Arun Shourie on the Mitrokhin Archives OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Part-I

Standard Operating Procedure
The weekly organ of the CPI(M), People's Democracy, September 2005, declaims, ''The Mitrokhin balloon of lies has been well burst recently. The statement of the secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas on September 21 may well perhaps be the last nail on the coffin of the 'archival misdemeanour'. Anil Biswas told the media at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan that 'after having procured the so-called Mitrokhin archives and poring over it, we find no reference of the kind alleged or otherwise, to the late Promode Dasgupta'.''

There are just two short chapters in this book about India. On the very second page of the very first of these, we read, ''As KGB operations in India expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, the Centre (that is, the KGB headquarters in Moscow ) seems to have discovered the extent of IB's previous penetration of the CPI. According to a KGB report, an investigation into Promode Das Gupta, who became secretary of the Bengal Communist Party in 1959, concluded that he had been recruited by the IB in 1947 . Further significant IB penetrations were discovered in the Kerala and Madras parties...''

Did the ''poring over'' not reach even the second page? But this is standard procedure for Marxists — lie outright!

In the full confidence that no one will look up the original material.

The second, adopted this time round by the Congress too, is to just dismiss revelations. Extracts from The Mitrokhin Archive had but to appear in the press, and they, and their favoured commentators pronounced, ''No evidence...,'' ''Fiction...,'' ''An author in search of lies.'' And simultaneously, ''There is nothing new.... These things have been well known for long!'' Well known for long, but require new proof!

The third device also has been on display this time round: paste motives on all concerned. A favourite of Marxists, it has been deployed even by ''intelligence experts'' this time. One of them writes that the book has three aims. The first, he says, is ''To discredit the present Russian leadership.'' Presumably this is accomplished by indirection: as Putin is known to have been in the KGB, as it is well known that he has appointed his former colleagues from the KGB to vital posts across Russia, pointing to what the KGB used to be doing, tarnishes ''the present Russian leadership''. Second, our expert says, the purpose of the Mitrokhin account is ''to drive a wedge between the present leaderships of Russia and India .'' And, third, the British secret service has always been hostile to leaders of the Labour Party in the UK , this has been a plot to discredit the Labour Government and leaders of Britain.

Assume all this to be true, does it amount to a reason for India not to examine what the disclosures spell for our national security and governance? The fourth device is to smear whoever has brought out facts that are inconvenient. ''A former low-grade clerk of the KGB archives,'' they write about Mitrokhin, he was not the head of KGB archives. Assume that to be true: low-grade clerks are as useful sources of information as heads of departments! Mitrokhin was an incompetent officer, they say — if he had been any good at field work, he would not have been assigned to a backroom tending old records. But the point is whether, having been relegated to backrooms, he had access to thoe tell-tale records. Just one who ''stole'' those ''clandestinely obtained'' documents, they say. But does that suggest that the records he transcribed were genuine and valuable or does that establish that they were fakes?!

As it isn't just Vasili Mitrokhin who was involved in this project, the British professor, Christopher Andrew who collaborated in writing and editing the volumes also comes in for the standard treatment. The professor, we are told, ''was alleged to have been embedded in the intelligence agencies.'' He becomes ''the ever-obliging Christopher Andrew.'' The CPI(M) mouthpiece, People's Democracy, is even more elaborate: ''No wonder, these scions (those running the 'corporate media' here in India) have now picked up the Soviet defector's ramblings, which have been put together in a fashion in a book by an English author who is not only not known for his scholarship but also just not known in the academe as a practicing historian.'' That phrase is literally standard issue.

When ''Why?,'' does not work, ask, ''Why now?'' That is the standard device since Lenin's time! And this time too we have had it in full display: Mitrokhin defected in 1992, why is this book being released now, in 2005? demands one of these tele-Communists. In fact, the six cases full of notes that were brought over were examined threadbare for years, and the first volume was printed in 1999! But again, standard.

In truth, there never is a right time to talk the truth about them! Communist journals in India used to be full of glowing accounts about the industrial excellence of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, about the achievements of Ceausescu and his Romania, about the unequalled might of the Soviet Union; about how unemployment had been abolished, how ills that plagued capitalist societies — divorce, crime — were non-existent in Communist countries. If before 1989 you questioned the claims, you were denounced, ''Do you think one-third of humanity is wrong, and you alone are right?'' And after 1989, when the entire Soviet bloc collapsed?

True to form, this time also we read in the CPI(M)'s mouthpiece, People's Democracy, ''The principal reason why this cheap thriller (the phrase for the Mitrokhin record) is being played out in the corporate media now more than ever is not difficult to guess. The recent resurgence of the communists, socialists, and the Left across the globe has certainly made the imperialists press the panic button.... In India, the presence and growth of the CPI(M) has long since been a worry for the ruling classes and their friends and patrons out in the West. The corporate media has, as a willing handmaiden, been periodically albeit regularly feeding out stories maligning the Party and its leadership.''

