitrokhin. That and the fact that the Only Fatherland of Communism no longer exists.