 |
||
|
||
|
||
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: September 22, 2005
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/210905-editorial.html
Witness how the Comrades are scurrying for cover. Lacking a sense of shame, the sellers of puerile dialectical materialism are brazening out their well-known dependence for all things material on their masters in Moscow. Hence the crude reaction of the CPI leader A. B Bardhan who dubbed the well-documented `Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World' a cheap spy thriller.
Since the author was a former spy in what Bardhan considered the fatherland of all commies world-wide, and based his book almost exclusively on hitherto secret documents, the CPI leader was not being fair to a senior undercover operative employed by his paymasters through much of the Cold War.
Even if you concede that gratitude is a bourgeoisie emotion with no place in the cold-blooded world of spooks and their running dogs, Bardhan was defying the sheer force of hard evidence in calling Mitrokhin's work a cheap thriller. The only thing cheap, would seem from the revelations in the book, was the Indian Comrades who thought nothing of bartering away national interest for a couple of lakhs of rupees.
At one level, the book only confirms what was widely known in the political and intelligence circles for a long time. The erstwhile Soviet Union funded communist parties and their off-shoots around the world all through the Cold War years. The Communist Party of India was no exception to the rule. regularly received funds from the Soviet Union through a variety of channels.
As the book revealed, a dedicated trading house was set up under the aegis of the Indian Communists to facilitate the transfer of funds to the CPI. The easiest trick employed by the Indian establishment to bestow riches on favoured wheeler-dealers was to induct them into the most lucrative Indo-Soviet trade during the Cold War years. Several well-known presentday entrepreneurs are known to have made their first million from a Soviet hand-out via canalized trade.
The CPI launched several publications, including not-so-patriotic daily newspapers, which directly linked it to the Russians. Several Indo-Soviet friendship societies were known to have drawn their funds from the same tainted sources. And, of course, the CPI got its money from Moscow for fighting elections to several Indian legislatures, including those in Kerala and West Bengal.
In short, not a facet of the communist activity in India remained unsullied by the taint of Russian roubles. Under the law, what the Communists did was prohibited. Indeed, both the Soviet Union as the giver of secret funds and the CPI as the recipient acted in a most unlawful manner. It must be remembered that even in the present-day liberal, fast globalising economy, foreign donations to political parties are banned.
But what the Communists got were not even donations. Since they were in a master-slave relationship with Moscow, what they received were crumbs thrown at them by a merciful Moscow in the hope that they would deliver India to it. They failed miserably. Not because the Communists did not try but because an overwhelmingly large majority of Indians would not have anything to do with the managers of the Indian subsidiary of the Moscow-headquartered multinational.
Patriotism being inherent in the soul of India, the comrades could never hope to penetrate it even though they had secured a limited toehold in parts of the country thanks largely due to the mistakes of the nationalistic forces.
Even the part about a section of the Congress Party under Indira Gandhi being lovey-dovey with Moscow does not come as a surprise. The book mentions how the KGB had enlisted the support of several Kashmiri apparatchiks the Indian establishment. In this context, it is important to recall that Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shashtri died in circumstances which are still shrouded in mystery in Tashkent in 1966 after being made to sign a onesided agreement with Pakistan.
Indira Gandhi was the preferred choice of Moscow for succeeding Shastri even though Morarji Desai had the requisite experience and stature. Moscow, the book reveals, did not want Desai to become PM at any cost. The book asserts that several senior Congress ministers were on the payroll of the KGB and that the then Soviet Ambassador New Delhi was the station head of KGB operations in this country.
It may recalled that Charan Singh, then Deputy Prime Minister in the Janata Party Government, had accused his cabinet colleague, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, in a letter to Prime Minister Desai of being a `KGB agent'. Some people might try to gloss over the revelations culled from the KGB archives by arguing that not only most of the Indian dramatis personae but even the KGB as the world knew it through the Cold War is dead.
But a selfrespecting nation which ignores the treachery of a section of its political class will come to rue it, especially because the seeds of extra-territorial loyalty still germinate in the minds of those who have succeeded Ajoy Ghosh, Bhupesh Gupta, EMS Namboodiripad, et al. It is important that Mitrokhin's book is placed in every public library, especially those in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. For it serves as a reminder to the entire nation about the treacherous mindset of the Commies.
The Congress Party leadership, harassed no end by the paper-tigers of the Politburo, should make it a compulsory reading for those of its members who can read and write.
|
||
|
||
|
||