Facts about Mitrokhin's records:
To gauge the worth of these denunciations, recall that Vasili Mitrokhin defected in 1992. Between 1992 and 1999, his notes were subjected to minute and most careful examination by various levels of the British Government. They scrutinized the information, they examined who to engage as co-author, they weighed how the material ought to be published. Questions such as these were considered by senior civil servants, intelligence agencies, by an interdepartmental committee, by Ministers, by two Prime Ministers. The way the material was handled was subsequently debated in the House of Commons and was examined threadbare by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament. The Committee was tasked in October 1999 to examine whether it had been handled well. The Parliamentary Committee submitted a detailed report in June 2000. This report was debated extensively.

The first volume of the present work was published in 1999. No one in India made the kinds of allegations that are being hurled now. While we are being fed insinuations to belittle Mitrokhin; while we are being fed the line, for instance, that the entire project has been a conspiracy of British intelligence agencies to discredit British Labour Party leaders, this is what Jack Straw, then Home Secretary and currently the Foreign Secretary of the Labour Government - to tarnish whom we are being told this plot has been engineered — said about Mitrokhin. He told the House of Commons on 21 October, 1999,

''....I entirely endorse what the right hon. Gentleman says about Mr. Mitrokhin's courage. It required huge courage to do what he did. I do not doubt that a great many other people working in the KGB during that long period were pretty disgusted with the work that they were asked to engage in, but very few of them had the courage and tenacity to work, as Mr. Mitrokhin did, to record the huge amount of what was passing across his desk and then to make himself known to intelligence agents in Moscow and have himself and his family brought out at considerable risk. I pay tribute to his courage and acknowledge the benefits that the whole of the West has received as a result of his disclosures''

Similarly, the Parliamentary Committee observed, ''The Committee, during the course of the inquiry, had the opportunity to meet Vasili Mitrokhin. The Committee believes that he is a man of remarkable commitment and courage, who risked imprisonment or death in his determination that the truth should be told about the real nature of the KGB and their activities, which he believed were betraying the interests of his own country and people. He succeeded in this and we wish to record our admiration for his achievement....'' But in India, ''a former low-grade clerk,'' one who ''stole documents,'' one who was so incompetent that he had to be consigned to a backroom dusting archives....

Similarly, while in India the account has been dismissed as ''vague'', ''complete fabrication,'' ''fiction'', ''a spy thriller,'' Britain's Parliamentary Committee had this to say about the value of the material that Mitrokhin had brought over, and on which the Mitrokhin-Andrew volumes are based, ''We are aware that the Western intelligence communities are extremely grateful for Mr Mitrokhin's material, which has shown the degree to which the KGB influenced and penetrated official organizations. Historians also find The Mitrokhin Archive of tremendous value, as it gives a real insight into the KGB's work and the persecution of dissidents.''

But in India , to use Lenin's phrase, ''a shroud of angry words to cover inconvenient facts''! The one question we should be asking, is not being asked: Indian and British intelligence agencies have had close relations; was the material offered to us, as it was offered to other agencies? What did we do about it?

Instead, all sorts of red-herrings are being thrown in the way. Why was this unknown professor, why was this person who was ''alleged to have been embedded in intelligence agencies,'' why was he of all persons chosen as co-author? It just so happens that this question too was examined by the UK Parliamentary Committee. It concluded that in Professor Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, just the right man had been chosen for the project. Andrews had previously worked on the Gordievsky books. He had been security cleared and had signed the Official Secrets Act, the Committee noted. ''The Committee regards Professor Andrews as a distinguished academic who has specialized in the espionage field,'' the report stated. ''He was a good choice to undertake this work.'' But in India....



Part-II
A society and state in denial In his justly famous memoir, Encounters with Lenin, (Oxford University press, 1968) Nikolay Vladislavovich Volsky, who wrote under the pen-name Valentinov, narrates what is for Communists the hadis in such matters. He recounts what Lenin said to him: ''Marxism is a monolith conception of the world, it does not toler ate dilution and vulgarisation by means of various insertions and additions. Plekhanov once said to me about a critic of Marxism (I've forgotten his name) 'First let's stick the convict's badge on him, and then after that we'll examine this case.' And I think we must stick the convict's badge, on anyone and everyone who tries to undermine Marxism, even if we don't go on to examine his case. That's how every sound revolutionary should react.''

As that is the operating procedure for the much lesser offence — that of mere ''dilution'' of the doctrine — you can imagine how much greater must be the zeal with which the ''convict's badge'' is stuck on one guilty of the much greater crime — the crime of revealing the truth about them.

