The house that Bin Laden Built?

The 'mansion' has been razed. But ghosts need no houses.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Pakistan authorities demolished the three-story house in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden lived for years and died last May during a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in an apparent bid to stop it becoming a tourist site or shrine for al Qaeda supporters..."

We are told this is a decision taken by Pakistani security agencies. The US has not been informed. One has to be naive to believe this. True Pak-US relations are at a low after the November killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers, but this is a ruse.

Osama was the most wanted man. The US hunt for him took them on a warpath, resulting in thousands of deaths. If he lived here for five years, and in that quick operation they managed to take away "boxes of materials", does it mean the safe house has no value for them anymore?

They say that the proximity to the military academy is an embarrassment to Pakistan. Pakistan says it did not know about it. As for America:

"Until now, however, the U.S. has stated it has found no evidence that Pakistan's military or government helped shelter the former al Qaeda leader."

So the soured relationship theory just does not work. The whole tourist attraction-shrine idea is lame, too.

The romanticisation of Osama relied on his hiding in caves, not in a badly-structured house, hunched over a television television watching porn DVDs, and using Viagra.

The US killed the image of Osama.

Pakistan is helping it to demolish every trace. It is a mutual understanding. For a country that revels in symbols, it is hard to imagine the US did not want to keep a watch over the site and just move on after the burial by the sea.

Something more than a building is destroyed, and America jolly well knows what that is.

Clinton Plays Snake and the Rope

While most of the media is patting Hillary Clinton for the “tough talk” with Pakistan in Islamabad, what the US Secretary of State has really done is to send out contradictory signals. Take these two quotes:

• "Our relationship of late has not been an easy one. We have seen distrust harden into resentment and public recrimination. We have seen common interests give way to mutual suspicion."

• "We work with the Pakistani military and intelligence services [so] that any person who has committed a terrorist act or is about to commit one can be intercepted. There are many ways of doing that. I think it's one of the real successes of the relationship."

What tough talk? The US has its ways, so where is the mutual suspicion? This is the façade. It is ridiculous, as has been implied by one set of analyses, that things got a bit difficult between the two countries because of Osama bin Laden. What of him? That he was found in Pakistan? Or, that the Americans killed him? Or, that the Pakistanis helped the Americans?

The only problem with the ‘end of Osama’ deal is that the US administration is suffering from an itch. It has to fight terror, but it has nothing to show. After camping in Waziristan and Kabul – not to speak of hovering over the Middle East – it has figured out that the Haqqanis are in charge of the terror network in this part of the world.

The supposed Clinton missive is about asking Pakistan to do all sorts of things to the Haqqani faction that sounds like a bad mixer-juicer-grinder ad: "to encourage, to push, to squeeze…That is what we are looking for." All this is apparently for a peace chat. She reportedly added for good measure, revealing an appalling lack of understanding, that it was not clear whether the militants were ready for talks.

Damn them. Really. Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Kayani, had in fact made the ‘tough call’ by saying “we are not Iraq or Afghanistan”, although everyone knows that it would take a minute to become one. The US can do that if it has a ruse. Pakistan has managed to resist obvious puppetry due to its Saudi connection.

Since Clinton has already said that the US worked with the Pakistani army, why is she ranting? Because that is her job profile. Her quick visits are part of the banshee cry that needs to resound.

If anything, this was a PR exercise.

"Every intelligence agency has contact with unsavory characters, that is part of the job of being in an intelligence agency. What we are saying is let's use those contacts to try to bring these people to the table to see whether or not they are going to be cooperative." She noted that it was the Pakistani intelligence services that requested the U.S. meet with the Haqqanis.

Where is the problem here? Why make noises about the ISI then? If the US and Pakistan are in this together, then every single meeting is a wasted effort. They are merely sending out signals to no one in particular. Since every intelligence agency has contacts with unsavoury characters, why does the US always need help? Is its own intelligence falling short or do they avoid unsavoury characters due to some moral reasons?

The most delectable comment was from The Guardian quoting Pakistani officials responding to criticism about intelligence links with the Haqqanis as saying:

“It's not like we can pick up the phone and call them to Islamabad. We know people who know people who know them.”

Sheer brilliance!

As for Ms. Clinton’s “you cannot keep snakes in your backyard and expect they will only bite the neighbours'', why has it just become a much-touted quote?

