History of India

CHAPTER 3 (C): Into The COLD-WAR

2020-05-11T04:19:00.001+05:30

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

"सिंहासन खाली करो कि जनता आती है : लो आ गई"

*Sorry for the delay, there were some technical issues integrating the blogs to my website which took a while to fix.

"Singhasan khali karo ki janta aati hai" this slogan was given during JP movement literally translates to "Empty the throne that the public knows". After the 42nd constitutional amendment, most of the objectives of Soviet were met and Indira Gandhi was in a false confidence that she will be back in power, thus general elections were declared.

JANTA PARTY RULE

Janta party coming to power was a great milestone for our democratic system. It was the first non-congress government to come to power in the centre, a true coalition formed against a tyrannous rule by people from various regions, parties and ideologies. Fear of Indira( Sanjay) was the force that kept all these opposing ideologies together, as soon as this force disappeared, cracks started to appear in Janta part.

A Critical Analysis

JP was determined never to hold power in government. Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram were some of the proposed names for PM. After a lot of political turmoil, Desai was chosen as PM with Charan Singh as Home Minister. Charan Singh was not happy with this decision and this sourness will later lead to the demise of Janta party.

Desai was many times accused of being pro-Capitalist. He was an arrogant man with orthodox thinking and took little advice from others. He was an ICS officer( now what we know as IAS). When I say pro-Capitalist in cold war era I indirectly mean CIA. India was the Disneyland of spies in that time, KGB used a policy of capturing a country through ideology. Change the vital institutions of the country and infiltrate major government bodies and get control over journalist and media, the country becomes a pseudo-communist country. Whereas the CIA poured huge sums of money through missionaries and believed in buying anything and anyone they want. Thanks to Vasili Mitrokhin we have a huge amount of KGB operations in the public domain but this privilege for CIA is not available, though American journalist Seymour Hersh, in his 1983 book The Price of Power, alleged that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

I cannot directly link Morarji Desai with CIA unlike I openly claim about KGB and Indira, due to legal issues.

But I would like to point out a few facts:

JP movement was no simple task. Though it had popular support, but any big political movement needs funding. JP movement was no exception and was an expensive revolution. Who funded it? Though Congress claims of western influences I won't comment as I am unable to produce any verified documents for same.

Desai wanted to dismantle RAW. He wasn't able to do so but had cut its funding drastically. Though RAW was infiltrated by KGB, it was an essential organisation for national security during the 1970s, when India was surrounded by hostile neighbours( we are still but now they don't try to annex India and threaten its very existence). Why this hatred for RAW even when it was so essential? Only CIA would benefit from RAW out of the picture.

Over friendly with Pakistan. Like India was to USSR, Pakistan was to USA. Today we see USA as an alley but it was not during the 1970s. He is the only PM to receive Nishan-e-Pakistan", Pakistan's highest civilian award. Wondering under whose influence he was so friendly with such a hostile country which just fought 3 wars with us.

RAW had infiltrated Pakistan's nuclear program efficiently. Desai in a stupid act called Mohd Zia Ul Haq and told India knows everything about your(Pakistan's) Nuclear program. This alerted Pakistan and led to the killing of many RAW agents in Pakistan and them developing their own nuclear program. Wounder if it was an act of stupidity( hard to digest) or indirect help. I will cover this operation details and repercussions in the next paragraph.

I leave the interpretation of the above facts up to the readers🙃.

I won't go into Capitalism VS Communism or who was correct. As per morality and justice, all were wrong. Even today we glorify MOSSAD, CIA & RAW and demonise ISI & KGB, but that's actually hypocrisy. All these are spy agencies and none work morally with ethics or humanity. You know what ISI does in Kashmir or KGB had done in past. CIA has created the maximum number of terrorist organisations, killed innocents and most of the modern world conflicts are a gift of CIA. MOSSAD had done thousands of unethical killing of scientists and journalists all over the world.

Think we are innocent, as a matter of fact, we are not. RAW is also responsible for terrorist activities in Pakistan, especially in Balochistan. You know about Kulbhushan Jadhav, ever heard that India abducted one of Pakistan's agent from Nepal in its response." Lt Col Mohammad Habib retired Pakistani army officer was lured to Nepal with a job prospect before being seized by Indian intelligence."- Hindustan Times( Click to read full story). Ever dug deeper into Pakistan bomb blasts. I don't want to go further as I believe I have explained my point.

I am in no aspect saying those spy agencies are bad. They are very important for our countries security. The hideous inhuman crimes they do are the reasons why we can live peacefully, freely without any fear and have the privilege of talking about morals, ethics, etc. When it comes to survival there is no act a man/ organisation/ country can't commit.
And talking about which countries are actually our friend?
ANS: none.
A country has no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, it only has permanent interests and it can go to any extent to fulfil those interests.

Not all things were bad, 44th Constitutional Amendment 1978 was passed to undo the things in 42nd
Constitutional Amendment and put safeguards on emergency provisions.

Article 352 was amended and the word "Internal disturbances" was replaced by " Armed rebellion".
Restore the power of SC of India
Obliged the president to declare emergency only when there is a written recommendation from Cabinet.
Article 20 & 21 cannot be suspended even during emergency
39th Constitutional Amendment repealed: PMO, Speakers office and PresidentRight were brought back under Judicial review.
Right to property removed

* to read about 39th and 42nd CAA in detail please read previous chapter 3(B), under subheading Judicial Timeline.

Operation Kahuta

This was a joint operation of RAW & MOSSAD. MOSSAD had intelligence that Pakistan was building its own nuclear weapon. You may be wondering why Israel was concerned, its because if Pakistan successfully built a nuclear weapon it would share that technology with North Korea and Arab word which would possess an existential threat to Israel.

Abdul Qadeer Khan was working in URENCO and is alleged to steal critical nuclear technologies during that time. Later he vanished from there and was found in Pakistan. Pakistan was building multiple nuclear facilities at that time. It was almost impossible to infiltrate all the facilities for both RAW as well as MOSSAD. It was very essential to identify the facility involved in weapons-grade enrichment. All Pakistani scientists were kept under surveillance but it was not giving any promising outcomes.

RAW came up with a unique but effective plan. They infiltrated all the barbers' shops where these scientists came for a hair cut. From these barbershops, their hair samples were collected and sent to India for testing. This plan worked. Hair samples of scientists working in the Kahuta facility had traces of highly enriched plutonium. RAW then started infiltrating this facility. RAW managed to defect a scientist from this facility who agreed to give the blueprints for a large sum of money.

According to the rule book, any such paments by RAW is directly authorised by Prime Minister. Thus then RAW chief N. F. Suntook brief Morarji Desai about this complete operation and demanded the required fund. Desai rejected the proposal straight away. Later in a phone call, he told Zia-ul-Haq that the Indian government knew about its secret nuclear bomb-making facility at Kahuta. This was the biggest blunder in Indian Intelligence history.

Zia-ul-Haq put ISI on red alert. All Indian agents were captured, tortured and killed. Their families didn't even receive their bodies. ( Spies are not covered under Geneva Convention. Thus any spy caught in foreign county has no human right protection). Indian intelligence network chain was disrupted and pushed back Indian Intelligence program for 1o years in Pakistan

Later Pakistan developed its nuclear weapon and conducted its first subcritical test in 1983.

Retaliations on Mrs Gandhi

When Janta Party came to power it should have focused on welfare programs and economy but in contrast, its main focus was to seek revenge from Mrs Gandhi for the atrocities committed during Emergency. The first thing it did was change governors.

Shah Commission was formed to investigate this matter. Many top officials and bureaucrats including Sanjay Gandhi and Indira herself were summoned, though Indira Gandhi refused to cooperate and didn't gave any proper answer to any question. Many times violence between Sanjay supporters and Janta Party workers, broke inside the courtroom only especially when Sanjay Gandhi arrived. Mrs Gandhi felt vulnerable and weak. She was even considering leaving politics. Whereas Sanjay was determined to break Janata Party. The cracks were visible and Sanjay wanted to exploit them.

Some moves by Janta party were self-destructive. Few charges on Mrs Gandhi like treason were very severe but most of them rather foolish and baseless. For example, she was even made co-accused in a case of stealing eggs and chicken in Manipur. This diluted the severity of actual charges and formed a public opinion for Mrs Gandhi being harrassed by Janta party. Frequent arrests of Mrs Gandhi on such baseless charges worked in her favour. Janta Party lost its seriousness and Mrs Gandhi gained public support and sympathy.

Wondering at a time when even radios were considered as luxury, how was the public aware of such small incidences?

ANS: KGB, as I always say, they are always there in the background. Especially when public opinion formation or massive inflow of propaganda in newspapers is concerned. If you want to know why KGB is helping Mrs Gandhi, please read CHAPTER 3(A): Into The COLD-WAR or Mitrokhin Archive II.

INDIRA ONCE MORE

Belchi Massacre 1977

Belchi is a small village in Bihar. In 1977 many people of the lower caste were ruthlessly murdered on May 27 in riots. Their condition was very miserable. Indira acted swiftly and decided to visit Belchi. Her advisors were trying to convince her not to go as it could be life-threatening for her but she had made up her mind.
Bihar was struck by flood at the time Mrs Gandhi arrived. She travelled a large distance by road but due to flood in the river, her jeep could not go further. She was again advised to return back as it could be life-threatening for her. Instead, she continued on an elephant. No anti-Indira slogans were heard, no black flags were shown. When she reached Belchi on elephant people had hope in their eyes after seeing her. "Indira tere abhao men Harijan mare jate hain" (Indira, in your absence, Harijan are being killed)" slogans were raised. When this news along with her photo on elephant propagated through the newspapers it became evident that Indira Gandhi was still a very popular leader among people.

You may be wondering why she risked her life for this particular incident?
ANS: One may question India Gandhi for her ideology but there is no iota of doubt on her political wit and this was a masterstroke. The answer lies in demographics. Belchi was a poor Dalit village in Bihar. The caste system is a very sad reality of this country. The so-called upper cast is just 26% of the population, that too divided and selfish. Similarly Rich and the middle class was just 9% of the population. Elections are just number game. Thus Indira took a well-calculated risk, and it was worth it. Indira Gandhi's popularity rose exponentially.

Sanjay: Backend developer

I told in the beginning that Charan Singh was not happy with the power distribution, but due to lack of support, he was adjusting. Remember Raj Narain, who filed the case whose judgement would lead to the proclamation of emergency. ( If not read the previous chapter)

Raj Narain advocated for Charan Singh's PM candidature. Differences and altercation on many decisions were frequent and Sanjay was well aware of it. Sanjay was in close contact with Raj Narain for supporting Charan Singh as PM. Wounders of politics, the Raj Narain whose case led to all these troubles of Mrs Gandhi was now in close contacts with her son.
Sanjay came to know that Charan Singh was a blind follower of an astrologer and did whatever the astrologer advised. Sanjay tried to bribe that astrologer to work for him but the astrologer refused to do so.

Sanjay and Raj Narain started breaking Janta party from inside. Sanjay was sure it could not be done until Jana Sangh( predecessor of BJP) was in Janta Party. A situation was created regarding dual membership of Jana Sangh leaders like L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. They were members of Janta Party as well as RSS. They were asked to leave RSS membership and remain members of Jana Sangh only. Sanjay knew this won't happen. Thus Jana Sangh leaders resigned from Janta Party. ( I know party names are confusing, even I faced problem when first read it in class IX polity).
With time many other leaders also started leaving the Janta Party. Pressure on Desai was building for resignation. When Desai's close supporter George Fernandes also resigned, then Desai decided to step down.

Indira and Sanjay were sceptical about Charan Singh as he was a much bigger threat( regarding legal actions for emergency) than Desai. They just used Charan Singh as a tool to break the Janta Party. Congresses promised to support Charan Singh as PM. After Desai resigned Charan Singh claimed a majority in front of the president and became the PM. As soon as this happened Congress withdrew its support and Charan Singh government came in minority. He never faced the Loksabha as he knew he won't be able to prove his majority on the floor. Sanjay's plan worked.