In a word, we should see that the put-on derision with which Communists and the Congress spokesmen have been trying to bury Mitrokhin's records is just standard procedure, and not let it deflect us from the revelations. For there can be no doubt at all that, as far as India is concerned — our governance, our national security — Mitrokhin's records point to the gravest danger. Remember that the two brief chapters in this volume are but the distillation of trunk-loads of scrupulous notes taken down over twelve years. Even this briefest of brief accounts speaks of penetration by foreign agencies of departments of our Government, including intelligence agencies; of Mrs. Indira Gandhi's coterie; it speaks of the foreign agency's intervention in what we regard as our hallmark, our ''free and fair'' elections; it speaks of the confidence with which the agency maneuvered to build up preferred successors to Prime Ministers; it speaks of funding of Left parties, of trade unions, of the Congress itself; it speaks of how one of the prides of that period — Indo-Soviet trade — became such a handy channel for secret funds; it speaks of infiltration of our other hallmark, our ''free and fair'' media — it recounts the ease with which the KGB and the CIA were able to plant stories; it speaks of the ease with which, and the paltry sums for which the KGB was able to organize ''spontaneous demonstrations'' by Muslims....

Consider just a single paragraph from the chapter: ''Oleg Kalugin, who became head of FCD Directorate K (Counterintelligence) in 1973, remembers India as 'a model of KGB infiltration of a Third World Government': We had scores of sources throughout the Indian Government — in intelligence, counterintelligence, the Defence and Foreign Ministries, and the police.' In 1978, Directorate K, whose responsibilities included the penetration of foreign intelligence and security agencies, was running, through Line KR in the Indian residencies, over thirty agents — ten of whom were Indian intelligence officers. Kalugin recalls one occasion on which Andropov personally turned down an offer from an Indian minister to provide information in return for $ 50,000 on the grounds that the KGB was already well supplied with material from the Indian Foreign and Defence Ministries: 'It seemed like the entire country was for sale; the KGB — and the CIA — had deeply penetrated the Indian Government. After a while neither side entrusted sensitive information to the Indians, realising that their enemy would know all about it the next day.''

Even if we have become so immune to shame by now that we are not led to hang our heads on reading a passage such as this, at least we should consider what that kind of information implies for our national security. Moreover, as the KGB had such ingress into our governmental structures, agencies of other countries too would have had no greater difficulty in suborning persons and influencing policies and decisions. And can that surprise us? When every corporate house is able to plant stories, what difficulty would a foreign government face? And remember, that passage is about the state of affairs thirty years ago. Since then, there has been a precipitate deterioration in both the quality and integrity of persons in public life as well as in the civil service.

For none of the things that Mitrokhin records is the KGB is to blame. That agency was just doing its job for its country. The question is, what were we doing for our country? The question is, what are we to now do to protect our interest? Recall what the British Parliamentary Committee reported about the worth of Mitrokhin's disclosures, and how invaluable these had been to agencies of other countries to neutralise dangers those countries faced — ''Western intelligence communities are extremely grateful for Mr. Mitrokhin's material...,'' ''a case of exceptional counter-intelligence significance, not only illuminating past KGB activity against Western countries but also promising to nullify many of Russia's current assets''.... ''the most detailed and extensive pool of CI (counter-intelligence) ever received by the FBI''.... ''the biggest CI bonanza of the postwar period'' — contrast these acknowledgments, contrast the way agencies of other countries put the material to work, contrast all that with the resolute shutting of eyes in India.

Several lessons leap out from this episode. Notice first what the Communists, their megaphones and their current dependents would have been blaring had even one-thousandth of such disclosures come out about some organization or individual affiliated to the RSS. Two points arise from that contrast. First, is such penetration a threat to our national security if it relates to the RSS and not a threat when it relates to the Communists or the Congress? Second, where do the disclosures leave the high moral ground that the Left appropriates?

It is entirely true that just because someone is named by a foreign intelligence agency or agent, that does not establish him to have been a spy. But surely the right response would be to inquire, at least to find out whether British agencies had offered the information to us and we had failed to follow it up. Nor is this a one-off. Professor Patrick Moynihan was one of the most respected of American academics. He was appointed Ambassador to India during Mrs. Indira Gandhi's time. As Mrs. Gandhi's speeches about the ''foreign hand'' — that always meant the CIA — became incessant, Moynihan commenced an inquiry into what Americans had been doing. In his memoir of the period he wrote that he came across two occasions on which the CIA had provided funds to counter Communist candidates. He wrote, ''Both times the money was given to the Congress Party which had asked for it. Once it was given to Mrs. Gandhi herself, who was then a party official.'' His book was published in the US as well as in India . If what he had said was untrue, what could be a clearer occasion for a defamation case? But absolutely nothing of the kind was done. Just the standard operating procedure: denounce, smear, bury. When the Government so resolutely refuses to make any inquiries, whether the account is of Moynihan or Mitrokhin, what should one conclude?

