Shock, denial and we-knew-it reactions to KGB disclosures Sunday September 18 2005 16:35 IST
IANS
NEW DELHI: Damaging claims in a new book that the KGB, the former Soviet secret service, bribed diplomats, select media, Communist politicians and ministers during then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's tenure has been met with shock, denial and we-knew-it-all-along reaction in the Indian establishment.
While politicians from the Congress and Left parties were quick to rubbish the revelations, veteran media hands and former intelligence officials believe that some of the exposures had a semblance of truth.
"The Mitrokhin Archive, Volume II: The KGB and the World," by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist, reveals details of the agency's activities in India such as covert funding of the Congress, individuals, media, and politicians of the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI).
It says the reason why the KGB was more successful than the CIA, the US spy agency, in buying influence was "partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption that became endemic under Indira Gandhi's regime."
Though the book does not make any allegation against Indira Gandhi personally, it says she was "unlikely to have paid close attention to the dubious origin of some of the funds that went into the Congress's coffers."
D Raja, CPI leader, told IANS, "These are wild allegations. The party dismisses them with the contempt it deserves. If you look at it closely it is a conspiracy hatched by the British and American intelligence agencies."
Published a year after Mitrokhin's death, the new book devotes two chapters to India. It claims people in high places, including ministers, were willing to provide sensitive information to the highest bidder and "it seemed like the entire country was for sale."
Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, who has exhaustively chronicled that era, told IANS, "I can't talk of the media being on the take but it was well known then that suitcases of money used to exchange hands. Senior Congress leaders like S. Nijalingappa of Karnataka and S. K. Patil of Maharashtra (both dead) have talked about it."
"At one point it was rumoured that P N Haksar, Mrs Gandhi's left-leaning, powerful principal secretary was the go-between and often went to the Russian Embassy. But he denied the allegation."
The book also names former Congressman, L. N. Mishra, the party's principal fundraiser then as the direct recipient of KGB money.
The BJP has reacted saying the Congress should come forward and respond to the damaging claims made in the book.
"The Congress has to respond to this revelation made in the book on KGB, it is the responsibility of the Congress towards the nation," said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP spokesperson.
"And the book also names Lalit Narayan Mishra, whose death is still surrounded in mystery. We still don't know how he died, so now it becomes imperative for the Congress to respond," he added.
Mishra, who was known to be close to Gandhi, died when a grenade was lobbed at him at the Samastipur railway station in Bihar on Jan 2, 1975.
Congress spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi refuted the claims in the book and said that the revelations were "baseless".
However, former intelligence officers, who served in the late 70s say there is a grain of truth in some of the claims made in the book.
"The KGB had cultivated scores of sources in defence and foreign ministries. Everyone knew where the gifts and scotch bottles were coming from. During the Cold War years, the spy agency had a free run," said a former intelligence official.
In his account of the extensive KGB presence in India in the 1970s, Christopher Andrew, Cambridge historian who collaborated with the late Mitrokhin, says it was "one of the largest outside the Soviet bloc" and was seen as a "model of KGB infiltration of a Third World government."