After the time limit for proving majority expired, general elections were declared. Indira Gandhi's popularity was high again and people had a perception that Janta Paty was not strong enough to run the country. All parties of Janta Party contested separately and thus Congress was again elected to power by a landslide victory. Shah Commission report came by this time but the government had changed. Thus Shah Commission report was never implemented.( By the time next government came both Indira and Sanjay had deceased)

INDIRA 3.0

I want to share one of my personal experience before starting this part.

Photo not of that day, But an example of typical hostel room panchayat

Last year I was sitting with 3 of my friends, Piyush, Dhiraj and Rohit in their hostel room. We were discussing about Kashmir, they told its hopeless to believe that situation will improve, when I mentioned that Punjab had much worse condition back in the 1980s. They were stunned and thought I was joking as today we all know Sikhs are true patriots, how can they be involved in militancy. Today except for some radical Islamic groups and some supporters of Dravida Nadu, every person will say he/she is Indian first. This was not the condition as late as the 1990s. Today we enjoy a united India but earlier it was a very fragile nation plagued by insurgency in many parts. Most of my generation don't know anything about these problems as they are not in our curriculum. This is my effort to fill this gap. So let's track this from the beginning.

*Most of Sikh even then opposed these insergents, infact it was sincere efforts of Sikh officers like Kanwar Pal Singh Gill who brought the Punjab insurgency under control. Even today misconduct by some results in steriotyping of whole community.

Creation of Bhindranwale

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a Sant of Taksal. After emergency Congress was defeated in many states including Punjab. Akali Dal came to power in Punjab. Sanjay along with Giani Zail Singh( to be Home minister and then president of India) started planning for bringing Akali Dal down. Zail Singh was a very prominent leader from Punjab at that time. Many leaders were interviewed by Sanjay in Delhi. Sanjay was very impressed by Bhindranwale's aggressive personality, thus he was chosen to overthrow Akali Dal government in Punjab. There was a violent clash between Nirankari Sikhs and Amritdhari Sikhs in Amritsar. The Akali Dal government was biased against Bhindranwale and many Amritdhari culprits were released. Bhindranwale's men were targetted by police. This enraged orthodox Sikhs. This earned Bhindranwale large support. He even received fund from congress which he used to buy arms. In a famous incident, Swaran Singh(ex-defence & ex-foreign minister) sat on the ground in front of Bhindranwale. When offered a chair, he refused, saying he cannot sit on a chair in front of the Sant. This showed stature of Bhindranwale. Slowly Bhindranwale became a bigger leader than Zail Singh himself. In 1980, Akali Dal lost. Though in an interview with BBC Indira Gandhi refused any connections with Bhindranwale but it was an established fact that he helped congress in winning elections.

Death of Sanjay Gandhi

It's said for Indira Gandhi, one of her sons was a politician, tried to become a pilot and died, other was a pilot, tried to become a politician and died. On 23 June 1980, Sanjay Gandhi was flying a new aircraft of the Delhi Flying Club and while performing an aerobatic manoeuvre over his office, lost control and crashed. Sorrow was spread everywhere except two places, KGB residency in India and the Centre( KGB Moscow headquarters). Indira was just the face by then, all major decisions were being taken by Sanjay Gandhi. KGB was celebrating because they had no control over Sanjay. They could not influence him. After his death, KGB could again manipulate the Indian government as they please.

Same happens with Bhindranwale, after Sanjay, he was just a loose cannon and its effects started showing up by 1981 itself.

Rise of Militancy in Punjab.

In 1981 census started. Punjab Kesari was a local newspaper of Punjab. Its editor started campaigning for Hindi and appealed all Hindus living in Punjab to register their mother language as Hindi, not Punjabi. Such editorials enraged Sikhs in Punjab. Till now it was just a political game but with this incidence, Bhindranwale's movement got a communal angle of Hindu vs Sikh. Lala Jagat Narain, editor of Punjab Kesari was assassinated by Bhindranwale's men. He was arrested but released due to pressure by Indira Gandhi on the advice of Zail Singh. Bhindranwale with his armed men was roaming freely organising rallies across Bombay, Punjab, Haryana Delhi. Congress was supporting Bhindranwale till this point.

Asian Games a triggering point

After a long time, such a big event was being organised in India. Bhindranwale warned that he will protest in Delhi, in response government sealed Delhi-Haryana border and all Sikhs were screened some even humiliated by police. This further escalated the extremist and separatist ideologies Sikhs.
Bhindranwale used this event to justify his militant approach by telling people the government is treating Sikhs as a second class citizen. Indira Gandhi made Giani Zail Singh president in hope of improving the conditions, but this was of no use.

Punjab streets were bloodstained. The most infamous event, a senior IPS officer was shot dead on steps on Golden Temple. His dead body laid there for 2 hours but police could not dare to reclaim it. CM of Punjab pleaded Bhindranwale to allow them to take the body. This incident was a blow to police moral. On October 5, 1983, a bus from Kapurthala to Jalandhar was stopped by Sikh militants. Hindus were identified brought down and shot on point-blank. The same incident repeated within a month on a bus from Amritsar to Chandigarh. If no action would have been taken this situation would have escalated to something like the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits.

By this time ISI had developed active links with Bhindranwale. These militants were even being supported by pro- Khalistan separatists in Canada, Uk etc. Even today's Canadian government supports these Khalistani separatists and gives them funding, Political power and international support. This is the reason why we treated Justin Trudeau the way we did. Assault rifles, Ak47s, anti-tank launchers and bullets were being supplied in Wheat sacks into the golden temple. Golden Temple was transformed into an armed fortress. Punjab government was dissolved and presidents rule was imposed.
Bhindranwale captured Akal Takt. This sent a huge symbolic message to Mrs Gandhi.

Operation Bluestar

Indira Gandhi was named Iron Lady and believe me, she earned that title. Even though she was advised not to Mrs Gandhi decided to use the army in Punjab. Secret information was being leaked by Rashtrapati Bhawan, thus this operation was kept hidden from the president Zail Singh.

Now NSA Ajit Doval was a RAW operative at that time. He disguised as an auto driver and started roaming around the Golden Temple. As expected he was captured where he impersonated an ISI operative sent by Pakistan to help them and they believed. In a few sorties, he memorised the map of the temple and drew it on a piece of paper. This included information like how many men are there, where are the ammunitions kept, what weapons do they have, etc. He would again play a major role in Operation BlackThunder, that will be conducted to eliminate residual Sikh militants.

After all negotiations with Bhindranwale failed Indira Gandhi sent in Army. President Zail Singh was taken aback as this complete operation was kept secret from him. He was furious, many thought he would resign but he stood with the government instead. Just a few days before actual army operation Satish Jacob had an interview with Bhindranwale, Jacob asked how will Bhindranwal face mighty Indian Army to which Bhindranwale replied that Pakistan border was just 28km away. He told Jacob that they would retreat to Pakistan and maintain constant guerilla warfare from there.

Indian Army sealed the Indo Pak border. Announced all to come out of the Golden Temple. On 8 June 1984, the Indian army entered Golden Temple. Many casualties happened from both sides. The army captured the temple within a day. Use of army on citizens is very shameful for any country. Whether this act was justified or not I won't comment. The real issue is why thing escalated to this point. Why wasn't Bhindranwale neutralised much before things got worse? Lack of political will I say. Even though the army was instructed not to harm the temple collateral damages happened in the crossfire. Many parts of the temple were demolished. Though the government offered to rebuild the temple but Sikhs refused and built the temple on their own.

Why we can't do that in Kashmir? Modi gov has the political will similar to Mrs Gandhi!
ANS: OIC- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. I must not use this language but the international community didn't care much for Sikhs as for Sikhs, Hindus & Jains there is no dedicated international organisation to protect them. Due to the same reason, there was minimal criticism from other countries and international organisations on Kashmiri pandit genocide 1990. If we even plan to do such operation in Kashmir, we would face serious repercussions from the international community especially OIC. We don't understand the gravity of the situation, scraping of Article 370 was extremely dangerous. It is the genius of our diplomats and foreign ministry that no serious actions or sanctions occurred.

The Assassination of Indira Gandhi

The security experts advised Mrs Gandhi to remove all Sikh guards but she refused. From her last speeches and letters, it was evident that she was expecting a violent death.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at 9:29 a.m. on 31 October 1984 at her residence in Safdarjung Road, New Delhi.She was killed by her Sikh bodyguardsSatwant Singh and Beant Singh in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star.

Can you recognise the kid in this Photograph?

The whole country was in sorrow and congress in anger. Sikh riots broke in Delhi and other parts of India. Next Chapter 3(D) will cover Sikh Riots, Rajeev and Sonia Gandhi, LTTE, end of Cold War and many more. Please Subscribe to be notified for new posts. ( IIT students don't use your institute IDs they are showing some errors: work in progress| use general IDs like google, yahoo, etc).

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CHAPTER 3 (B): Into The COLD-WAR ( Emergency 1975)

2020-04-13T05:14:00.000+05:30

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

"Darkest hour of Democracy "

After the victory in 1971, Indira Gandhi's stature was incomparable to any other leader. She did the unthinkable task of breaking a US-backed Pakistan into two parts. The early 1970s were a good period for India as a country. The Green Revolution and new HYV seeds were very successful.

By this time Sanjay Gandhi came into mainstream politics.

Indira Gandhi dismissed many state governments and elections were conducted. Indira Gandhi was at the peak of her popularity. Congress(I/R) secured victory in all. Till 1973 all states but Tamil Nadu had congress(I)'s government.

Sanjay Gandhi

I won't go into conspiracies such as Sanjay not being Feroze Gandhi's son, instead was the result of a love affair between Indira and Mohammad Yunus, as there is no fact or valid evidence for that. But there's no iota of doubt that he was a womanizer and behaved like a thug many times.

He was a very capable administrator though. He was one of the persons that KGB could not manipulate. His wife Maneka Gandhi now a BJP MP was then a model. Meneka Gandhi had sour relation with her mother in law i.e. Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi took no decision without Sanjay's advice. I am briefing you about Sanjay as understanding his character is crucial for understanding the geopolitics of India at that time because he was the actual person who was making the decisions.

EVENTS LEADING TO EMERGENCY

This period of 1971-1975 had many series of events going on parallelly, therefore, its difficult to understand the chronology. For the sake of ease of understanding, I have made thee separate timelines which end at the same event, EMERGENCY.

Political Reasons:

Gujrat Movement

Everything started with an increase in hostel and mess fees in a college in Gujarat. Students from other colleges also joined and complete Gujrat University went on strike. Soon the middle class of Gujrat joined the strike as there was very high inflation in prices of all commodities due to OIL crisis.

A small issue of mess fee increase had now turned into a massive protest all over Gujarat. Morarji Desai was leading this movement and went on indefinite hunger strike. The movement was renamed as Navnirman Andolan. Protesters demanded CM's resignation.

For the first and only time perhaps, a protest led to a CM's resignation. Many MLAs followed and resigned, thus the assembly was dissolved. Elections were conducted and an opposition Janta Morcha came into power and history was made. This was considered an impossible event. Students Unions all across India became active and organised protests for their demands. Though it's insignificant for this chapter but one of the students in this protest was going to become India's PM in 2014. I believe you know, who.

Railway workers Strike

Railway workers organised a strike against long working hours and low wages. This is the largest strike to date. Over 70 Lakh employees( 70% of railway workers) participated in this strike. The leader of this strike, George Fernandes would later become the Defense Minister in NDA government.

As per statistics, 1974 was the year with the maximum number of strikes in India. Many other private and public industries small scale strikes were going on. Indira Gandhi suppressed the railway workers strike brutally. She expelled many employees and their families were also thrown out of their railway quarters. This further increased the anger in public. Her actions turned a simple industrial labour dispute into a war-like situation.

JP Movement

All major politicians we know today like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Nitish Kumar, etc were active student leaders at that time. Following the events in Gujarat, they also started their own movement mainly for similar reasons of hostel and mess.