In the case of the Communists, disclosures about their having received money are the least of the matter — and it does seem to me that the Mitrokhin figures are gross understatements, as if some few zeros have got left out. The figures of Indo-Soviet trade, the quantum of Indian purchases of Soviet arms, and what was said in those days of the sudden wealth of the private parties through whom the Soviets insisted these transactions be made, would suggest transfers of much, much larger amounts. But in their case, money is the least of the matter. Their entire outlook, their ''line'' has been foreign, it has been derived from, to use Mao's phrase, ''the dung-heap of textbooks written abroad.'' And, as has been documented time and again, from instructions received from abroad.

As a result, working for the interest of heir ''international movement'', specifically for the ''fortresses'' of that ''movement'' — the USSR, China — is in their very genes. They traduced Gandhiji and the freedom movement from 1939 for not taking advantage of Britain's difficulties — the war in Europe is just an ''Imperialist war'', they shouted; Gandhi is guilty of collaborating with the Imperialists by not launching a movement to liberate India when Britain was caught defending itself against Hitler. Hitler was, of course, on the side of history then as he had signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin.

Then they switched suddenly — the ''Imperialist war'' became ''People's war'', not because India 's interests had changed but because Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union. They now denounced Gandhi for launching the Quit India Movement! And there was no doubt about the reason: the Soviet Union is ''The Only Fatherland'' for us, they proudly announced in their resolutions, and, in accordance with this new ''assessment'', they entered into a secret understanding with the British Government in India to sabotage the Quit India Movement. In 1947, apart from the Muslim League, they were the only party that advocated the vivisection of India. When India became independent, they declared that India was in fact still under the tutelage of capitalist, Imperial powers, and so its Government must be overthrown.

In 1962, their thesis was that India is the aggressor, not China — which, by definition, could never launch aggression as it was a ''workers' State''. In 1975, they — they, we now see, at the goading of their KGB minders - were all for the Emergency. When China exploded its atomic bomb, they proclaimed it to be a great triumph — a fitting answer to the Imperialists, a decisive step that breaks the monopoly of Imperialist powers. When India went in for atomic weapons, they denounced it — a blow at world peace!

The Mitrokhin disclosures are particularly disturbing for them as they remind us once more, among other ''well known'' facts, of how they and their fellow-travelers, unable to work their Revolution, worked at securing the same goal by infiltration — of the Congress; a sort of ''Revolution-by-stealth''. This was the famous ''Kumarmangalam thesis'' that, as Mitrokhin reports, got such enthusiastic assistance from the KGB. But surely that is not just a reminder of what is past. The Communists have never been closer to attaining that goal as they are today — what with a supine Congress so completely at their mercy.

Nor is it just that the Congress is so completely at their mercy. As Swapan Dasgupta pointed out the other day, the danger is twice compounded — the Congress is completely dependent on the Communists, and the Communists are completely compromised. The Communists have been busy denouncing Mitrokhin's revelations. But as Dasgupta points out, there are several other caches that are coming to light. He draws attention to the fact that the private diaries of a former Soviet Ambassador to India, I. A. Benediktov can now be accessed on the Internet — at the website of the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington, DC ( http://wilsoncentre.org) In these diaries, Benediktov records plaintive pleas of Bhupesh Gupta, Secretary, National Council of CPI, for funds. He records Gupta's plea that, with Ajoy Ghosh through whom the monies used to be received and disbursed, gone, Namboodripad should be allowed to be brought in to handle funds from the Soviets.

A little later, during China's invasion of India in 1962, Benediktov records Namboodripad's fevered appeals to the Soviets that they abandon their support for India, and the sycophantic gratitude Namboodripad expresses for an editorial that Pravda has carried that suggests a shift away from India. Namboodripad asks Benediktov to inform the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ''that the publication of this article and the advice of the CPSU contained in this letter of the CC CPSU, truly will help our party get out of the extremely difficult position it is now in. Before this, there were moments when we felt ourselves to be simply helpless, but now the party will be able to help this situation. We are grateful to the CC CPSU for this help. You can transmit this personally from me and from Comrade B Gupta.'' In a word, the Congress is completely in the hands of the Communists, and the Communists can be ''motivated'' by so many — those who gave them assistance and guidance, as well as those who may reveal what they got, and with how much gratitude they received it.

So, first of all we must see through their invective. As the Government is in their grip; as, given what Mitrokhin records about infiltration into Mrs. Indira Gandhi's circle, of its own accord the Government itself will not want to pursue the matter, inside Parliament and outside, citizens must put pressure on the Government to institute a full and public inquiry. It must be made to request the British Government for access to Mitrokhin's records, and it must be made to make public what those records reveal about India. But we do not have to go on waiting for the Government to do something in the matter. Papers of several senior Soviet officials are now in various archives. We should form teams of scholars on our own and scrutinize that heap of material for entries that pertain to India.