Which neighbours was she referring to? Is she okay with such neighbouring? This is such a typically selfish attitude. And, anyway, the United States of America does know about snakes in Pakistan’s neighbourhood. Its CIA helped create one. When he bit it, they decided that anything that looked like a reptile was a threat and had to be done away with. What no one realised as that the American administration was the chameleon dangling a rope and screaming, “Snake!” A win-win situation.

The noose and the venom, real and delusionary, are powerful weapons of destruction.

Surely They’re Joking, Mr. Fai! Kashmir’s American Counsel?

At the Kashmir border

Surely They’re Joking, Mr. Fai! 
Kashmir’s American Counsel? 
by Farzana Versey
Counterpunch, July 22-24

The fact that there is an element of surprise over Ghulam Nabi Fai’s arrest after the FBI exposed his connections to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) reveals that this was probably a sudden brainwave.

The allegation is that Mr. Fai’s Kashmir American Council (KAC) was illegally funded by the ISI to exert influence on the US Congress to swing the Kashmir debate in Pakistan’s favour.

Did the ISI do it? Possible. Did Mr. Fai use this money? Possible. Was the FBI unaware about it all these years? Not possible.

There are a few important aspects to this development:

1.       The FBI keeps track of all funds, so why was it quiet all along? KAC is not an underground movement. It puts up petitions; it has a Google groups forum; there is a Facebook page of its affiliates; its conferences are held in university halls and invitation is free. Often dinner is served.

The huge amount of money discovered should prompt the FBI to question the recipients and investigate as to how it has impacted on US policy. Instead, the focus is almost entirely on the Fai-ISI link. Is it possible to forget that the ISI virtually runs Pakistan and that Pakistan is also the beneficiary of American funds? Ergo, the ISI is by default propped up by the US financially and, given the strategic political dynamics, on the ground too. The ISI is nobody’s fool to depend on a Kashmiri organisation in the US to lobby for Pakistan’s interests in the Valley when it already has its people in the region with help from the Lashkar-e-Taiyba and other forces, including a faction of the local Hurriyat Conference.

This is not a simple case of getting the bad guy. It is about creating one more bad guy, and this is notwithstanding Fai’s role in the larger Kashmir issue and sponsorship.

2.       Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just visited India and set the tone for Indo-US relations. However, the dog-and-bone attitude continues with an emphasis on American interest and interests in Pakistan. There is most definitely an attempt to influence the talks between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan scheduled for July 27.

3.       The proposed US move out of Afghanistan would necessitate having some presence in the region. In fact, after the Clinton meeting, India’s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said, “We have impressed on the United States and other countries who have a major presence in Afghanistan that it is necessary for them to continue in Afghanistan.”

Pakistan is handy for some sado-masochism. Recently, there were video clips in the media of the Taliban killing Pakistani soldiers, in a reversed version of Gitmo.

4.        Osama Bin Laden’s killing is being regurgitated on a tangential topic by implying yet again that Pakistani intelligence agencies knew about his abode. There have been arrests that seem suspiciously like red herrings.

5.       David Headley is deposing before the courts in the US and providing details of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley’s departure from the US to India is a major goof-up by security forces in that country as well as the Indian embassy. His implicating the ISI would surprise no one except the US in its studied ‘naïve’ state. It is pertinent that Ms. Clinton mentioned these attacks (with only a cursory sympathetic reference to the recent Mumbai attacks only days before she arrived). This is much like Headley who wanted to fight for Kashmir, but ended up taking pictures of Mumbai’s landmarks to help his ‘handlers’.

6.       One is aware of the ISI’s crucial strategic role in Pakistan. But, how does the FBI function in the US? Does it push the agenda of the party in power? If so, then its bolt from the blue could be another means to assist the current government in the coming elections.

The major beneficiary of Mr. Fai’s political contributions seems to be Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana. This has been going on for 15 years. For 15 years the FBI has managed to trace the $23,500 contribution to US lawmakers that is legally available with the Federal Election Commission. What made the FBI now want to dig into the over $ 4 million that was illegally brought in?