Note: Students not getting proper food in mess may lead to National Emergency. I know bad joke.

Bihar is unique in many ways, and so are its students and movements. Students sieged the assembly building and started turning violent. This provocation led to police firing resulting in the death of few students. This further intensified the situation. Students requested Jayaprakash Narayan(JP) to lead their movement. Analysing the situation JP agreed on the condition that students won't indulge in violence. I won't go into Jayaprakash Narayan(JP)'s past as it's insignificant in relation to this chapter.

JP gave the slogan of sampoorna kranti or Total Revolution. The country was amidst a global OIL crisis, prices of all commodities were high, thus frustrated middle class also joined the movement. All these conditions were favourable for a Perfect Storm. This movement spread to neighbouring states and the demand of resignation of CM had now turned into a demand for resignation of Indira Gandhi. She had many charges of corruption along with that of turning into a tyrant.

The opposition, students, trade unions and railway & PSU workers all united against the Indira government under JP's leadership. Indira was worried and was considering the idea of resigning. Sanjay Gandhi convinced her not to do so. After a meeting between Indira and JP, Indira Gandhi made clear that she would not dissolve Bihar Legislative Assembly. She could have dismissed Bihar Legislative Assembly but it would lead to similar demands from other states and was not feasible.

An enormous rally was organised in Ram Leela Ground. Here in his famous speech, JP requested all the IAS and IPS officers to do their duty but if they feel any order is against their moral conduct then they should disobey it. This statement of his would later be used by Mrs Gandhi to justify Emergency.

Did Indira Gandhi impose emergency just because of fear from the JP movement?

ANS: NO.

All this political instability was a contributing factor but not the main reason. The real battle was not even being fought in Ram Leela Ground or the parliament or any Vidhan Sabha. The government can easily cope with such uprisings.

This wasn't a simple fight between the government and the opposition. The real battle was between PMO and Supreme Court of India about who is superior. Our constitution defines that the executive is answerable to the legislature with Judiciary being autonomous and above all. Indira Gandhi tried to challenge this basic structure of our constitution. As soon as the executive is above the Judiciary, democracy is lost hence I say the darkest period of democracy.

JUDICIAL REASONS

Golaknath Vs State of Punjab Case, 1967

The state of Punjab passes a law that limits the amount of land to 30 acres, that an individual can hold. At that time Right to property was a fundamental right. The family of Henry and William Golak Nath held over 500 acres of farmland in Jalandhar, Punjab. Thus to save his land he filed the case.

To explain the situation I am giving the summary of some articles( these are my interpretation, not exact words if someone wants he may read it from https://www.india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf )

Article 13: It states that any legislation that violates Part-III of the constitution will be declared Null & void by the Supreme court of India. i.e. Part-III cannot be amended.

PART-III: Article 12-35 | contains all the Fundamental Rights

Article 368: The parliament can amend by way of addition, variation or repeal any provision of the Constitution in accordance with the procedure laid down in this article. i.e. empowers parliament to do constitutional amendments.

*If possible memorise this, I will not explain it every time.

****If you dont want to go into technical details please directly go to "For The Layman" section.

So these two articles 13 and 368 became the reason for the fight between the executive i.e PMO and SC. Art 13 says part 3 cannot be amended but Art 368 contains the word Any provision which includes part 3. Thus these two are contradicting each other.

When the Punjab government passed this legislation it violated the fundamental right to property(now non-existent). The case was fought and SC gave its verdict overruling its own previous judgements of Shankari Prasad vs. Union of India case 1951 and Sajjan Singh vs the State Of Rajasthan case 1964, that Article 368 cannot touch Part III of the constitution.

For the layman: SC told Punjab Government's Act is unconstitutional and no amendment can touch fundamental rights.

Mrs Gandhi was angry by this judgement and determined to show her power over SC. Thus 24th Constitutional Amendment Act(CAA) was passed in 1971.

INDIRA 0 | JUDICIARY 1

24th Constitutional Amendment Act(CAA)

As in 1971, Mrs Gandhi was enjoying 2/3 majority. So, she amended article 13 itself and added clause 4 to it. She changed article 368 making it furthermore powerful thus easy to misuse.

Article 13 clause 4: Nothing in this article shall apply to any amendment of this Constitution made under article 368.

For the layman: this made article 13(which protects fundamental rights) useless and gave Parliament power to amend even Part-III, that is fundamental rights.

Thus she gave herself the power to change anything in the constitution. Practically she could rewrite the constitution which she actually did in the infamous 42nd CAA.

This was a serious threat to democracy.

INDIRA 1 | JUDICIARY 1

Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala 1973

Kesavananda was the head of a Math( religious institution) which had 100s of acres of land which it acquired from donations. Kerala Government passed a Land reforms Act. This empowered the Kerala government to take Math's unused land for public use. Kesavananda challenged this act in SC under Article 26: Right to manage religious affairs.

SC gave its historic judgement which gave the idea as well as coined the term of Basic Structure of Constitution. SC could not protect the fundamental rights using Article 13 (the reason is explained in 24th CAA).

SC said that parliament has a wide range of powers but not unlimited. This verdict said that parliament can amend Fundamental Rights when needed in the public interest but cannot change the basic structure of the constitution i.e. the core ideas of founding fathers. Example Democracy, right to equality before the law, judicial review, timely elections, etc.

For the layman: SC said parliament cannot amend everything it pleases. Though it gave permission to amend fundamental rights but said parliament cannot amend core ideas like democracy, elections etc.

INDIRA 1 | JUDICIARY 2

Chief Justice of India & the 39th CAA

A day after the Kesavananda Bharati case the CJI retired. According to convention the next senior-most judge of the SC shall be the next CJI. Indira Gandhi superseded 3 senior judges and made A. N. Ray(*theres a mistake in the Timeline photo above. There I have written A. N. Rai instead of A.N. Ray. In UP/ Bihar its Rai but he is a Bengali. In Bengal its Ray. 😅 . I am pointing this out because if you do Google search A N Rai is a totally different person.) The other 3 judges resigned in protest. Its allegedly said that A.N. Ray took advice from the PMO before giving judgements on major decisions.

Democracy was now in grave danger. It's written that SC is the custodian of the constitution. Imagine a situation in which the custodian is taking orders from the thief. That's exactly what the situation was.

39th CAA:

This amendment was to safeguard the PMO from the SC. Its main feature relevant to us was that the office of PM and the office of the speaker will not come under judicial review. You may wonder why the speaker. If you read the constitution thoroughly or are aware of the parliamentary proceedings you will notice the speaker is the most powerful office regarding the conduct of business and procedures of the parliament.

These two moves combined gave India Gandhi unprecedented powers. The executive(through PMO), the legislature(through the speaker) and the judiciary( through CJI), all the three pillars of Democracy were under Indira Gandhi's control.

INDIRA 2 | JUDICIARY 2

Now the final nail in the coffin.

Raj Narain vs State of Uttar Pradesh 1975

In 1971 Loksabha elections Mrs Gandhi fought from the Raebareli constituency in UP. While campaigning she used local police, electric board, the district administration for her rallies. As per guidelines of Election Commission of India, the ruling party cannot use government machinery of election purposes. When the results came Mrs Gandhi had a landslide victory.

Raj Narain was the opposing candidate from Raebareli. He filed a case against Mrs Gandhi charging her of bribery and use of government machinery. By the way, the lawyer fighting this case for Raj Narain was Shanti Bhushan, father of Prashant Bhushan. Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of Allahabad HC was hearing this case. Justice Sinha was offered a promotion to SC if he gives the verdict in favour of Mrs Gandhi.

On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha found Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices. Sinha declared the election verdict in the Rae Bareilly constituency "null and void", and barred Gandhi from holding elected office for six years. While Sinha had dismissed charges of bribery, he had found Indira guilty of misusing government machinery as a government employee herself.

This judgement also defined that judicial review is a part of the Basic Structure of the constitution, thus 39th CAA is unconstitutional.

For the layman: Indira Gandhi's victory in 1971 election was declared illegal and she was barred from contesting election for the next 6 years.

No one was expecting such a harsh verdict from an HC judge against Mrs Gandhi. This verdict could end her political career. The verdict was challenged in SC. SC upheld HC's verdict of Mrs Gandhi being guilty of electoral malpractices but allowed her to remain PM for 6 months. She had to become MP of any house within 6 months to remain PM.

INDIRA 2 | JUDICIARY 4

KO : Judiciary Won

Back to Political Arena

These judgements backed by public support and political crisis scared Mrs Gandhi. Sanjay Gandhi advised Mrs Gandhi to declare a National Emergency. By imposing emergency she could put down the political opposition, remain in power as long as she wants.

One more contributing factor was the time. This last verdict, Gujrat election results( in which Janta Morcha won) and large rally in Ram Leela ground by JP, all occurred on the same day of 25 June 1975. These 2 Narains ( JP and Raj Narain) had made Mrs Gandhi's life hell.

Scared and angry Mrs Gandhi started discussing the legality of Emergency provision.
Article 352 has provisions for National Emergency. It contains the provision for imposing a national emergency in case of "Internal Disturbances". This is a vague word. Anything can be considered as internal disturbance, an all India strike, any peaceful but large protest, etc. Therefore this would be amended to Armed Rebellion in 44th CAA 1978. I will explain that later.

Considering the JP movement as an internal disturbance, Mrs Gandhi imposed the National Emergency. JP's statement requesting disobeying by IAS/IPS officers was misinterpreted by Mrs Gandhi as a provocation for a military coup.

At 11:20 PM on 25 June 1975, R. K. Dhawan, Mrs Gandhi's personal assistant took the official letter of Emergency to Rashtrapati Bhavan. As soon as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the letter and added it to the official gazette of India, our democracy was in the hands of Mrs Gandhi.

We got our democracy at midnight and almost lost it on another. At some places, you can read Emergency started on 26 June as President signed on it around midnight, but the official letter has the date 25 June.

The electricity of most media houses was cut so that papers could not be printed. Mrs Gandhi didn't even consult the cabinet. The cabinet was informed the next day in the morning but no one in cabinet protested.
But don't blame Mrs Gandhi for these actions, by this time all decisions were being taken by Sanjay Gandhi. JP, Lal Krishna Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee along with 100s of other leaders of opposition as well as congress leaders who opposed Indira or Sanjay were arrested before sunrize of 26 June.

Technically its called purge. Satlin had conducted many such purges in which anyone who opposes the government is arrested.

The story of how Sikkim joined the Indian Union and India's first nuclear program Smiling Buddha is also very interesting. I will cover that after Emergency because it will break the flow.

EMERGENCY (25 Jun 1975 – 21 Mar 1977)

This is were Sanjay Gandhi's role is visible. He was the one running the country during the emergency.
I have not mentioned KGB in this chapter yet. It's because as long as Indira's government was in power in the centre and almost all states, they had no motive to invest in mainstream politics. But as I say they are always there in the background. They helped India make its first nuclear bomb. They infiltrated our bureaucracy and major institution in the country like universities and media. They were selling weapons to India. By this time India had become the largest trading partner of Russia outside the Soviet block. Indira Gandhi was bribed many times for inserting socialist policies into the constitution. She made 20 amendments in the Indian constitution between 1971-76, last being 42nd.

I have told earlier that KGB could not influence Sanjay. Thus they had little to no say in the policies during Emergency as it was Sanjay Gandhi who was controlling the country. Instead, KGB was more focused in rewriting the constitution of India through a draft, today we know this draft as the 42nd constitutional amendment Act 1976. Therefore it is also called Mini Constitution.

Sanjay Gandhi had a close group of friends/advisors called his coterie. All the decisions were taken by them and most prominent of their decisions are called 5 Point Program. In Turkman area of Delhi slums were brought down using bulldozers. When the people protested police open fired on them. ( For Turkman massacre details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkman_gate_demolition_and_rioting ). Many forced sterilization of men was done all across India under Sanjay Gandhi's nusbandi yojna (Vasectomy programme). In 1976–1977, the programme led to 8.3 million sterilisations, most of them forced, up from 2.7 million the previous year.
Around 1.4 Lakh people were arrested and then tortured. Many students were beaten and some even died in police custody. Many of leaders who went into hiding started movements still themselves being underground.