These are important steps, and they must be taken. But even they are but tiny ancillaries to the main debility we must overcome. The reaction in India, that is the non-reaction to The Mitrokhin Archive is but a symptom — of a state and society in denial. On every matter — what Pakistan was doing in Punjab; what it has been doing in Kashmir as well as its current stratagem to acquire it ''peacefully''; infiltration from Bangladesh; jihadi curricula; the threat Naxalites pose and their links in Bihar, in Andhra; the threat ULFA poses and its links in Assam; the militarization of Tibet, the modernization of Chinese defence forces and their deadly implications for India; the opportunity that the breakdown of governance in vast tracts like Bihar spells for the country's enemies — on each and every matter, our society and state just do not want to face the facts.

The media must see how it assists in this shutting of eyes. By the current ''your reaction journalism'' for one. Mitrokhin's volume is published. It goes to someone from the BJP, ''Sir, this new book by this Russian alleges..., what is your reaction? In brief.'' And then to a Communist, ''Sir, this new book by this Russian alleges..., what is your reaction?'' Both sides covered. Balanced story on air. End of matter. This is the condition that we have to reverse, and disclosures of the Mitrokhin kind are yet another occasion when we can commence to do so. On each of these questions, at each of these turns, induce readers, compel governments to face the facts, and thereby take steps that would save the country.

(Concluded)

“The Left distorts” (Interview with Arun Shourie)
Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: India Today
Date: November 23, 1998

Controversy and Arun Shourie are inseparable. He, has taken on
governments, politicians and corporate houses, championed
contentious causes and assumed the role of India's permanent
gadfly. After questioning the mythology centred on Babasaheb
Ambedkar and offending Dalit activists, Shourie has now targeted
Left historians. Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their
Line, Their Fraud (ASA, Rs 350), released last week, is a
characteristically robust attack on India's history
establishment. He has accused it of shoddy scholarship, wilful
distortion and even milking the exchequer He spoke to Deputy
Editor Swapan Dasgupta on his latest battle. Extracts:

Q: Let me start with a question you accuse communists of
constantly asking. Why now?
A: It is what the Gita calls a war unasked for. We should never
shirk work that has been brought upon us. Some magazines
published reports that the BJP Government had changed the
resolution of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR)
by converting "rational" into "national". It was a concoction by
some CPI(M) members and I learnt from the ICHR staff that the
letter circulated to the newspapers was typed in the ICHR office.
A staff member told one of these so-called historians that it was
not true. He replied. "Who cares? Let it go." That was the
origin. And every newspaper just swallowed it. I contacted the
editors but none of them retracted the story. Even the story
carried by INDIA TODAY was about the eminent historians not
having accepted one penny as if there was a genuine other side to
it.

Q: So you believe that in this controversy there is no other
side?
A: Not yet. Not in the three limited matters which I have touched
upon in the book. Which are: the technology by which they acquire
these institutions and the uses to which they put it to; the
pickpocketing that they do; the complete and systematic
perversion of facts. I don't think there is another side.

Q: It's curious that it took a non-historian to question some of
these assumptions. Why hasn't this challenge come from within the
discipline of history?
A: There are too many establishments in India, the Indian
journalists service, the Indian intellectual service, the Indian
historians service. They capture institutions. There is a great
timidity in India in all intellectual circles. You want a
promotion in the history department, increase in research funds,
funds for travel, promotion, everything depends upon certificates
>from these persons. If you want to challenge the accepted
notions, you not only need a person who is outside the discipline
but one who is deaf to the reproaches of these persons.

Q: Your interventions in history have aroused claims and
counterclaims that you are waging a proxy. political war?
A: These are allegations. Have they found anything wrong with my
facts? When they quote a source, I look it up and I find it is
the opposite. Then they say that he did not look up the correct
one. Whatever they write is politics. So why are they so
surprised that an honest man may also write?

Q: Part of the problem in your view has been caused by shoddy
scholarship and shoddier journalism.
A: Yes. That, as well as slavish scholarship and journalism. One
and a half paras from Stalin's Short History of the CPSU(B). Just
look up any one the books of R.S. Sharma, Satish Chandra, Romila
Thapar or D. N. Jha. It is the slavish mentality, providing
examples that substantiate those one and half paras on
periodisation. Even the Soviet historians have liberated
themselves from those categories. We got stuck in the categories
of the 1920s and 1930s.

Q: But you haven't stopped at mere intellectual slavishness. You
have actually accused these "eminent historians” of milking the
state.
A: Yes. It is a pitiable milking by current standards-all for
just Rs 12,000 or Rs 6.5 lakh. But it is a gross misuse of
authority and position. If the NBT or NCERT send a proposal that
R.C. Majumdar's edited Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan series on the
history of India should be translated into Indian languages,
these people would pass a resolution saying that it was not worth
translating into any Indian language. And lo and behold-they will
recommend their own works or that of EMS (Namboodiripad), the
great historian.

