The Intelligence Bureau

 

“Sharma? Sharma?” called out a young police officer curtly as he barged into the Intelligence Bureau (IB) office in the South Block of the Central Secretariat. The superintendent got up quickly from behind a mountain of files.

“Yes, I am Sharma, Sir.”

 

“I don’t care who you are. I want this file right now,” the police officer retorted and stormed out of our office.

Mr Sharma, an elderly man, nearing his retirement, was crestfallen. This was my introduction to the IB and its office procedure. The police officer’s terseness seemed inappropriate to me. Was this the reality of Macaulay’s babu job into which I had landed? There must be more to it, I thought.

 

Working at the IB was a unique exposure and an in-depth schooling in political affairs. The machinations of the politicians, their moves and countermoves, their contradictions and compromises and the incessant inter­party power struggles, all came to our notice through reports received from offices in the country. We tracked events, made further enquiries, wrote-up assessments and forwarded them to the Home Ministry. The names of B.N. Mullick, G.K. Handoo, R.N. Kao, A.D. Anandan and Rajadakshya created awe among us. These officers were efficient, highly opinionated and often acted impatiently, like heirs to the British Raj.

 

Although my job was desk-bound, initially it was exciting. We met every month with our supervisor, A.D. Anandan, the Assistant Director, to discuss developments, report status and schedule investigations. I was once asked to give my assessment of J.B. Kripalani. “Before 1951 Kripalani was a close associate of Gandhiji and Nehru. However, he is feeling eclipsed by Nehru and now is his political foe. He has founded the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party. Kripalani is frustrated. He will fade out.” My remark raised a loud guffaw.

 

I sometimes read through office files and letters. It was like taking a peep into the past. In one exchange, Nehru had strongly disagreed with C. Rajagopalachari’s suggestion that parents be warned about the political activities of their wards. Proximity to the high-ranking officers created a feeling of vicarious importance. Letters, marked urgent, stimulated my attention, but lost their urgency soon after. I fell into the routine of tracking correspondence, filing reports, conforming to office minutia and, more importantly, learning the office politics.

 

The job turned out to be a far cry from the structured research work in which I had trained during my MSc studies. The duties demanded little by way of imagination. Rattan opined that the job was a decent start. She felt that the IB was an important organisation, it was expanding and that better opportunities were bound to spring up. One just had to be patient and keep looking. Nevertheless, the cloistered nature of the job started bothering me. The chances of promotion or of a transfer to other departments of the Home Ministry also seemed slim. Many old hands had been labouring at their desks for years without a raise. I felt like a square peg in a round hole. To overcome my ennui, I requested a transfer to the Srinagar office of the IB. This would at least allow me to be with Rattan and closer to my parents. My request was granted. I moved to Srinagar.

 

The Srinagar branch office of the IB was a small setup located at Gupkar Road. Lieutenant Colonel Ijwant Singh Hassanwalia was the Assistant Director of the office. His supervisor, D.W. Mehra, the Deputy Director Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, was stationed at Amritsar. Hassanwalia supervised the Intelligence Officers, who were stationed throughout the state. The purpose of the Srinagar office was to collect intelligence gathered from within Jammu & Kashmir and across the border, and to forward it to Delhi and to the state government.

 

Gathering intelligence was not difficult. Informants in the political parties, in the state government and those opposed to it, and elsewhere, could be hired with ease. These informants would, under an assumed pseudonym, provide secret information related to their organisations, for a price. The information so gathered was collated, crosschecked, and carefully examined for veracity. Much of it was idle rumour and insinuation. A formal summary was then forwarded to New Delhi. Hassanwalia wrote the summary himself.

 

I recall an incident of August 1955. Hassanwalia was on tour. His deputy prepared the summary. The summary drew the attention of Prime Minister Nehru. The Srinagar Intelligence Officer had reported that 4/5 houses in the Rajouri Kadal area had raised the Pakistani flag on the Independence Day of Pakistan. However, the deputy officer unwittingly transcribed 4/5 as eighty per cent in his summary. This information, that eighty per cent houses in downtown Srinagar had flown Pakistani flags, set off alarm bells in New Delhi. Nehru asked for verification. The information was checked and then double-checked. It was confirmed that only four or five houses had raised Pakistani flags on 14 August 1955. The transcription error caused much consternation in our office.