Wondering what our current Leaders were doing.

This is a famous photo of our current PM Narendra Modi. During the emergency, he disguised as a Sikh. Many others like him were constantly working against the oppressive regime of Sanjay Gandhi. When the government tried to arrest Subramanian Swamy, he escaped to the USA.
All these arrests took place under M.I.S.A 1971. Lalu Prasad Yadav told Mrs Gandhi he would never forget how Mrs Gandhi arrested him. Therefore he named one of his daughters Misa on this Act. This is a rather funny but true incident.

Meanwhile, the 42nd constitutional amendment was passed in the parliament with almost no opposition.

42nd CAA

Preamble: this was the 1st and only time our preamble was amended. You may wonder why is that even significant, preamble contains no law. The preamble was written at last when the constitution was ready. Many people misunderstand preamble as a preface or introduction but in reality, it is the summary of our constitution. The preamble is the very identity of our constitution.

Addition of the words socialist & secular was the announcement for the world, declaring India is now a socialist country by law. Kind of victory celebration of KGB. You may wonder why secular was not there originally. During the 1950s the western definition of secular was a divorce between the state and religion, whereas our definition was the equal treatment of all religions. Thus our founding fathers avoided any misinterpretation of the word.
As for socialist, Dr B R Ambedkar said that socialism could be the policy of any political party of government but not the state. The state shall remain neutral with its policies.

Article 31C & 31D: In short they gave tremendous powers to the government regarding legislation and arrests. Article 31D first time officially coined the term Anti-National( basically anyone who opposed the government) and gave powers to discriminate against them, even violating fundamental Rights.

I won't go much into other technical details. Most of the other provisions added socialistic directives and articles to the constitution. In short, changing India from a democratic welfare state to a Socialist Police state.

Sanjay and Indira Gandhi had false information that public support is with them. This mistake came as a blessing for our Democracy. On 21 Mar 1977 emergency was lifted and General elections were declared. I will continue this further in the next chapter- Chapter 3(C).

Sikkim joining Indian Union

Sikkim, Goa and Kashmir, all three have a very unique story of their own.
Originally people from Tibet settled in Sikkim. With time Nepalis started migrating into Sikkim. Circa 1800s British wanted to defeat the kingdom of Nepal. The kingdom of Sikkim was the enemy of Nepal at that time. Thus British allied with Sikkim and defeated Nepal. This system continued for a while.

Later Sikkim became a protectorate of British. Things soured when Britishers asked for Darjeeling( for Tea Plantation). King of Sikkim (King is called Chogyal in their language) agreed and a deal was signed where the East India Company would timely pay around 6000 Rupees at that time. East India Company stopped paying this amount after a brief period of time. Approx 1850s Sikkim's king and landlords started attacking Darjeeling. British sent an army and defeated them but now their status was reduced to a princely state. Though Britishers resumed the payment but their relationship had soured.

Around the 1940s parties started forming in Sikkim also. They asked the King to form a constitutional monarchy. Around 1950 Sikkim became a protectorate of India( almost similar to Kashmir). They had their own flag and the head was Chogyal- King. Tashi Namgyal was the king at that time. His relation was very good with Nehru. There was a legislative assembly at that time but had limited powers, King still enjoyed most of the powers.

The problem began when Tashi's son Palden Thondup Namgyal became the King. He had a more anti-India stance. His second wife Hope Cook( who is believed to be a CIA agent) had more control on Sikkim then the King himself. She also wrote provoking magazines against India.

After the Chinese annexation of Tibet and Indo-China War of 1962, India was sure that China would try to annex Sikkim.

Cho La Incident 1967( sometimes called as 2nd Indo-China war)

Chinese army attacked Sikkim but this time the Indian Army defended Sikkim. After a 10-day battle ceasefire was established. After this incident, India was determined to join Sikkim into India. Our present National Security Advisor(NSA) Ajit Doval was sent in Sikkim. RAW was given the task to organise wide-scale protest between the majority Nepali and ruling Bhutia people. Finally, the situation becomes so violent that the King had to call the Indian government for help.

India made the King sign a pact which makes Sikkim an associate state and takes away most of King's power and the administrative power goes to India's Political agent in Sikkim. Elections are held and pro-India Sikkim congress secures all the seats.

By September of 1974, Indian parliament started drafting the 36th Amendment Bill( Bill that would make Sikkim part of India). Media was criticising this Bill as this was discrimination between Kashmir and Sikkim. By April 1975, law and order situation was once again disturbed in Sikkim.

This time all of a sudden India sents its army into Gangtok. Within 30 minutes King's army consisting of around 300 men was overpowered. The office of Chogyal was dissolved. On 16 May 1975, 36th constitutional amendment bill was passed and thus Sikkim became a part of India. Due to international pressure, a referendum was conducted within 5 days. The majority wanted to join India. The validity of the referendum was questioned but the issue cooled down within a year.

Bad joke incoming: People of Sikkim were like, yeh we joined India. Now we are free, #democracy #freedom. And then within two months Emergency was imposed.

Smiling Buddha

Dr Homi J. Bhabha( who was allegedly killed by CIA) had convinced Indian leaders right from the independence that India should focus towards nuclear energy, if not weapons then at least for electricity. In the early 1950s and 60s, most of our civil nuclear reactors were set up with the help of USA and Canada. Till then only the USA, USSR, UK & France had nuclear weapons. When in 1964 China tested its nuclear Bomb, India started acting seriously toward its own nuclear programme.

We used nuclear fuel which we were getting for our Power Plants. On 18 May 1974, India tested its first fission device in Pokhran. I am calling it a device because officially India claim it was a peaceful detonation and not a weapon. ( Hypocritic from our side, I know)

As soon as the test was successful a senior scientist called PMO and said: " Buddha is smiling".

India was a closed economy at that time with USSR as the major trading partner. Thus US sanctions didn't have an economical effect on us but the western world stopped the nuclear supply to India. This stagnated our nuclear program for around 25 years.

CHAPTER 3(A): Into The COLD-WAR

2020-03-29T12:03:00.001+05:30

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

"INDIA is INDIRA, INDIRA is INDIA"

The Tashkent Files

Shastri died of a heart attack or Was it a state-sponsored murder?

Ans: Was poisoned by the CIA( my opinion after my research) and Soviet and then the Indian government had a silent support.

As I have mentioned in the earlier chapter USA and Russia were already in their cold war. Famous incidents like "The Cuban Missile Crisis", have already occurred by now. This is an era known as the cold war. This was not a conventional war between USA and USSR. It was a war between The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti(KGB). It was the era of espionage.

The world was divided into the western block( lead by USA) and the soviet block(lead by USSR), with the neutral countries battleground for dominance. Though India had communist parties and socialist policies, India had a policy of non-alignment. Both CIA and KGB had their contacts and agents working in Indian politics, but till now both had minimal effects on India's direct actions. Shastri was brought to power by Kamaraj as a surprise. Shastri would never allow foreign powers to dominate India, thus both wanted him dead.

What happened in that cabin in Tashkent is not known but I would like to present some facts:

His(Shastri's) venue was changed at the last moment. He was a heart patient and had already suffered two strokes. Still, the cabin which was selected for his stay had no oxygen supply or cylinders.(critical for a heart patient). His room also lacked any emergency bell.
While taking his last breaths he was pointing toward a fallen flask. His cook Ram Nath gave him milk every day in that flask but Ram Nath was changed on that specific day. Jan Mohammad, T. N. Kaul's cook replaced Shastri's cook Ram Nath. I know this can just be a coincidence but suspicion is raised as all belongings of Shastri ji were returned to his family but the flask. Its were about are still unknown.
There were 2 slightly different copies of his death report. Indian copy was signed by 6 doctors whereas Soviet copy was signed by 8 doctors. Russian doctor who was the first to reach Shastri had not signed on the Indian copy.
Shastri was given intra-muscular injection whereas in a heart attack intra-venal injections are to be given(as venal injections directly enter the bloodstream and show immediate effect).
When asked why doctors didn't try to revive him, doctors replied that "revival was possible if death was due to heart attack".
Shastri's postmortem was never done even after the request of his family. His family also claims that his body was bluish-black, swollen and had many cuts in his body from which blood was leaking. (At that time Russians removed organs from the body to hide traces of poisons).

I will leave the interpretation up to the readers. I would not conclude but assure that above points are verified facts.

Just 13 days after this incident Homi J. Bhabha died in a plane crash. Thus India lost its nuclear pioneer. Former CIA officer ROBERT T CROWLEY in his interview with Gregory Douglas on July 11, 2008, claims that the CIA killed Shastri and Bhabha as India was showing fast progress towards nuclear development.

KGB and politicians in India had indirect benefits by Shastri's death. KGB gained the chance to infiltrate India and Politicians in India had a chance to gain power.

If the CIA claims then why the confusion?

Crowley was an ex-operative at time of interview. Ex agents are not credible as they may be looking for fame money or can be involved in the formation of propaganda. Since dots are connecting, therefore, I personally believe his claim. Readers view may differ.

POWER VACUUM

Gulzarilal Nanda was made the caretaker PM. At that time India had 14 states and all CMs had great influence in choosing the PM candidate. CM of then Madhya Pradesh Dwarka Prasad Mishra was a close ally of Indira Gandhi. He came to Delhi and took other CMs in confidence.

Kamaraj in this period was not giving clear signals whether he would become the PM or not. Other politicians of syndicate we advising him to become the PM but Kamaraj refused as he knew his limits. He was a Tamilian leader. His Hindi, as well as English, were extremely poor. Thus he could not become Priministorial face.

D P Mishra with other Cms went to meet Kamaraj, there they offered that they were willing to support Kamaraj if he would not contest then they asked him to support Indira. He agreed to support Indira Gandhi.

This infuriated Morarji Desai. His claim was that he was more experienced and was a better administrator. Kamaraj tried to convince him to take back his nomination, even after series of dioalogues between both Morarji desai was determined for an election.

Why Kamaraj was trying to avoid election if Indira had majority support?

Except for CM of Gujrat and UP(First female CM Sucheta Kripalani) all others were in support of Indira. At that time Anti defection laws and WHIP were non-existent. Thus each election(even though internal) was a threat to the stability of Gov.

Still, elections were held. All MPs of congress voted to choose their leader in parliament (leader of the majority party is PM).

A reporter from outside the parliament asked "ladka hei ya ladki/ is it a boy or a girl" . To this answer came from inside "ladki/Girl". Thus Indira Gandhi became the first female PM of India and 2nd Female PM in the world.

INDIRA RISE TO POWER

From Mitrokhin Archives vol II Chapter 17& 18 : Special Relationship with India clearly states KGBs involvement in Indira Gandhi's rise to power. Its a lengthy document thus I will not explain every thing. All facts about KGB which I will state are taken from Mitrokhin Archives which are available on the internet. Curious readers may verify the facts.

Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (Russian: Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 after providing the British embassy in Riga with a vast collection of KGB files, which became known as the Mitrokhin Archive.

Indira was like Ivanka Trump for Nehru. She hosted all foreign dignitaries, she also visited other countries on diplomatic missions.

1st visit to the Soviet Union: Indira in her letter to Nehru describes her visit to Russa as one of the best experiences of her life. She tells how she was treated like a princess as if she was their own daughter. Since then only KGB started planting their agents around her. She wasn't the only one though. Russians always tried to gain influence over anyone who was or can be( in future) in power. Thus Indira was just one of them who was on KGBs target.

2nd visit to the Soviet Union: This time she went there with Nehru. This visit was not very eventful but this time she received a very expensive coat which would become her favourite and she could be seen wearing it many of her photos. One female diplomat of India was expelled by Indira for receiving a similar coat.

