New Delhi, June 23
Facing embarrassment after several former spymasters from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) authored books exposing the shortcomings of various governments in the past, the Government of India has now issued a notification to muzzle the former spies.
The formal notification bans officers from sharing their experiences through writings or through the electronic media. The terse notification issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) lists out around a dozen organisations about which books cannot be written in future. The notification was circulated in the South Block and the North Block last week and has sent ripples across the corridors of power.
Now, the officers cannot write about the functioning of these organisations, their character and the role played by them in various operations over the years. An officer, before retiring or on being repatriated to his parent cadre, will have to given a written undertaking that he/she will not reveal anything known during the course of his job.
In the past few years, books by the former spy operatives - all senior officers - exposed the political classes and pointed out at glaring errors in handling various crisis faced by the government in the past. Some of these books are regularly quoted and are accepted as an authentic view of the happenings in India’s recent history.
For example, the books by former Director IB, Ajit Doval, are considered the most authentic view on the Kandhar hijack in 1999 and also the operation Black Thunder conducted at the Golden temple, Amritsar, in 1988. The book “Open Secrets” by former Joint Director IB M.K. Dhar blames the Congress for terrorism in Punjab and reveals the intrigues of the Indira Gandhi government.
Maj Gen V.K. Singh (retd), who served in the RAW during the Kargil war, is behind bars for violating the Official Secrets Act. He questioned the NDA government’s sagacity behind making public the telephonic conversation between then Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Musharraf and his Chief of Staff, intercepted by the RAW during the 1999 Kargil war. Another joint director of RAW, B Raman, penned a telling account in his book “The Kaoboys of RAW”, so did RAW chief K. Shankaran Nair who
also raised uncomfortable questions in his book.