 

The visit of the Russian leaders, Khrushchev and Bulganin to Srinagar, in December 1955, was a very important event. I saw Nehru’s one-line note, “Their Excellencies N.S. Khrushchev and N.A. Bulganin are visiting Srinagar on your personal responsibility.” The note was addressed to D.W. Mehra and endorsed to Hassanwalia. Hassanwalia had to coordinate with the state police and the Indian Army to ensure security for the guests. The convoy of cars drove along Residency Road, Srinagar. D.W. Mehra was in the fourth car escorting the guests.

 

The Russian leaders issued statements such as, “Kashmir is a part of India and the people of Kashmir have themselves decided so,” and, “We are so near that if ever you call us from your mountain tops, we will appear at your side.” A photograph of Bulganin being fed a piece of Goshtaba (minced mutton balls prepared in a curd sauce) by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was in the newspapers the next day.

 

Hassanwalia was a highly focussed Intelligence Officer. He demanded efficiency and promptness from his staff. He attended to all top-secret work himself. Only his stenographer was privy to that work. He enjoyed complete rapport with the state police and the army intelligence officers. He was a shrewd officer and was gifted with a sharp memory. His hard work was appreciated by Krishna Menon, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed and D.P. Dhar.

 

I was performing well at my desk and could be ranked as an efficient clerk, efficient in the sense that I related one piece of information with the other, understood the sensitivity of the situation and brought it to the notice of my officers. But I saw no challenge in this. After two years at the IB, the feeling of having wasted my MSc education persisted in my mind. I wrote the clerks’ examination of the Union Public Service Commission and fared better than most of my colleagues, but no promotions were possible. The IB appeared a dead end to me.

 

I applied to the Education Department of the Jammu & Kashmir state government and to several private colleges. St Joseph’s College, Baramulla, offered me a teaching position forthwith. An alternative had opened up. I had an option to exercise but the decision to give up a Government of India job in favour of a job at a private college was not easy to make. I weighed the pros and cons for weeks. My gut instinct was to resign from the IB, and take up the teaching position. Yet, I was undecided.

 

Secret office records had to be transported from the Jammu IB office to the Srinagar office in the spring of 1956. Heavy snows had blocked the Banihal Cart Road, near the Banihal Top tunnel. The office record, packed in eight locked and sealed steel trunks was hand-carried through the short tunnel by a contingent of policemen and loaded onto a truck waiting on the Valley side. The operation was supervised by an Intelligence Officer. I was one of the civilian escorts.

On reaching Srinagar, the Intelligence Officer asked me to guard the trunks until the office opened the following Monday. I refused. It struck me as odd that an Intelligence Officer, having a contingent of policemen under his command, should ask a civilian to guard over the records. The officer, obviously, wanted to absolve himself from the responsibility.

 

When the office opened, Hassanwalia asked me for an explanation. Rather than appreciating my point of view, he supported the Intelligence Officer squarely. He gave me no quarter. I felt that the officers had ganged up on me unfairly. This experience confirmed my earlier assessment that the IB was not the place for me. My discontent was so intense that I submitted my resignation letter and requested to be relieved immediately. I also enclosed a personal cheque for a month’s pay, in lieu of the customary notice period with my resignation letter.

 

My colleagues thought I was crazy. My parents were startled when I informed them about my decision. Giving up a Government of India job for a private job at a minor college in a remote town, made no sense to them. Rattan was vocally unhappy.

 

“Quitting Delhi in favour of Srinagar was your first mistake. Quitting Srinagar to go to the even smaller town of Baramulla, compounds the mistake,” she pointed out caustically.

 

However, the dull routine of an obscure office clerk, collating reports and dusting files, coupled with the experience of the internecine IB office politics, had disgusted me. The intellectual life of a college teacher, where one could positively influence the next generation appealed to me. My resignation was accepted. I readied for my assignment at St Joseph’s College, Baramulla.