The coat mentioned is worn by Indira Gandhi in this picture(London)

She becoming the PM for the first time had no contribution from KGB. It was purely due to D P Mishra and Kamaraj, but things were going to change soon. Even at this point, her closed advisers were on KGB's payroll.

PROBLEMS FACED BY INDIRA GANDHI

She became the PM just after a war. If you remember the last chapter India was facing severe food and economic crisis. Indira Gandhi never had the experience of administration like Nehru. This could be seen in congress meetings and inside parliament. She was afraid to speak. Even if she tried to speak harsh opposition would bring her down. This lead to her getting the name of " GUNGI GUDIYA".

At that time India imported most of its grains from the USA. US gave poor quality of grains and always made India realise that they are doing a favour. India was devastated after two consecutive wars in 1962 and 1965. To worsen the situation India also faced droughts in many parts of the country.

Indira Gandhi went to the USA to ask for more aid. Then-president Johnson forced Indira Gandhi to devaluate rupee from ~4 to ~7 in comparison to US$. People were starving in India and Indira had no options. Opposition cracked down on Indira and she being new in politics could not defend herself.

Things were about to change as KGB was strengthening its ties with Indira Gandhi.

Earlier also KGB had deep ties with major Indian politicians like Menon. V. Krishna Menon, as defence minister, was persuaded to buy Soviet MiGs and not British Lightning. His election campaigns in 1962 and 1967 were funded by the KGB.

RAW: Research and Analysis Wing

Until 1968, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is responsible for India’s internal intelligence, also handled external intelligence. But after India’s miserable performance in a 1962 border war with China, the need for a separate external intelligence agency was clear. As a result, India established a dedicated external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. Founded mainly to focus on China and Pakistan, over the last forty years the organization has expanded its mandate and is credited with greatly increasing India’s influence abroad.

KGB was active during the formation period of RAW and thus successfully infiltrated it. IB was already infiltrated by this time. KGB's arsenal was full of different kind of tactics, but in India, it relied on mainly two policies: 1). Honey trap & 2). bribery.

Second step after infiltration is growth. This is not as difficult as infiltration. Infiltrators start recruiting other agents and growth continues. This is why India still has scars given by KGB. RAW and IB were not the only institutions. From universities to Civil services all institution in India during the 70s were infiltrated and transformed. By 1978, the KGB was running over 30 agents in India, 10 of whom were Indian intelligence officers.

RAW and IB were the first agencies to recover after 1991 as they don't have a public structure and recruiting procedure. This also led to covert murders of domestic politicians, diplomats and officers in the 1990s by these agencies. Armed forces followed next. Mostly public institution like universities and media houses have not recovered till date, as any attempt to alter them is encountered by mass-scale protests, eg JNU. I will talk in detail about recovery in Chapter 4.

ELECTIONS OF 1967

Relationship between Indira and Kamaraj has started to get soured by this time, but Kamaraj needed Indira as the face of Congress to win the elections. Her candidates were not even given a ticket by Congress. All possible measures were taken to weaken her.

Congress was not in a comfortable position. Left was the major opposition at that time, it was behaving in a typical communist manner. Congress rallies frequently saw violence. Indira Gandhi was injured by stone-pelting.

Homi J Bhabha

Congress victory was marginal. The internal tussle began between Indira and Morarji Desai. Finally, they agreed on Indira as PM, Morarji as deputy-PM as well as finance minister.

Meanwhile, the KGB claimed, doubtless optimistically, that it was able to influence 30 to 40 per cent of the new parliament. Congress had lost 21 per cent of its seats.

SPLIT IN CONGRESS

Still, conflict continued inside congress. The presidential election became very important as it became a means to display power. Syndicate wanted Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy as president but Indira wanted Varahagiri Venkata Giri.

While voting in the cabinet all voted for N S Reddy as congress's presidential candidate except Indira Gandhi. In response, Indira removed Morarji as finance minister. Desai angry from this decision resigned from deputy PM and the cabinet.

This was a masterstroke by Indira which syndicate and others could not predict. This would also show that Indira's new political wit. As she had the finance ministry, in that period she nationalised 14 major banks of India.

Earlier banks were a place only extremely rich could go. Poor could not even think of it. After nationalisation bank branches were opened in every district across India. Poor can also open accounts, deposit money and take loans. Indira was also responsible for the promotion of the Green revolution. Though it was started by Shastri but was made a success by Indira Gandhi. The result had started to show effect on the ground. Thus Indira Gandhi became extremely popular on ground.

The syndicate had weakened by this time. Kamaraj himself lost elections. Syndicate comprised of leaders mainly from southern states of TN, AP, Karnataka,etc. These states were also lost to regional parties.

You may think where is KGB. It was always there in the background. Decisions were taken by her, but positive editorials flooded Indian newspaper, people were made aware of her actions, propagandas were carried out. All this groundwork was done and funded by KGB.

Kamaraj had made sure that N S Reddy won. He criticised Indira's move of nationalisation of the banks. As elections came near Kamaraj requested the opposition to fill N S Reddy as their second choice. V V Giri stood as an independent candidate(though everyone knew he was Indira's candidate).

Indira turned these two moves against Kamaraj. Just before elections, she alleged Kamaraj of allying with fascist powers. On this note, she appealed all MPs to vote according to their inner voice.

V V Giri won the election by just 1%, but victory is victory. Indira Gandhi had shown her power.

Again thinking of KGB. They are there in the background. There is no such thing as an inner voice in politics. Remember KGB's claim of influence 30 to 40 per cent of the new parliament members. Add CPI's percentage and Indira supporting MPs to it. You get 49.1%. This was the percentage by which V V Giri won. Readers can see the map to analyse rest of the story of support in states.

Disciplinary action was taken on Indira Gandhi for anti-party activities and she was expelled.

Congress was divided into two INC(O)- consisting of Syndicate and INC(R somewhere I)- Supporters of Indira Gandhi. As I said earlier Anti defection laws were non-existent. INC(R/I) proved their majority on the floor with the help of the left block. I think its too obvious to explain how KGB is involved here.

After a year India Gandhi announced General Elections. KGB funded Indira's campaign. INC(R/I).

At the elections of February 1971, Mrs. Gandhi won a landslide victory. With seventy seats more than the undivided Congress had won in 1967, her Congress (R) had a two-thirds majority. The Congress Forum for Socialist Action had the support of about 100 MPs in the new parliament. Mrs. Gandhi made its most vocal spokesman, the former Communist Mohan Kumaramangalam, Minister of Mines; one of his first acts was the nationalization of the coal industry. Kumaramangalam seemed to be implementing a 'thesis' which he had first argued in 1964: that since the CPI could not win power by itself, as many of its members and sympathizers as possible should join the Congress, make common cause with 'progressive' Congressmen and compel the party leadership to implement socialist policies.

BANGLADESH CRISIS

Today what we know as Bangladesh was earlier known as East Pakistan. Pakistan on both sides of India was a strategic disaster as it opened 2 fronts in any war with Pakistan. But West Pakistan's atrocities on Bengali people ultimately led to their divide. East Pakistan dominated by Punjabis deemed themselves as superior. They spoke URDU and tried to impose them on East Pakistanis. Their military committed horrible crimes of loot & rapes in East Pakistan.

The world was informed about this genocide by Pakistani journalist Neville Anthony Mascarenhas. who As a matter of fact he is the only reporter who reported that Pakistan has developed nuclear weapons. On 13 June 1971, his article in the UK's Sunday Times exposed the brutality of Pakistan's suppression of the Bangladeshi uprising. It forced the reporter's family into hiding and changed history. Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed, but certainly, a huge number of people lost their lives. Independent researchers think that between 300,000 and 500,000 died. The Bangladesh government puts the figure at three million.

Mukti Bahini

Though the world came to know about the events in June 1971, India knew and was preparing for it for a long time. This was not the India of 1965. RAW was in existence and was very active. It trained, funded and gave weapons to Bengali Liberation forces. Gen JFR Jacob was given the task to train them. Mukti Bahini developed into a feared guerilla force. They also gathered strategic military intelligence.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman aka Mujib led the Awami League to win the first democratic election of Pakistan in 1970. Despite gaining a majority, the League was not invited by the ruling military junta to form a government. As civil disobedience erupted across East Pakistan, Mujib indirectly announced the independence of Bangladesh during a landmark speech on 7 March 1971. On 26 March 1971, the Pakistan Army responded to the mass protests with Operation Searchlight, in which Prime Minister-elect Mujib was arrested and flown to solitary confinement in West Pakistan, while Bengali civilians, students, intellectuals, politicians and military defectors were murdered as part of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide.

In August 1971 Mrs. Gandhi signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation with the Soviet Union, According to the Permanent Secretary at the Indian Foreign Office, T.N. Kaul, it was one of the few closely guarded secret negotiations that India has ever conducted. On (the Indian) side, hardly half a dozen people were aware of it, including the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. The media got no scent of it. The Soviet Union seemed to be guaranteed the support of the leading power in the Non-Aligned Movement. Both countries immediately issued a joint communiqué calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. India was able to rely on Soviet arms supplies and diplomatic support in the conflict against Pakistan.

Indira Gandhi also toured the western world to present Indian stance. India's diplomatic position was very weak at that time. USA promised to give financial assistance for refugees but Mrs Gandhi took a tough stance exposing USA's hypocrisy. Israel at that time agreed for military assistance.

INDO-PAK WAR OF 1971

As Operation Searchlight came into effect, refugees came to India in millions. This was huge pressure on our economy. Indira Gandhi wanted immediate military action. To this First Fieldmarshal, Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw told Indira Gandhi " It will take me 1 month to bring all troops in position. After that monsoon comes and it doesn't rains but pours in Bangladesh, the river become the sea. I can guarantee you defeat if we attack now". This made Mrs Gandhi infuriated. Some of Indira's close advisors had warned that Sam Manekshaw could do a military coup. Still, Mrs Gandhi believed and respected him.

She asked Maneksaw how much time is needed, to which he replied 4 months.

India was ready for war and when on 3 December 1971, after Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes on North India. India was waiting for this moment. Though in 1965 navy and airforce were used, but their use was limited. Nany was not allowed to leave Indian territorial waters.

In contrast, all thee forces were used to the full extent in 1971, as there was strong leadership of Indira Gandhi and backing of USSR. India had advanced weapons. After PNS Ghazi was sunken by INS Rajput at Vishakhapatnam Navel base, INS Vikrant had no match. INSA Vikrant strike group was capable for a complete blockade of Bay of Bengal. Indian submarines and destroyers attacked Karachi. The Karachi port was reported to burn up till 3 days. Indian army along with Mukti Bahini easily marched towards Dhaka. Indian Airforce blocked complete airspace for Pakistan. This complete operation was named OPERATION TRIDENT.

USA ENTERS THE WAR.

To save Pakistan US 7th pacific fleet entered the Indian ocean. As they entered Bay of Bengal Russian Submarines surfaced for just enough time that their presence was detected. Now the battle was on the international stage. Russian naval battle groups were present in the Indian ocean. Russia's defence minister was in India during the complete course of the war. USA was in no position to take on USSR. Thus USA was forced out of the battle.

India recognised the gov of Bangladesh in exile to strengthen their stance.

India was desperate for surrender before ceasefire because if that wouldn't happen the complete war would be useless. India started deploying cardboard cutouts with parachutes shaped as soldiers. This was to give a false sense of Indian soldiers around Dhaka. General Niazi was scared when the governers house was bombed by India at the when a high-level meeting was going inside it. Gen JFR Jacob went in to enforce surrender. He threatened Niazi that Mukti Bahini would leave no one( women/children/etc) but if they surrendered now then Indian army would take full responsibility of their safety. Niazi agreed and we saw largest Public surrender of history.

This is the historic photo of Niazi signing the instrument of surrender. On ALL INDIA RADIO, it was announced that Dhaka was a free country of a free nation. India declared a unilateral ceasefire. Pakistan also declared ceasefire under international pressure. Thus India had its first true victory in a war.
This is a dramatic representation of this historic surrender if someone is interested https://youtu.be/6bGdIAf2J_k

Chapter: 3(B) will mostly contain negative aspects of Mrs Gandhi as her bias for family and heavy Soviet influence will lead to a very dark period when democracy was brutally murdered.