If indeed it is true, then the onus ought to be on the security agencies and those who were expected to lobby for the Kashmir cause.  There are murmurs that Fai is only a front. This is a convenient ruse. You have some evidence, claim other evidence, arrest the man based on these and then leave a small opening for the bigger fish, well aware that the bigger fish are not born that way but plumped up artificially in diplomatic laboratories.

* * *

It is time to ask how exactly lobbying works and whether the United States can take an ethical stand when it is open to such influencing.

The political action committee (PAC) is a blatant forum to ensure that groups can help political candidates and parties, which in turn promise to assist them. Contributors range from real estate agencies, insurance companies, defense contractors and oil companies. There are also special interest groups based on race, gender, nationality, and religion too. In less developed societies this might be deemed as bribery. Legalising it makes the process transparent only to a small extent. If KAC has really managed to get in the millions of dollars illegally, then it suggests that there are loopholes in the system.

Fai in a soup

However, does this ensure that the lobbying group will truly benefit? Mr. Fai was a US citizen; he organised conferences as many do. There was one held on February 2011 and the list of speakers included Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Norwegian Member of Parliament Peter S. Gitmark, author and South Asia Analyst Victoria Schofield, Pakistani envoy Husain Haqqani. The others listed as “invited” were the Indian ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, Chinese ambassador Zhang Yesui and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr.

Rather curiously, reports have made it sound ominous by stating, “Another group which has come under the lens is Indian liberals and so-called bleeding hearts who accepted Fai’s and KAC’s hospitality to attend conferences in US on the Kashmir issue…” The liberals go on junkets for several causes, including plane rides with ministers of the ruling party or the opposition depending on their agenda or that of the organisation they represent. This includes the media. Does their presence help the cause? What is their contribution in real terms?

A peripheral but telling aspect is how some Indians view the unfolding of this episode. A Hindutva group functionary sent an email with an article from the Times of India appended with his comments. He writes, “First, the author calls those who have exposed the Indians (either citizens or those who are of Indian origin) as 'Indian hypernationalists and right-wingers' and 'hardline nationalist'.  However, those Indians who attended the seminars organized by the Pakistan's ISI sponsored front as 'liberals', instead of traitors.  Clearly he wants to prejudice the minds of the readers.  But, you cannot hide the truth. The Indians who were invited to the various programmes were obviously those who would be taking an anti-India position, and not ones who would project a holistic picture.  It is absolutely necessary to expose those Indians who attended these programmes.  Actually, they themselves should come forward and identify themselves.”

There is nothing secret about this. As mentioned earlier, the KAC’s activities were open. While the person is quick to label those attending such conferences as traitors based on the implication of the ISI role in the council, he assumes they would take an anti-India stand. One must remember that there are several influential Hindutva groups too in the US. There are Jewish lobbies.

Since I was never invited, let me add that it is more important to first find out whether anyone has managed to score points for Pakistan on the Kashmir debate and how much it can change the ground realities. The US is interested in counter-terrorism that affects it directly. Has it ever spoken about lives lost in the state – civilian and military?

On what grounds can the US plan to question Kashmiri separatists when they were given visas to travel for seminars that were in the public domain? Should it not look into its own backyard and see how and why anyone can lobby for positions that it claims to be chary of?

Pakistan has, naturally, denied any role. What is the Indian position? If it cannot take a stand regarding a person of Indian origin only because he is Kashmiri, then it only reiterates the attitude of disenchantment that people in the Valley suffer from.

In November last year Ghulam Nabi Fai had written:

“Once again, Kashmir is giving proof that it is not going to compromise, far less abandon, its demand for Azaadi (freedom) which is its birthright and for which it has paid a price in blood and suffering which has not been exacted from any other people of the South Asian subcontinent. Compared to the sacrifice Kashmir has had to endure, India and Pakistan themselves gained their freedom through a highly civilized process. That is a most poignant truth. But even more bitterly ironical is the contrast between the complex and decades-long agony the Kashmir issue has caused to Kashmiris, to Pakistan and to India itself and the simple, rational measures that would be needed for its solution. No sleight of hand is required, no subtle concepts are to be deployed, and no ingenious deal needs to be struck between an Indian and a Pakistani leader with the endorsement of the more pliable Kashmiri figures. The time for subterfuges is gone. All that is needed is going back – yes, going back – to the point of agreement which historically existed beyond doubt between India and Pakistan and jointly resolving to retrieve it with such modifications as are necessitated by the passage of time.