The deputy director of ICHR gives a project to Dr Paramatma
Saran, one of the great medievalists in India. He translates and
sends it to ICHR. After his death, the deputy director takes that
manuscript and gets a PhD for himself from Rajasthan University
without changing anything and publishes the book dedicated to
Nurul Hasan and thanking Irfan Habib who wrote a laudatory
foreword to it. In his office there is a picture of him
presenting his book to the then President Shankar Dayal Sharma,
another great scholar. So it's not just milking the state.

Some people in ICHR have told me that well known sociologist A.R.
Desai had been given a project to compile the history of the
trade union movement in India in 15 volumes. He completed the
task before he died. Then it mysteriously disappeared. The
current ICHR chairman has succeeded in tracing these manuscripts
inspite of non-cooperation. By doing so, he has deprived 15
people of their mock PhDs.

Q: None of these details have been seriously contested. But your
detractors sail they will not give you the pleasure of a de
defamation suit because you are beneath contempt?
A: Why aren't they replying through the newspapers. They are
always issuing statements, these six eminent historians, 10
leading intellectuals. They put on lofty airs because they have
no answers.

Q: How should people, governments and public spirited individuals
approach the question of teaching history in schools?
A: I feel that each time their books are recommended, mine should
be too. The students should see what great perversity they are
being made to swallow. There is no sufficient professional
scrutiny, no professional discourse on what has been published.
The same thing gets repeated. Nobody goes back to the sources.
Also, it is a bad idea for governments to get into the business
of preparing textbooks just as it is a bad idea to have
institutions like ICHR. It only leads to the patronage of
intellectuals. This is the bad legacy of Indian socialism.

Q: Will the book be of assistance to the BJP governments which
have also been accused of doctoring history?
A: Firstly I do not know what changes have been brought about by
them. I have asked them (Left historians) to show me those
textbooks which they think have been changed. But they haven't.
It can't be that you set one standard and any departure from that
stand is communal. The cure is that if someone perverts the next
set of history text books then they should also be subjected to
professional scrutiny

Q: Has the spirit of inquiry completely gone out of Indian
intellectuals?
A: Yes, I think so. By and large our work is very derivative in
most subjects. I find this in the case of many subjects. In
history it is slavishness to the verbiage of the 1920s and 1930s.
There is a lack of creativity even in activist movements in
India. When an issue became prominent in the West, five years
later you'll see it prominent in India like feminism, human
rights, big dams, child labour and child prostitution. We are so
blind that someone has to yank our eyelids open for us. I am
considered disreputable if I depart from the standards of
political correctness set by the establishment.

Q: Why does it fall on you to yank open the eyelids, whether it
is on Ambedkar, Ayodhya or ICHR?
A: First. I'm deaf, and secondly, I'm shameless. I am not looking
for a job and find it quite easy to survive without a job. Of
course, they will say he is not a historian, that it is part of a
political agenda. It starts with allegations and smear and will
not stop till they say facts are not as important as social
revolution. It doesn't affect me. I hope readers will see through
it.

Cut, Paste and Preserve Their Calumny

Arun Shourie

Namboodiripas' fusillade was just the opening salvo, it turned out. The Communist Party of India published a series of pamphlets - Arun Shourie's Slanders Rebutted History has indicated the Communists, 1942 August Struggle and the Communist Party of India... Translated into several languages, these were distributed far and wide. Today, they are prophylactics -- anyone who reads them will be immunised against the abuse of these 'leading intellectuals' and their parties!

"This is not the first time that the Quit India movement has been forked out to slander and attack the communist movement in our country," began the Foreword by the General Secretary of the CPI, C Rajeshwara Rao.

"Whenever the ruling circles and reactionary vested interests are in a tight corner or the communist movement is making headway, they would dig up old fables to whip up anti-Communist prejudices. The pet theme is the so-called 'betrayal' of the freedom struggle in 1942 by the united Communist Party of India. Such things have happened a number of times in the past, even as late as 1975, during the days of Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi' -- that last bit was truly audacious! For it was the General Secretary's very own Communist Party which had supported Mrs Gandhi's Emergency!

"Now the extreme reaction is worried because of the forging of left unity through the united struggles of the toiling people and also its gathering round of democratic allies," the General Secretary pronounced. "Hence this resurrection of the ghost of 1942 once again by Mr Arun Shourie in order to isolate the communist movement by fanning anti-communism."

"One would have ignored these attacks since we know very well that this is not the first time that such attacks have been leveled against us," the publication declared. "Arun Shourie, howsoever his journalistic talent may be, stands no comparison to such eminent personalities who have attacked us in the past. The eminent barrister, Langford James, of Meerut Conspiracy Case called us anti-God, anti-family, anti-decent everything with no sense of humour. History vindicated us. The Communist Party of India grew from strength to strength since those days of 1929. Today the Communist Movement is a strength to reckon with."