No matter what she did after 1971. Till 1971, in fact, till 1974 she was one of the best PMs to ever come. I am personally inspired by her. The way she against all odds gained power. She was one of the finest statesmen India will ever have.

Due to the length of Chapter its divided into two parts. It will be online by 4/4/2020.

CHAPTER 2: Inferno( Bose & Nehru)

2020-03-21T04:53:00.003+05:30

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

"मरे हुओं की जासूसी नहीं की जाती"

The dead are not spied

PART I-BOSE:

Subhas Chandra Bose who died/went missing on 18 August 1945, but he was going to affect the fate of India for the next two decades. In the last chapter, I have explained his role in independence but this chapter is focused on the aftermath of Bose's death/escape.

Did Netaji die in a plane crash in 1945?

Ans: NO.

From the 64 files declassified by West Bengal Gov on Sep 18, 2018, and 75 files declassified by the center in batches, along with circumstantial evidence prove that Netaji did not die on 18 august 1945.

I'm not going to throw pages of documents. Instead, I will just present the facts Pointwise. If someone is interested all documents are available on the site of national Archives http://nationalarchives.nic.in/content/netaji-papers as well as on http://www.netajipapers.gov.in/

DEATH CERTIFICATE

The death certificate presented to GoI has the name Okara Ichiro. The Japanese never gave a certificate with Name as Subhas Chandra Bose. Colonel Habibur Rehman Khan who was with him on the so-called last flight advocates for his death. He tells Netaji came out of the plane covered in fire, they tried to cover him and extinguish the fire but were unsuccessful. Later he(Bose) died in hospital.

The flaw in Rehman's claim is that why he himself had no burnt marks. Let's assume he was lucky and was out of the aircraft unburnt but if he tried to save Bose he must have burn marks at least on his hands. He was loyal to Bose and was probably following his orders. Other INA officers were also interrogated. After questioning each story had slight differences but all ended the same way, "Netaji died due to his burns in hospital".

I leave the interpretation for readers. It's pretty obvious though, and therefore both the British as well as Indian officials were convinced that bose was not dead. Note they had evidence that he didn't die in a plane crash but they didn't have evidence that he was alive. Since then he has become Schrodinger's Bose.(Bad joke I know).

Thus we had both British and Indian intelligence looking for him.

After Rahman was released, he was questioned at length by Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Bose's elder brother Sarat Bose, the man he knew his brother more than anyone else. While Gandhiji made a public statement that Rahman convinced him about the veracity of the Taiwan death theory, his private statements showed otherwise. In fact, a letter written in July 1946 on his behalf to an eminent American stated his belief that Bose was in Soviet Russia.

In a letter written in July 1946 to American journalist and Gandhi's biographer Louis Fischer on Gandhi's behalf by his secretary Khurshed Naoroji. "If Bose comes with the help of Russia neither Gandhiji nor the Congress will be able to reason with the country"

The declassified accounts reveal Gandhiji had apparently spoken in the presence of the Journalists saying that, Habib is merely carrying out the leader’s orders – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
” I do not believe that Subhas died in any air crash,” Gandhi had mentioned.
Gandhi also told Subhash Chandra Bose's family not to perform any funeral.

So, on paper and in public every one accepted the plane crash story but everyone knew Bose was not dead.

Espionage by India as well as British.

Two declassified Intelligence Bureau (IB) files have revealed that the Jawaharlal Nehru government spied on the kin of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades. British Intelligence also had a miserable time searching for bose.

Did they find any evidence of his existence?

Ans: As a matter of fact, nothing concrete.

Thus we know what didn't happen on 18 August. but we know nothing about what happened on or after 18 Aug 1945.

In this series, I'm writing only facts but ill take the liberty to at least discuss the probable conspiracies surrounding Bose.

I personally believe this, I can't state anything, but all intelligence reports, declassified documents and self-analysis lead to this conclusion.

Most probably he went to Manchuria and from there went to Russia. According to this claim, rather allegation, Bose was compelled to seek asylum in Soviet Russia over charges of war crimes and the machinations of Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon.

Nehru and Bose were not enemies. They respected each other. In fact, INA has a wing called Nehru Brigade. The problem was both were extremely ambitious and after India was independent their relation soured on who will rule the country.

Bose had a much larger stature than Nehru. If he would have come to India, unarguably he would have been the prime minister. Nehru knew this. Bose, on the other hand, feared Nehru as he may influence the international committees to put WAR CRIMES on Bose. Remember the trials on INA leaders in the previous chapter. Just imagine those with Bose in the picture.

Stalin used this situation to his advantage. Krishna Menon categorically asserted in favour of Nehru and urged Stalin not to divulge the information since Nehru was about to become prime minister. He assured Stalin that Nehru would follow a strict pro-Soviet policy.

Hence Stalin kept Bose as a prisoner. He used Bose as a means to bargain and enforce soviet interests in India. Ever wondered how CPI and Socialist Party gained so many seats in the first election. This means they had funding from some foreign source. If they had foreign funds someone in GoI was allowing it. I believe the readers are intelligent enough to analyse the complete situation. I cant conclude because it can lead to legal action on me under Defamatory laws.

Swetlana Alliluyeva the only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has died in the US, aged 85. In 1967 she travelled to India to scatter the ashes of her Indian Communist lover in the river Ganges. During that visit, she defected to the US causing a political sensation.

Swetlana Alliluyeva said in Delhi that Netaji was in Siberia’s yarkutaskjail. She also gave barrack (Cell) No.45 of the gulag in Siberia. This statement of her was published at that time in the Indian newspapers.

"Netaji’s was detained in a VIP Camp- in Cell No. 45 of Irkutsk Gulag near Baikul Lake and Ural Mountains. Indian Revolutionary Abani Mukherjee was kept in Cell No. 53 in the same camp."

-Declassified documents of Mamta Banerjee’s West Bengal Government.

The same cell number by Stalin's Daughter in 1967 and files of WB Gov in 2018 cannot be just a coincidence.

Later Bose was gassed and died around 1968 in Russia.

These are extremely conclusive and rational evidence to this Claim.

Till 2014 the GoI didn't declassify these documents on the grounds of National Security and disruption in International relations in modern times. Even many files were destroyed on purpose. They(Gov at that time) are correct, let me explain why.

Government machinery runs on trust of people. Such a state-sponsored conspiracy would destroy that trust. This can crumble the whole governance system.
People will lose faith in many political parties which will lead to a political crisis.
Especially in the State of West Bengal and parts of the country affected by Naxalism can have a Civil War like situation. I can't explain why (due to legal obligations) but I believe you are smart enough. Still, you know Naxals and some extreme left-wing parties are still funded by foreign sources to disturb the nation's stability and promote communist propaganda. These disclosers would threaten their(extreme left organizations) very existence on an ideological level and they will have a desperate attempt to prevent that from happening.
All this disruption for the truth of Netaji is not worth it in modern times. As they say, Truth is a privilege.

Current Gov has disclosed many documents but not all. Just enough to give the hint of truth.

some claims are also made that he lived in china and dies there.
some claims are made that he returned to India and lived as Gumnami Baba.

I personally don't believe the two as they don't answer the rational reasoning and political scenario of that time. They also lack any evidence. Even the Justice Sahai Commission clarifies in its findings that Gumnami Baba was not Netaji, but his follower.

*This is a controversial topic. I respect opposing views. I welcome any rational debate in comment section if the reader has opposing views.

What happened to the INA gold then?

ANS: Solen! and we had our first and probably the biggest financial scam of modern India.

INA GOLD:

So Nehru became the PM , Stalin successfully infiltrated India by communist parties, but why did the Japanese help in the conspiracy. I mean they were allied to Bose the why did they betray him. Answer- GOLD.

With the defeat of the Japanese empire and dissolution of the INA, Bose packed the treasury - over 80 kg of gold estimated at Rs 1 crore in 1945 - into the boxes that he carried into an aircraft flying to Manchuria.File No 25/4/NGO-Vol III in the Ministry of External Affairs, one of 100 'Netaji files', records in great detail the only inspection of the 11-kg remnants of the INA treasure, since it had been brought to New Delhi from Japan in 1952.

Nehru knew about the missing gold but he did nothing. The sources were unauthorised so I won't quote but they claimed that Nehru as well as Mountbatten, both were given huge sums of money to let the gold go.

On May 21, 1951, Tokyo Mission head K K Chettur wrote to com ..

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50859255.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

On May 21, 1951, Tokyo Mission head K K Chettur wrote to com ..

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50859255.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Bose “must have carried very much more than has now been handed over to us [by Murti and Ayer], and even if allowances are made for the loss of the part of the treasures when the plane crashed,” Tokyo Mission Head, KK Chettur reported.

On May 21, 1951, Tokyo Mission head K K Chettur wrote to com ..

Government officials suspected two ex-aides of Netaji Subhash Bose. On 21 May 1951, Tokyo Mission head KK Chettur wrote to the commonwealth relations secretary B N Chakravarty raising suspicions about two key Bose aides, propaganda minister SA Ayer and head of the Indian Independence League in Tokyo, Munga Ramamurti. Even after this Nehru welcomed Ayer by appointing him, in 1953, as an advisor for the publicity of his flagship five-year plans. Ramamurti, on the other hand, flourished in Japan for a little while longer.

I didn't find any documents revealing the truth, but connecting all the dots it's for sure Ayer and Ramamurti who managed INA's treasure, later in absence of Bose and defeat of INA looted the treasure and gave huge bribes to Nehru, Mountbatten as well as Japanese officials for not investigating in the treasury controversy.

If someone wants to dig deeper in INA treasury controversy he can read the book ‘India’s biggest cover-up' by author Anuj Dhar.

PART II- NEHRU:

Leaving apart his controversies and scams, I have talked too much on it. In this part, I will focus on him only as of the first PM of India. He was a great leader. After independence, he gave India the image of a peace-loving country in the world, but he was the worst strategist. His foreign policies were a total disaster. Nehru didn't have the ability to take bold decisions, let me tell why.

Nehru and the UN

Nehru believed too much on UN. He was an ambitious world leader probably seeking for a Nobel peace prize. He wanted India to be the leader of the third world. Thus he lead the non-aligned block.

Kashmir was just the starting of the mess he was going to create due to his devote belief on UN.

Nehru believed in Gandhian ideology, too ideal thus impractical. He believed that excessive expenditure on the army was unnecessary. He believed that India will maintain good relations with all its neighbours, still if any invasion occurs UN peacekeeping forces would protect India.

To show his goodwill towards neighbouring states he made a number of strategic disasters.

Gave few strategically important Coco Islands in the Bay of Bengal to Burma(now Myanmar) as a gift. Later Myanmar will give these islands to china which China would use them as a part of its String of Perls{detail in CHAPTER 6}.
Gave away the Permanent Membership of UN security council when it was offered informally by USA through Indian Ambassador. He said India should not get involved in the hazardous COLD WAR and replied China is a bigger nation so they should have it.
"Hindu-Chini bhai bhai", India was extremely(foolishly) nice towards china. Under his foreign policies, India was not acting as a state but as a high moral Child.
Silent support of the Chinese annexation of Tibet.
Panchsheel Pact

A series of events and ultimately the Chinese Invasion of 1962 would open his eyes that UN was not a picture-perfect body but a tool for USA to exert its soft power.

Nehru's Domestic Policies

Though flawed foreign policies, his domestic policies were pretty remarkable. Nehru was deeply inspired by the Russian Revolution. Thus many of our policies were similar to soviet. One can argue that this was due to Stalin's pressure(explained in partI), but he never resisted much.

Most iconic being a closed Economy to protect our local businesses, state run-heavy industries(PSUs) and 5 Year Plans.

