Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 14, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/238968.html
In his book Inside IB and RAW: The Rolling
Stone that Gathered Moss, former RAW chief K Sankaran Nair has revealed that
India paid $6 million as kickbacks in the mid-1970s for a loan of $250 million
from the Shah of Iran. But it turns out that a greater sum - $11 million -
was actually paid to agents and the Shah's sister, Ashraf Pahlavi, by the
Indira Gandhi government to secure the loan.
A former senior official of the Ministry of
External Affairs, who was in the know and directly dealt with the issue, confirmed
to The Indian Express that payments in the form of kickbacks were indeed paid
from the MEA's discretionary grants.
"Those days, we were desperately short
of foreign exchange. So much so that I remember (then Foreign Minister) Swaran
Singh also speaking to the Iranian Foreign Minister on this issue... they
agreed to give us $250 million at some very reasonable rate of 2 per cent,"
the official recalled.
Asked whether India had to pay kickbacks,
the official said: "Yes, two payments of $5.5 million had to be paid...
Ms (Indira) Gandhi, I remember, agreed very reluctantly, but our (foreign
exchange) situation was very bad then."
In fact, the official recalls Nair joking
that he was carrying an "open-ended bank draft" and could even abscond
with all the money. Bits of the entire issue - Nair says it was codenamed
Operation Casino - became public, leading to a heated debate in Parliament
during the period of the Morarji Desai government.
But the first reaction from the Congress to
Nair's disclosure has been one of denial. In response to The Indian Express
report on November 9, which was the first account of details in Nair's book,
Congress spokesperson Veerappa Moily called the facts "fictitious"
and said: "The history of heroic acts of patriotism and her (Indira Gandhi)
incessant fight for the nation cannot be belied by such engineered infamous
books."
So sensitive is the matter now that the Home
Ministry is looking at ways to take action. Nair, who had sought a duplicate
of an earlier permission he had taken to write this book, is now apparently
being harassed on technical grounds.
Speaking to The Indian Express from London,
Nair said he was fortunate to have located the copy of the earlier permission.
Unable to trace it earlier, he had asked for a duplicate.
"I received sanction from the Government
of India during the tenure of the BJP, giving me permission to publish the
book. The Home Ministry granted me permission in 2003. Fortunately, I have
a copy of it with me. People are telling me that the Home Ministry has now
'misplaced' the permission letter," said Nair. Refuting allegations that
facts have been twisted in his book, Nair said he stood by all he had written.
"They are open to have their own say. I stand by what I have written
in the book," he said.
There is, however, one incident that has been
questioned by the IAF. Nair wrote that after it was defeated in the 1971 war,
Pakistan planned a revenge attack on India, intending to bomb Delhi. He said
that a mole in Karachi relayed the information that an attack had been planned
for January 1, 1972.
This was conveyed to Air Intelligence and
fighters were alerted to ward off Pakistani bombers. Nair said the attack
took place on January 3 but IAF pilots were ready and thwarted the attempt.
But sources at the Air Force headquarters
said this could be a case of getting the dates wrong since the attack took
place on December 3, 1971 and there were no records of a planned 'revenge
strike' by Pakistan after the war.
Nair, however, maintains it did happen. "As
far as I am concerned, the dates and incident are correct. We had a mole and
he told us about the impending attack. There was confusion about the dates
but fortunately our pilots were in their cockpits and ready for the attack,"
he said.