What all this had to do with the facts which I had set out, what I had to do with that barrister of 1929 was and remains a mystery. But 'devastating refutation' it was! And remember the line, 'One would have ignored these attacks...' -- it too is a standard one. The facts which have been brought to light, even more so those who have brought the facts to light are always beneath their dignity to answer. In his article 'refuting' what I had written, Panikkar had been the embodiment of lofty self- abnegation: "The alternative of suing for defamation the likes of Shourie is below one's dignity.... "

Now that a heap of new facts have been revealed, he is loftier still -- Shourie is not a historian, he is a mythologist... a political pornographer... I shall not dignify him by answering his diatribe...

Apart from everything else, one reason it is a waste of one's time to do so is that the dunce is not going to be able to comprehend the reality in any case. "It will be a waste of effort and also good space to refute this nonsense which betrays Shourie's utter Ignorance of history and world events," the Communist Party publication continued.

"We do not want to go into his vapid nonsensical utterances in the last installment," wrote the Communist Party publication. "They are tarred with the same rotten anti-Communist stuff with the hackneyed claim that communists are but the agents of Moscow (or rather of the Soviet Union) and as such they have to be treated with contempt. (On the contrary, my argument had been that precisely for this reason they ought to be treated with wariness, that their potential for harming the country, for poisoning discourse must not be ignored!)

"Even a cursory reading of the names of the Communist Party members who have found their way from other streams Of the national movement, either of the national revolutionary or of the orthodox Gandhian type (And what about those who saw through the Communist Party, including several of the topmost functionaries of the Party, and left it?) and the whole host of intellectuals who have adored (sic) the ranks of the Communist Party, and the large mass of workers and peasants who have acquired a new stature in their life by joining and working for the Communist Party would belie Arun Shourie's vile slanders."

Suppose for a moment that all the intellectuals of India had fallen to 'adoring' the ranks of the Communist Party, that every worker and peasant had become a devotee of the Party, how would that alter the assistance the Party had rendered to the British?

The 'this-is-an-old-charge' defence again: "These slanders themselves are not of Arun Shourie's original imagination either; they are products of a diseased and jaundiced view of the state of affairs which cannot bear the thought of the ordinary worker and peasant, of the ordinary man taking part and having a say in the political life of the country..."

Mockery, derision, scorn, the charge of conspiracy, of secret funds being pumped in by un-named forces, the charge that the critic is privilege-personified and therefore cannot stand the fact that, because of the struggles put up by the Left, the masses are coming into their own - an avalanche to scare everyone from doing what this fellow has done. "The argument would be similar to say, 'When did you last stop beating your wife?'," the Party publication declared. "This pearl of wisdom which Shourie seems to be bestowing cannot just be called a fool's paradise in which he may be lurking. It is a dangerous game to sow dissensions In the minds of the young political workers. And there are many other interests in the country who are financing it as is evident from various translations and other media coverage that have gone with it."

But hope also, confidence too -- lest the rank and file lose heart: "But truth is truth and must stand out, even when Shourie indulges in making a lot of 'shor' (noise), but with a purpose no doubt."

The great names who saw the light and acknowledged that the Communists are the ones who had been right... : "They all did this out of a process of understanding of national events in the context of international developments which is beyond the mental horizon of Arun Shourie or similar other anti-Communist scribes who have slandered us in the past..." Two key points in that - the ones who criticise them are deficient in understanding, and they are congenitally anti-Communist.

That last bit - about being congenitally anti-Communist -- is doubly believed: On metaphysical grounds, as well as practical ones. Once you believe in a religion which maintains that the Revelation has been handed to it alone, it necessarily follows that, if a person does not see the truth of that religion, there is something congenitally wrong with him! In totalitarian societies -- Stalin's Soviet Union which our Communists so adored -- there is a practical reason too: For anyone to stand against the received Line in such a set up, he must necessarily be congenitally mad!

"It is difficult for Arun Shourie to realise this, devoid as he is of any political perspective" -- the person in question can be said to have 'political perspective' only when and if he reaches the same conclusions as The Theory dictates!

As the man lacks elementary political understanding, it is always pointless to check up the facts which such a person has adduced: I had published extensive extracts from a 120-page report which the Communist Party had submitted to the British narrating the assistance its members were rendering by sabotaging the Quit India Movement. "The so-called 120-page document," the publication scoffed, "unfortunately I thought it a waste of time to count whether it was actually 120 pages as Shourie seems to have done. " Exactly what these historians maintained when I nailed the concoction they had put out: Of 'rational' having been surreptitiously changed to 'national' in the ICHR Resolution, of three of the five objectives having been deleted from the Resolution.

Hence, the confidence in the future: "We are aware that the four articles by Arun Shourie both in English and other languages are designed particularly to create a rift between the left and the other democratic forces. We have every confidence that this will fail and our healthy national movement will work steadily towards the goal of bringing about the social transformation through the path of peace, consolidation of national freedom, and socialism."