I advocate for Center-Right economical model today, but after independence, the socialist model was undoubtedly the best model. If we had an open market from the beginning then India would have been a neo-colonial country ruled by an oligarchy and foreign corporates. For example like the states of Latin America.

A closed economy with centralised planning gave Indian businesses time to grow and mature. The PSUs gave jobs to a lot of people and fulfilled our needs of metals, power and coal.

First two 5 Year plans were focused on industrial development and were successful, like the formation of SAIL.

We also saw creation of Technical Institution like our IITs. Originally IITs were created to fulfil the need for technical workers and develop countries technological research.

The subsidised "Ration" and ultimately increasing the food security were one of his greatest achievements.

Nehru and The Indian Army

As I told earlier Nehru was never in favour of having a large army. He underfunded defence. In the field of defence, Nehru was basically following the advice of the second most powerful man of India, V. K. Menon. He was the defence minister of India.

At that time the officers were still the British Indian officials. The generals didn't cooperate and were always pulling each other's legs. Their promotions were based on the relation with the administration rather than merit. Menon transformed the whole system and reorganised the military. Still, that happened later.

Still, a weak military was a blessing in disguise. We all brag that all our neighbouring countries had military coup and India never had one. Ever wondered why?

A weak military for around a decade gave our civil government time to mature, strengthen and gain experience of governance. A restructuring of the army was possible because it didn't had the ability to resist. After 10 years when the gov finally started empowering the armed forces, the structure was restructured and the new officers were not the British ones but Indian Trained officers from the NDA. They were trained to cooperate and respect their superiors in a merit-based system.

Still, the major difference was these officers respected the civil government and had a very strong sense of nationalism and patriotism.

This phenomenon can be seen throughout the world.

USA. When USA gained independence it didn't had a very strong military. They gained independence with aid from the French. It was after the American Civil War that US military especially navy grew strong.
France. After the french revolution, the military was still strong. Thus after the 2-year reign of terror, Napoléon was able to acquire power. After the defeat of Napoléon, the French army was purposefully weakened. Thus the civil government had time to mature. Later France became the greatest military power but still, the army always worked under the government.

These were the two opposite examples, but one can verify by looking on Russia and many other Latin American states. If any state had a strong military after independence it resulted in a coup or dictatorship.

What I am trying to explain that a strong military is a double-edged sword. It protects the country but if mishandled it can destroy the country. Personifying the situation: you don't give a child a sword until he is matured enough to handle it or he will hurt himself. Same can be applied to nations. A new civil government is unstable, it becomes stable with time. The military generals or any powerful person can use this vulnerability of new unstable governments to establish a dictatorship.

FORMATION OF MODERN STATES

The two maps show the change after the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Various reports submitted suggested that Linguistic states were not a good idea for a new nation, because it threatened the integrity of India as a state. Not being a racist, but most of the demand for separation on the basis of language come from southern India, which are often violent. Same happened in 1950s.

Especially the state of madras had violent conflicts between Tamils and Telugus. They created a civil war-like situation in the country. Nehru Gov finally agreed for the formation of linguistic states if:

They protected other languages in that state.
Ease the governance and are economically viable.
Do not threaten the integrity of India.

Government still didn't accept all the demands. Like that of Gujrat and Punjab. Gujrat and Maharashtra had a conflict on Bombay. Bombay was in Maharashtra but was dominated by Sindhi and Gujrati businessmen. GoI proposed to make Bombay a UT, but after violent student protests finally, both the states were separated. For Punjab Gov was worried of Sikh militancy of khalistan{In detail Chapter3(next)}

GOA

Today we know Goa as a fun place but in its annexation was the most dangerous. As you all know Goa was a Portuguese territory. At that time Portugal was under the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

The problem was Salazar considered Goa not as a colony but as Portuguese territory. Thus an attack on Goa meant attack on Portugal. Portugal was a NATO member (Attack on one means attack on all). He was in no mood to leave Goa. He increased forces in Goa, any protest was crushed and forceful religious conversions were carried out.

Thus India was afraid to carry out any military action. To increase pressure India sealed the border with Goa cutting all the essential supplies. This created havoc in Goa but had no effect on Salazar's determination.

Let's track everything from the beginning. Ram Manohar Lohia launched a satyagraha on 18 June 1946. He was arrested and expelled, but the spark was created. A series of satyagraha took place both inside as well as outside Goa. Any Satyarah inside Goa was put down by force sometimes even firing at the crowds. On 2nd may 1954 Lata Mangeshkar had a concert in Pune, the funds collected were used to buy ammunitions for the Indian army to fight Portuguese . 13 Jun 1955 Jansangh intervened. They organised a series of satyagraha in India and finally marched into Goa via boats. They all were arrested and tortured. Following this on 15 Aug 1955 around 8000 satyagrahis tried to enter Goa, Portuguese open fired killing 32 satyagrahis. Next 6 years passed in tension. This period also saw militancy in Goa against the Portuguese government.

FINAL BLOW

While Jawaharlal Nehru advised the U.S., the then Soviet Union, and other big powers to abjure force and work towards disarmament, he was himself faced with a dilemma in 1961: whether or not to use force to liberate Goa.

In Nov 1961 Portuguese shot down an Indian vessel killing few fishermen. This changed India's stance on military action. V K Menon convinced Nehru to launch a military operation known as Operation Vijay.
Though advised by American President John F. Kennedy, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and UN Secretary-General U Thant to postpone action, Nehru made up his mind.

On 17 Dec 1961 Indian army invaded Goa from three sides. In just 48 hours Goa was free. As Indian troops advanced deep in Goan territory people welcomed with joy and crowed around them to celebrate.

Wondering why NATO didn't attack?

One word answer the Soviet Union.

Goa was not worth it for NATO to enter a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union.

CHINESE INVASION 1962

Panchsheel Pact or Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence are a series of principles that have formed the basis of the relationship between India and China.

This pact was going to become meaningless by a War, started off due to a Highway.

The only but humiliating defeat for India. This defeat was actually a failure of India's intelligence.

Everything started with China building a highway 219 (G219) through Aksai Chin. Indian intelligence were so incompetent that India was unaware of this road for 2 years.

After identifying the Highway Nehru raised serious objection to the Chinese Government.
In 1960, Zhou Enlai proposed that India drop its claim to Aksai Chin and China would withdraw its claims from NEFA(now Arunachal Pradesh). Nehru denied. Tensions continued for two years.

Nehru on the advice of IB adopted "Forward Policy". I.e. aggressive stance and cross border patrolling. Then the Chinese government took this policy as an act of aggression and anticipated it as a probable annexation of Tibet by India, as India gave refuge to Tibet's spiritual leader Dalai Lama. Finally, on October 20, 1962, China attacked India on both Aksai Chin and NEFA. India was not prepared were as the Chinese had planned the invasion for months. They had huge amounts of ammunition, Ak47s from Russia and a good supply line. Indian soldiers didn't even have high altitude gear like Warm clothes, Shoes, Goggles etc. Indian soldiers were fighting with wooden rifles with no high altitude equipment.

Chinese occupied both Aksai Chin and came 60km inside Indian territory in NE. Neighbouring to many Assamese villages near the Brahmaputra within 4 days followed by a 3-week ceasefire of unsuccessful negotiation as it had humiliating terms for India. War broke out again on 14 Nov.

Honorary mention of Battle of Rezang La

This is a pass in Ladakh near an Indian airstrip Chinese wanted to capture. Here 123 brave men of 13th Kumaon Regiment led by Major Shaitan Singh(Param Veer Chakra) killed around 1000 Chinese soldiers defending their posts at around 17000ft without proper equipment. 114 men were martyred and their bodies were found after a year at same location buried under snow.

Nehru asked USA's assistance. USA was busy in Cuban Missile crisis at that time thus immediate help could not arrive but they were planning to send their airforce . China analysing the situation itself declared a ceasefire. They didn't want to engage with US because their objectives were achieved.

They had Aksai Chin as well as they had established their dominance in the region. They left NEFA(Arunachal Pradesh) and went back to McMahon line.

Why this was a failure of Indian intelligence.

India never used it's superior airforce as they thought China would use it's airforce and destroy Indian cities. China didn't have a sizable airforce at that point whereas India had British aircraft left after WWII in good condition.
IB was also not able to predict the attack and know their preparedness.

Nehru's stature after this attack was destroyed both domestically and Internationally. India's weaknesses and flaws were also exposed.

It still had some positive side.

India started building its military complex. Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report was submitted to the GoI which explained India's mistakes in great detail and remains classified till date. The USA developed a soft corner for India, thus the relationship improved which had soured after the annexation of Goa.

PART III- INDIA AFTER NEHRU

Gulzarilal Nanda was made the caretaker immediately after the death of Nehru. We all know the Prime ministers of India. I.e. we know the Kings, nothing bad everyone remembers the name of the kings what we don't remember are the names of kingmakers.

After Nehru's death the kingmaker of India for nearly 20 years was going to be K. Kamaraj.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was not even in the race. Morarji Desai was leading. It was Kamaraj who had decided even before Nehru's death that Shastri was going to be the next PM. After Nehru's death, Kamaraj's Syndicate made all the important decisions. He made sure that Morarji Desai was not the PM, he influenced other leaders and got Shastri as the 2nd PM of India.

Shastri came from a very poor family. His daughter died due to lack of medicine as Shastri could not afford it. Even after becoming the PM he bought one car on loan.

My next statement may lead to backlash but it is a harsh truth. Shastri was not a very strong leader. Kamaraj made him PM so that he can control him. Kamaraj had put the Congress party above PMO. The syndicate controlled all the important decisions. Shastri was not even able to defend Teenmurti Bhawan as official residence of PM of India. Frustrated he remarked " मैं अब तीन मूर्ति भवन की तरफ देखूंगा तक नहीं".
PAK while this time had strengthened both its military and relation with the USA. PAK annexed parts of Rann of Kutch. Due to international pressure India had to agree to give that territory to Pakistan. This raised serious questions on Shastri's administration.

This was the time when Nehru's sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit made the famous remarked that PM and his colleagues have become prisoners of indecision.
I know now you might be wondering why do we praise Shastri then. The answer is the Indo-Pak war of 1965.

INDO-PAKISTAN WAR 1965

Pak army at that time was much superior to the Indian army due to American aids.Their analysis was:

The Indian army was inferior
it had just lost a war to china
India was facing food shortage
they had the backing of USA
Shastri was a weak leader

All other points were correct except for the last one.
They attacked the Chamb sector of J&K. This was a vulnerable point and could cutoff J&K from India. They were advancing with heavy artillery and the Indian army was not able to resist. Then Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan without consulting the cabinet ordered the use of Airforce. This meant an escalation of war but was decisive to save J&K or else we would have lost Kashmir then only.

Pakistan was still advancing in Kashmir. This was the point when Lal Bahadur Shastri took the bold and historic decision that was going to change the course of the war. Shastri ordered the Army to open the international border and open multiple fronts. This would either lead to victory or total destruction. For the first time, India used all its wings of Navy, Army and Airforce and captured large territories of Pakistan.

"jai jawan jai kisan slogan", we were not winning due to the superior training, tactics or weaponry. We were able to face much superior Pak Army only on basis of willpower, High moral and Bold decisions. We were near Sialkot. On 12 September 1965 Indian army reached Lahore, though they didn't advance much in the city but they had gained the control on Shastri's order.

UN intervened when Pakistan was losing. India also had to stop advancing due to international pressure. A ceasefire was declared and leaders from both nations went to Tashkentfor peace talks.

This is why we praise Shastri today. He won a war against a superior army with international support at a time when India was suffering from food shortage and economic crisis with no allies.

I would cover Tashkent Declaration in next Chapter as its results and Shastri's death would take India into the cold war.

CHAPTER 3: INTO THE COLD WAR

CHAPTER 1: Independence

2020-03-15T04:12:00.002+05:30

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

PART-I :Freedom

"तुम मुझे खून दो मैं तुम्हे आज़ादी दूंगा "

Who gave India Independence?