“That point of agreement is the one India as well as Pakistan, each independently, brought to the United Nations Security Council when the Kashmir dispute was first internationalized. In fact, the Council itself took that point as the basis of the resolutions it later formulated.

“The point was one of inescapable principle- -- that the future status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be decided by the will of the people of the State as impartially ascertained in conditions free from coercion. The two elements of a peaceful settlement thus were, first, the demilitarization of the State (i.e. the withdrawal of the forces of both India and Pakistan) and a plebiscite supervised by the United Nations.

“With propositions of such clarity and character accepted, what room was left for the dispute to arise?”

Is this not the position taken by many political groups within Kashmir, by separatists, by the people?

It would be a pity if due to the ISI angle, the real issues will be pushed aside. America has the arsenal to deal with the ISI, but does it have the will? If Mr. Fai is a front, then why only name the ISI people and not the Congressmen who knew what they were expected to lobby for? Culpability in this case lies across the board. It is utterly ridiculous to make this sound like a terrorist plot when the monies have been traced and people of some stature have been consistently raising the Kashmir issue, not just abroad but at home.

And Kashmiris are not pawns of the United States of America that some official can pocket the money and decide its fate. 

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Also published in Countercurrents , July 24

Hindus, Muslims and a Toilet

Next time I want to become part of the ‘mainstream’ I will wear red bracelets. If any of you thought that Hinduism was associated with saffron, then according to the ISI’s Major Iqbal it is not quite so. It is red. The Left parties are still nursing wounds and here some Pakistani even takes away their colour. Oh, but the Hindutvawadis had also taken away the hammer during Babri no? And maybe the sickle during the excavation? Commies are bereft and all because of the ISI.

One more story on the David Headley 'investigation'. He bought 15 red bracelets to be worn by the attackers so that they could disguise themselves as Hindus. This is part of the evidence and I can imagine those American backpacker tourists saying, “Yeah, yeah, that’s wotwesaah at those aahsim taimpills.”

I saw Shakti Kapoor wearing one. At the Ajmer dargah. Every religion has this red thread/bracelet thing, okay? Honestly, can we get serious about this? Would the Indian intelligence authorities look at the wrists of suspects? Next they will say people with varicose veins are chosen to be disguised as green Muslims.

- - -

Smita Thackeray has complimented Muslims for not being swayed by LeT and al Qaida. What to do, Smitaji. We only sway when we are drunk.

“It is a matter of great satisfaction that Muslims have retained faith in India’s unity and communal harmony.”

Gee, thanks. Now your turn.

“The prayers of Hindus and Muslims will shield Balasaheb from any threat. The Ajmal Kasabs, Ranas and David Headleys can’t touch him, Sonia-ji or Manmohan Singh.”

What about atheists?

Ms. Thackeray’s new-found interest is because she is making a film called Babri on Babri. She insists it will be from the common man’s perspective. Of course. I should hope to see a lot of Behrampada, of Madhukar Sarpotdar and the arms, of people being made to pull down their pants in cosmopolitan Mumbai, of honest cops who were transferred. It can all be fictionalised.

Incidentally, Aamir Khan has helped her with the script. This is one common man we can wash our hands of and who will do anything to market anything.

- - -

I do not know of many people who if they need to go the loo will take the name of the toilet. Will someone who happens to be in the Bhuleshwar area and wishes to use the facilities say, “I want to go to Kasturba Gandhi”?

No. But we have to create a noise. One bloke is angry because of one such toilet name:

“This is my fight because the public seems to be afraid to speak up. I think the British (appear in a better light) at this point since they named the road after Kasturba Gandhi, thus honouring her. We, on the other hand, have done the opposite and degraded her.”

Her husband degraded her long ago when he gave her a broom and expected her to clean lavatories. Mahatma Gandhi had great respect for ‘toilet training’. The self-righteousness by citizens is unnecessary. Shit happens, so no need to get pissed off.

Pakistan, America and Bloodied Money

It looks like the United States of America now believes in the Sharia. On March 17, Raymond Davis got off by paying blood money to the families of the two men he had killed on January 27. Pakistan’s law minister Rana Sanaullah declared that Davis, supposedly a CIA agent, had been pardoned by the heirs of the murdered men as per the Islamic law where blood money (Diyat) amounting to Rs. 37 crore ($2.3m) was received. They had signed the papers in court.