"Shourie's series", began another publication which the Communist Party put out, "is a long chain of distortions, canards and slander against the Communist Party of India, the international communist movement and the Soviet Union..." "From 1944 onward (and even earlier) paid pen-pushers and agents of imperialism and the bourgeoisie have repeatedly run slander campaigns against the CPI and the USSR..." Hansraj Vohra... Langford James, the barrister again..., "the notorious Minoo Masani and later on his worthy 'disciple' Sitaram Goel"... "Naturally enough questions are being asked by people all over India: Why has Shourie started this foul campaign now?... " That is always a useful question to ask: When you can't answer a person on facts, ask: "But why now?" India carries out its first nuclear explosion on 18 May 1974 at Pokhran. And what does the redoubtable representative of the Communists ask in the Lok Sabha? "We have been told that we have (had) the capability for a long time, we could have set off this blast much earlier, if we wanted to. Well, if we could have set it off much earlier, we could have set it off much later also. My question is about the timing of it. There must be some reason behind the timing of this, this particular timing of 18th May. I am not clear about it."

Next, redouble authority by quoting each other! That is twice- blessed: It doubles the weight of your assertion, and, as the comrade is being cited as an authority, it doubles his weight for the future! And so the CPI publication fortified the question it had posed - the hardy perennial, 'But why now?'- by citing what E M S Namboodiripad had asked!

"Reputed Communist leader and General Secretary of the CPI(M) E M S Namboodiripad," it said, "has queried: 'Why should Arun Shourie have taken up the shop-soiled wares of Communist Betrayal in 1942, 40 years after the Quit India struggle started?' "

And the answer too was fortified by citing E M S once again: "The seasoned anti-Communist Minoo Masani promptly jumped into the fray, in defence of Shourie... E M S sharply retorts: 'What Mr Shourie himself and Mr Masani are afraid of is thus the coming together of opposition parties not opposed to the Communists, but cooperating with them. This is exactly what I suspected in my Bombay press conference.'..." "Thus the cat is out of the bag," the publication proclaimed in triumph taking E M S' assertion as proof.

"Large segments of the non-Communist non-left opposition parties have repeatedly joined hands with the Communist-led left opposition, both against the authoritarian forces led by Indira Congress as well as against right-wing communal and divisive forces like the BJP and others. This has alarmed both Indira Gandhi and her entourage, as well as the BJP, RSS and their allies. Shourie and Masani have come out as their spokesmen and in their desperate efforts to drive a wedge between the Communists and the non-Communist opposition parties. In this foul effort, what better weapon can they take up than the shop- soiled ware of anti-Communist, anti-Soviet canard?"

Thus, congenitally anti-Communist, vile motives, desperation of the critic - all there!

Next, a repeat of denunciation-by-association: "let us now have a brief look at the 'noble' anti-Communist predecessors of Arun Shourie!," the publication proceeds. Hansraj Vohra... Minoo Masani... And now comes Arun Shourie who is supposed to be a talented journalist but who has been exposed as a communalist... And who has published his articles? The Illustrated Weekly of India which has also published an article (among the hundreds it would have published in the period!) 'The RSS will stay' by an RSS member. And so the truth manifest: "The communists must go and the RSS must stay - the 'Weekly-Shourie-Masani tie-up is now crystal clear! This is the basic reason why Shourie has picked up from the dustbin of history the discarded weapon of anti-communism!"

Forty pages of such sterling refutations in one publication, twenty-three pages in another. All leading to the conclusion at once triumphal and defiant, and comic: "The CPI is a party of heroes and martyrs of freedom struggle as well as of class battles. The Shouries and Masanis can wear the shop-soiled dirty shirt of anti-communism as long as they like, but their place is in the dung-heap of history! The combined imperialist armies tried to destroy the young Soviet State. They failed. Hitler tried it too and was destroyed in turn.

"Today the Reagans and Thatchers are again trying to play the same dirty game. They too will meet the fate of Hitler and Mussolini! So also will their paid henchmen, who spatter mud at the communists! Like old man Galileo facing the inquisition and like our own Dimitrov, facing the butcher Goering, we Indian communists also hurl defiance at the face of all our reactionary detractors and persecutors and with rock-like conviction, resolutely declare: Nonetheless, the Earth goes forward, and all roads lead to Communism!"

Amen!

Twin lessons in that. To roll back their untruth, we must immunise ourselves against their verbal terrorism. And among the easy prophylactics is to cut out and store their vituperation -- in less than no time it mutates into the ridiculous.

The press conferences and pamphlets were hurled at me in 1984. In 1986 in his A History of Indian Freedom Struggle, E M S Namboodiripad acknowledged that communists had collaborated with the British -- or rather, that they "did not hesitate to establish contact with the government and accept the assistance...."! -- during the 'Quit India' Movement.

In 1984, as we have just seen, the Communists were proclaiming, "Nonetheless, the Earth goes forward, and all roads lead to Communism." In 1989 the Berlin Wall was pulled down...

The Observer
January 22, 1999