People give credit to different people, mainly Gandhi and Bose. In my opinion, both must be credited for different reasons and both were necessary for the big picture. So I would just present the facts and give the reader the liberty to interpret. But last straw that broke the camel’s back was this newspaper.

Gandhi:

As per Britishers are concerned Gandhi was not much of a threat. He was not a good public speaker and faced serious problems in his initial days as an advocate in the Bombay High court. Thus his sudden success in South Africa and his magnificent return as a hero can raise suspicion.
It can't be argued, most of his movements had minimal impact on the Raj. I am not going into detail but curious minds can read CBSE class 10th History book: Nationalism in India.

Dialogue between British PM Attlee and West Bengal governor Justice PB Chakraborty sometime in 1956

"Toward the end of our discussion I(Justice Chakraborty) asked Attlee what was the extent of Gandhi's influence upon the British decision to leave India. Hearing this question, Attlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, 'm-i-n-i-m-a-l'."

Why the "Father of the nation" then?
Gandhi surely deserves this title.
We may argue on his efficiency and darker conspiracies but he brought the country together. India was truly a subcontinent, divided by language ethnicity religion and most importantly CASTE.
Before him, congress was just a body comprising of rich, educated and elite of that time. It was when Gandhi became The Mahatma, he brought everyone into the freedom struggle. He became the face of the independence movement. He was one of the first to break through the divide of the Indian caste system which was a very big deal at that time. He gave the principle of secularism. For the first time, rich-poor, Hindu-Muslim, brahmin-shudra all were together following the same man.

Thus he is the father of the nation because he transformed a messed up subcontinent into a country we know today as Akhand Bharat(Including Pakistan, Bangladesh).

BOSE:

Same dialogue between PM Attlee and Justice Chakraborty

"My direct question to Attlee was that since Gandhi's Quit India Movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they had to leave?"
"In his reply Attlee cited several reasons, the main among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British crown among the Indian Army and Navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji,"

INA backed by the axis powers was a feared force. The British were worried as INA has advanced into territories of modern-day Myanmar. Though Bose was never a supporter of democracy. He had war charges on him. Even though hypothetically if he would have returned, India under him would have been either a communist country or dictatorship.
Still, Axis powers lost and so did INA with them.

You may wonder what happened to leaders of INA then. INA had a lot of wealth mostly as gold donated by Indians all over south-east Asia. Bose faked his death and went to Russia via Manchuria. Allegedly he was kept in jail in Russia and later gassed by Stalin. Stalin's daughter claimed she had met Netaji in a Russian prison. The missing gold of INA was going to result in the first scam of India. I would talk about this in detail in Chapter 2: Inferno of this series.

So Gandhi wasn't much of a threat, Bose dead/alive but out of the picture, INA defeated. Then what made British leave. The answer is in the opening image.

Red Fort trials 1945-46

The mistake that gave India Independence

The British economy was devastated by the war and to India's luck, the Labour Party won the elections in the UK. Still, they were not determined to give India independence. To humiliate INA they organised trials to charge them of war crimes. To exaggerate the humiliation they chose to do the trails in public at Red Fort. After a long time, all groups and parties like INA and Muslim League came together to condemn these trials.

Though Bose was missing, he had created a spark in minds of the british-Indian soldiers. These trails were that wind that transformed the spark into an uncontrolled fire.

Its a fact that British could not control India without Indian solders. These trials infuriated all Indian solders and resulted in a total strike and subsequent revolt by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay harbour on 18 February 1946. The mutiny spread to other navel bases and then to army and airforce. This was the event British feared the most.

It's fascinating our freedom struggle started with a sepoy mutiny in 1857 and ended by a navel mutiny in 1946.

The difference between 1857 and 1946 was that in 1857 there was no leadership. Common people were not involved or didn't care and all the participating kings were fighting for their kingdoms, for example, most glorified Rani Laxmi Bai for protecting the kingdom of Jhansi not of India as a country.
In contrast, in 1946 each and every person was involved in the freedom struggle, both INA, as well as other political groups such as congress, had a well defined, experienced national leadership. INA though defeated had trained soldiers and enough contacts to acquire weapons. Adding British economy was devastated and they were tired of the WWII.

Thus Britishers were left with only two options
1). Leave India peacefully which they did.
2). Leave India with international humiliation after the bloodiest wars in the history of wars.

Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy, was told by the British prime minister, Clement Attlee, in March 1947 to negotiate an exit deal with Indian leaders by October; if he could not, Britain would leave India with no deal by June 1948. The decision to speed this up and leave on Aug. 15 was Lord Mountbatten's.
The reason for this haste to leave was because governing India was not a cheap thing and cost British millions of dollars in today's market. And thus on the stroke of midnight on the 15th of August 1947, India got its independence.

PART-II: Formation

British always exit in haste leaving chaos behind them whether its 1947 or EU-Brexit of 2020.

This haste to leave cost India millions of lives on both sides of the borders. I won't go much into why partition occurred or who was to be blamed as they are well-known facts now.

Radcliffe Massacre

As we know India was divided on a map by Cyril John Radcliffe. He simply marked the districts with Hindu majority in Indian territory and Muslim majority in Pakistani territory. A district with a population of 100.000 if 70% muslim went to pakistan, but 30,000 hindus are also a significant proportion to be sent to Pakistan . Thus millions of people were forced to migrate. Our newly formed country had to deal with widespread violence and income of millions of refugees. This event still leaves a scar on our country and the horror remains alive within those who have witnessed it.

Princely Tantrums

At the time of independence, the Princely states were free to join India, Pakistan or to remain independent. Out of 565 princely states during 1947, 13 princely states decided to join Pakistan.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who will later become the home minister of Indian Union used all the 4 neeties of Kautilya i.e. Saam, Daam, Dand & Bhed to merge the princely states with the Union.

Only 6 states decided to remain independent, namely Jodhpur, Bhopal, Travancore, Junagarh, Hyderabad & Kashmir. The first three did join the union at the time of independence. However, the last three princely states created problems. These were technically not part of India at the time of independence.

To be noted Pondichery, Lakshadweep, Andaman&Nicobar Islands, Sikkim, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa & Daman and Diu were also not part of Indian Union in 1947.

Junagarh:

Junagarh was a majority hindu state with a Muslim ruler who wanted to join pakistan. It was surrounded by India by all sides thus its merger was inevitable. People of Junagarh revolted and the supplies were cut by India. thus the maharaja fled with his gold to pakistan and Junagarh became a part of India on 15 September 1947.

Hyderabad:

Hyderabad also faced the same geographical problem to that of Junagarh. Operation Polo also known as Operation Caterpillar was launched by India. Indian forces face almost no resistance by the nizams army. It was over within 5 days 13 September 1948 – 18 September 1948 and Hyderabad became a part of India.

Kashmir:

Kashmir was a majority Muslim state ruled by a Hindu ruler. This was the inverse case of Junagarh. Thus India was forced to remain neutral as this would question its action on Junagarh. On 22 Oct 1947 Pakistan backed militants attacked Kashmir. After this attack then ruler of Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh asked India for help. India agreed to help only if Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession. Till this time Pak militants had reached near Shrinahar. Indian Forces were mobilised and the Shrinagarh Airport was taken under control. Indian army was advancing but in a controversial decision, Nehru took the matter to the UN. A ceasefire was established and a referendum was to be conducted after retrieval of forces from both sides. Forces were never taken back and thus referendum never took place.

Interestingly Article 370 was not yet proposed though in March 1948, Hari Singh made a proclamation by which his council of ministers were to convene a National Assembly based on adult franchise, to work out a new constitution for Jammu and Kashmir. The Instrument of Accession was signed without any condition. It would later be added by a Presidential Order.{In detail Chapter6}

Assassination of Gandhi

Gandhi was shot three bullets in the chest with a pistol from a close range by Nathuram Vinayak Godse on 30 January 1948. This lead to large scale outrage and banning of the RSS. One can argue that Gandhi would have had unprecedented powers in independent India and could have influenced the general elections. Many possibilities can be imagined with Gandhi alive in independent India but I would leave that for the readers' imagination.

Gandhi's death was brought great sorrow and was a blow to the morale of leaders at that time but on rational analysis, his role was not needed further for elections or drafting of the constitution. His principals of truth and non-violance were too ethical for a states policy and could have influenced the Union in a Negative way.

*above statement doest not support hideous act of Godse in any manner. These remarks are made by analysing various future outcomes in a hypothetical world.

There could be positive aspects also: like Gandhi believed in the dissolution of Congress and the formation of fresh parties which would give the 1st elections absolute fairness. But all new parties contesting could have lead to a weak government in the centre which would be devastating for a new country in a hostile world. There can be many pros and cons hence I leave the imagination for readers.

Interim Government and the Constituent Assembly

Immediately after the independence, an interim government was formed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Dr Sachchidananda Sinha was the first chairman (temporary) of Constituent Assembly. Later Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected as the president. A drafting committee was formed to frame the constitution with Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar as chairman. I am not going into detail as all the information in the public domain- SOURCE http://164.100.47.194/loksabha/constituent/facts.html.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, chairman of the Drafting Committee, presented the final draft of the Indian Constitution to Dr. Rajendra Prasad on 25 November 1949.On th 26th of november 1949 the constitution was adopted.

Note that the words "socialist, secular & integrity"are not part of the original Preamble. These words would be later added by the 42nd constitutional amendment during Emergency {In detail Chapter:3}. Dr Ambedker said that socialism could be the policy of any party but not of the State. For secular during the discussion in the constituent assembly, it was decided that India would remain secular and will have no state religion but the word would not be written in the constitution.

We celebrate Republic day on 26th January because it was the day in 1930 when Congress declared independence day/ Purna Swaraj Day in its Lahore session.

PART-III: First General Elections & the birth of Largest Democracy on the Planet

When India was formed as a Republic, all other nations believed that it cannot survive. Their comments were rational because as per their definition India was not a nation but a subcontinent.

CHALLENGES

The main challenge, conducting free and fair elections in a country with literacy rate just over 12%.The thousands of languages spoken in the country also hindered the election process.

The government at that time had to first register all the eligible voters in a population of 361,088,090. At that time the voting age was 21, not 18.

Apart from that many women due to orthodox thinking didn't give their names, instead gave as daughter/wife of so-n-so. Still, all women were allowed to vote. This showed how deeply India was committed to democracy and equality. In France, the pioneer of democratic rights French women were disenfranchised at all levels before 1944. Women could vote from 1945, but only if literate. Restrictions on women's suffrage were lifted in 1965 whereas Indian women got have equal voting rights since independence.

India was under British Raj for more than 200 years. Changing the mindset of the people that they are now their own rulers was one of the biggest challenges. The world remarked it as the greatest gamble. All our neighbouring states who gained independence with us failed to maintain democracy. India was the exception.

Sukumar Sen

Sukumar Sen was an Indian civil servant who was the first Chief Election Commissioner of India. He was the man who successfully conducted elections not only in center but all the states at that time.To solve the problem of widespread illiteracy the election commission with an idea of giving every party a symbol. These party symbols will become the distinct features of Indian elections. The whole process of election was carried out in 68 phases in two years.

Theatre halls at that time were booked and instead of cinema documentary about elections were being run. campaigning was done on a grand scale not just by political parties but the election commission also to increase awareness.

A large number of clerks were hired to count the votes as the voting was done using ballot boxes.

A large amount of steel was also used to make these ballot boxes.

RESULTS 1952

India has a first pass the pole system thus congress with only 44.99% votes secured 364seats. The next biggest party being Communist Party of India with 16 seats followed by Socialist Party with 12 seats. A total of 53 parties and 533 independents contested for the 489 seats in the election.

Thus after great difficulty and determined civil officers, the first general elections were conducted in the country and the first Elected government of independent India was formed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951%E2%80%9352_Indian_general_election

With this new government, we entered a new chapter of conflict and turmoil where India under Nehru tried to lead the third world and non-alignment movement and infant India entered a new era of uncontrolled dangerous events: CHAPTER 2: INFERNO.