One needs to know about the Pakistani establishment’s use of the Islamic laws. Will it pardon the killers of prominent politicians if they pay blood money to the families? If the law is so clear, then why did the authorities put up a fight against their own legal provisions and go around patting themselves for not buckling under US pressure? Does the government of Pakistan not owe its citizens proof of evidence regarding the receipt of the money as well as the nature of US involvement in the issue? How did the most powerful nation in the world agree to become part of such a transaction?

Why did America want Davis back? He is not innocent; he has killed two people that resulted in another incidental killing. What went on behind the backdoors of diplomacy that ‘proud Pakistan’ capitulated so easily and packed him off immediately? The court had indicted him and then quite suddenly within a few hours the families pardoned him. Are such families supreme in Pakistan and have a say in such matters?


It is regrettable that some commentators had been talking about the Pakistan-US fracas as giving an opportunity to fundamentalists. In a country where cases drag on for years, it has been only two months since the incident. The Taliban has been around and one Davis coming or going would not have changed that. While trying to put on a brave front against the CIA, Pakistan was really buying time with its own fanatic forces. If Faizan Haider and Faheem Shamshad, the two men Davis shot dead, were ISI’s snoops following him, then what exactly was their role? Elementary logic would suggest that the US would want to know more about that. Anyone under diplomatic cover, or any outsider for that matter, is routinely tailed in Pakistan. He would have been aware. So, were they ISI agents or someone else?

The incident has been extensively recorded. In brief, the two victims were on bikes; one took out a pistol when Davis was driving through a Lahore street; Davis took out his gun and shot at them. Initially, he stated it was in self-defence. However, on-the-spot footage shows that their backs were turned to him. Ibad-ur-Rehman was run over by the American vehicle. How so?


Davis was said to be part of a team investigating the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s operations. Did Davis get some incriminating evidence? Does the US need any to bludgeon ‘threat perceptions’? The arrogance is amazing. Cameron Munter, the US ambassador in Islamabad, has expressed gratitude to Pakistan and its people for pardoning Davis. Using Twitter the embassy conveyed the message from His Excellency: “I wish to express, once again, my regret for the incident...”

Gratitude to the people? The people are out protesting. The lawyers of the victims’ families were not allowed to meet their clients. By accepting such a pardon, the US government seems to have adhered to the role of the Sharia. Does it mean that it will now not interfere in Pakistan’s internal problems that will be sorted out using the same Sharia?

When the ambassador expresses regret, does it mean that he accepts responsibility for more than just the deaths, but also the reason for it? The US was probably in a tearing rush to get Davis before they got him because he may have more information about the US than about Pakistan.

It is surprising that the media refers to rightwing parties and Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf organising demonstrations. Are the liberal parties and the liberal activists who have often exposed their own laws also not protesting? Why do they not come out strongly against this sell-out when they were all gung-ho about their country’s strong stand earlier?

This is as much a human rights issue as any other lynching. Only because it is an American with a gun, he cannot be pardoned. Is the money that has been reportedly paid tax free? Has it been deposited in the banks of the next of kin of the murdered men? Who according to the Sharia is entitled to this amount in the family? Have all these provisions been taken care of?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denies that the US government has paid the money. If that is so, then on what grounds do they want Davis back? The government where a crime is committed conducts a criminal investigation and tries the person. There are reports that the money was paid by the Pakistani government with the help of Saudi intervention. The US has indicated that it “fully expects to get the bill” and will pay for it.

Sure, except that this isn’t a laundry bill. Someone has got to come clean. It is a dirty deal and there is blood in more than the money.

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Images: The News and Aaj TV, Pakistan

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Published in Countercurrents, March 19

Life of and for Comrade Binayak Sen

Dr. Binayak Sen has been awarded a life sentence. There is no evidence to nail him down. I will not go into the details of this case that will stand up for scrutiny only in a banana republic, not in a democracy.

The war against the state is a convenient ploy. Dr. Sen, an award winning doctor and national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) was arrested in Bilaspur on May 14, 2007. He has been behind bars ever since. And it was not a fashionable ‘statement’ arrest.

His crime is that he passed letters to the Maoist ideologue, Narayan Sanyal. Together with a young businessman, Piyush Guha, they are seen as a triumvirate. The letters were apparently to “establish an urban network of the banned extremist group CPI (Maoist)”.

The charges are drawn from the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and the IPC for conspiracy for war against the state and treason, apart from being the accused as members of a banned organisation.

Let us go along for a minute with the charges. What war has been fought against the state due to the efforts of Dr. Sen? How many politicians are arrested for creating wars within their own states? What is treason here? To speak out, to believe that a people have the right to seek a space? The moot point is: have they got it? As regards being members of a banned organisation, may I know how it is possible when an organisation that is banned becomes irrelevant, a persona non grata, so to speak? Therefore, his being a part of it is a non sequiter.

Apparently, the prosecution has problems with him being addressed as ‘Comrade’ in two postcards. “Comrade usi ko kahaa jaata hai jo Maowadi hai,” (Only a Maoist is called comrade) said prosecutor Pandya who is probably a comrade-in-arms with the state machinery and a whole ideology based on idiocy. If you refer to someone as 'Bhai', does it mean the person is an underworld don? Communist leaders still use the term comrade. Even so, he has every right to be a Maoist, just as people can be Bajrang Dali or Jamaatis; at least he is not using obfuscation.

How do you imagine Dr. Binayak Sen is linked to international terror groups? The sessions court in Chhattisgarh said that his wife Ilina was corresponding with Pakistan’s ISI based on some letters written by her to “some Fernandes of the ISI”.

Here is the report from the TOI:

The email said: “There is a chimpanzee in the White House.” Pandya said: “This may be code language... this perhaps means terrorists are annoyed with the US... We do not know who this Fernandes is, but ISI, as we all know, means Pakistan.”

TOI spoke to Walter Fernandes, currently director of the North Eastern Social Research Institute in Guwahati. “Ilina and I are good friends and we frequently exchanged correspondence on development-induced displacement among tribals, which has been my subject for the last 20 years,” he said. He described the prosecution’s attempt to interpret ISI (Indian Social Institute) as Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence wing and link it to Binayak Sen as “either ignorance or bad will”.

I am currently writing about Indian Stupid Insecurity (ISI). The imagination of the prosecution aside, I have issues with the use of ‘perhaps’ in a case of this nature, that involves the life of a person and the life of civil liberties. The prosecution is supposed to verify its claims before charging a person. If it is a code word, then decode it; if it is terror groups, snoop around and check the IP address. We don’t live in the stone age that this is not possible.

There will be an appeal against this judgement. But, it is a sad state of affairs when after 1000 pages of the charge-sheet, the Indian courts come out the worse for the wear. There is nothing that reveals that Comrade Binayak Sen has betrayed the country. The judiciary has.

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Updated here

An Indian Spy in Pakistan

An Indian Spy in Pakistan
by Farzana Versey
May 4, 2010

Is it just a fantasy to portray Madhuri Gupta as a hysterically vengeful mole? One has to be particularly naive to believe that spies can compromise a nation’s security, especially in a world of hackers and satellites that can count the number of hair in a politician’s ears. Opinion pieces and reports on the Indian diplomat case have been chauvinistic, besides being fairly lame.

Had Gupta not been “lonely and frustrated”, would she be less dangerous? Why did the government need to call her on a pretext rather than just summoning her? Did she really want to get back at her seniors for ill-treatment? Did her colleagues desire a piece of the action too? If she is being framed, then it makes no political or tactical sense.

Foreign offices do not possess strategic information about defence matters within the home country. The real issue appears to be the creation of an undercover subculture and obfuscate the role of well-entrenched intelligence agencies in India and Pakistan. It became amply clear when there was a minor whimper that the spy drama might affect talks between the two countries at the Saarc Summit. The dialogue was to be a placebo, but this ruse came in handy.

While newspapers have been giving us examples of ‘honey traps’ from history, they haven’t bothered to emphasise recent examples. Remember Kashmir Singh who returned home after 35 years in Pakistani prisons and revealed that he had been a spy for Indian military intelligence? He got himself circumcised before venturing across the border, brushed up on his Urdu, ate beef and fasted during Ramzan. He was paid Rs. 480 per month till his arrest. He chose not to reveal more and changed his stance but, surprisingly, there was no further probing.

Human rights activist Ansar Burney was all treacle about how his release symbolised efforts by India and Pakistan to normalise relations. “Never before have we seen an Indian prisoner being escorted in a flag car of a minister,” he said. Why did the spy sound as though a favour had been done? Why did he return to a “hero’s welcome”?

Sarabjit Singh, who has been given the death sentence, was in one version a drunken farmer who crossed over by mistake. He later said he had gone to Pakistan 17 times, which means he was given to making the same mistakes. In another version, he was forced to confess, which is not unlikely. But he was also arrested in five bomb blast cases. We are left confused over whether espionage work entails such activities as well. He also told the Pakistani Supreme Court that he was a RAW agent. There are several innocent fishermen who get thrown off to the other shore and are arrested.

M.L. Bhaskar in ‘An Indian Spy in Pakistan’ mentioned the names of some of our defence officers who were in jail - he got this from a Pakistani official during his own stint in a Pakistani prison. But does the External Affairs Ministry speak up for these fishermen as they did in Sarabjit’s case? Are such special instances chosen at random?

In Gupta’s case certain information has been “lost”. In a digitalised world where you cannot erase even memory cards and hard disks completely, this sounds suspicious.

What is even more alarming is a news item that stated, “Officials said they were also questioning the RAW station chief in Islamabad, R K Sharma, to see what he knew and what he had picked up from her.” India has a RAW station chief in the Pakistani capital? Is an ISI chief positioned in Delhi? Should we be amused and refer to these as confidence-building measures? The real cause for worry is not the espionage, but the behind-the-scenes manoeuvres where the mole is a mere marionette.

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The New Sepoy Mutiny?

Who is Sudhanshu Sudhakar? He joined the Indian army in 2002; in 2007 he was dismissed for what reports refer to as “dubious activities”.

He has been arrested now. If the army had thrown him out for such activities, ought not the government to have been informed? Isn’t the government then supposed to keep tabs on such persons?

Let us get some basics right, first:

Five days before India and Pakistan’s ministers for external affairs are scheduled to meet in New York, Bihar police on Monday nabbed a dismissed Indian sepoy, suspected to be an agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and seized important Indian military documents from him.

Why are those five days before important? Was the arrest timed with the upcoming event?

Why is he referred to as a sepoy? In the days of British rule, those who were with the colonial army were called sepoys. One assumes the reference here is to his ‘allegiance’ with the ISI! A bit silly to use such nomenclature. And if it must be used, then it cannot be ‘dismissed Indian sepoy’…from what I understand we refer to soldiers as jawans.

Now, it is possible that a soldier is called a jawan irrespective of designation. But, if he were a high-ranking person I am sure it would be mentioned. Therefore, one might assume he wasn’t. So, how does he have access to important military documents and maps of key army installations? Even if he were super smart, it has been two years since he was rusticated. Is the information the same and the installations exactly where they were? If not, is there someone within the armed forces helping him?

He was on his way to Nepal to meet a “Kathmandu-based ISI conduit whom he identified as Rana”. The Intelligence Bureau tipped off the Bihar police about his whereabouts.

The IB gets to know about what this man is doing two years after his dismissal. The cops manage to get out the information that there is some Rana he is in touch with, who is with the ISI. Now what?

The two countries will bring it up in their meeting in New York. This is not for India or Pakistan. This is for America. The US will reprimand the two errant nations to behave, the blame game will continue. America will weep tears over terrorism. Huh? That’s right. It is about the Indian army. The ISI. But the US only knows one word.

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A few days ago there was a news item about our Home Minister P Chidambaram giving US officials a list of 60 Pakistani terrorists killed by Indian security forces in various encounters in different parts of the country and another of 10 arrested in the last one year.

Our honourable minister did this act of boasting (or kowtowing?) before leaving on his US trip.

“Their names and addresses in Pakistan were given in the list,” the official said. The government is also contemplating launching a publicity blitzkrieg in Pakistani media about the activities of terrorists belonging to that country in India.

As though Barack Obama will put them up on a most wanted list when they are already dead or in prison. What fools. And what is there to launch a publicity stunt in the Pakistani media? This sounds like a gossip session of tu-tu-main-main. Dekho, tumhari kameez meri kameex se kitni ghandi hai…