The Iron Man of India

Sardar (1993)

Director: Ketan Mehta

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240879/

Sardar Vallabhai Patel is said to be the best Prime Minister India never had. Dubbed the Iron Man of India, a title given to him by Mountbatten, some believe he might have led India along a different path if he had been chosen as the first Prime Minister instead of Nehru.

It was 1946. World War II had just ended, leaving England to tend its wounds. It faced a huge bill to pay and had lost its dominance on the world stage. The sun had finally set on the British Empire. The Anglo-Saxon cousins across the Atlantic, the Americans, had come out on top, as shown by the Conference in Yalta. Managing the colonies had become an expensive undertaking. England had to cut its losses and relinquish control over the colonies. 

With that background, India had just formed its interim government. The Congress Party had recently won the elections. They were preparing to select the first Prime Minister of independent India. 

Maulana Azad, at that time, was the President of the Congress Party. He had been its leader since 1940. No elections were held since 1940 after the Party announced the 'Quit India' movement, and as a result, most, if not all, of its senior leaders were behind bars. Gandhi, as the senior member who commands profound respect from his members, expressed his displeasure with a leader seeking reelection. Azad withdrew his nomination for reelection as the President. 

Fifteen regional and state Congress committees were tasked with nominating their candidates. Twelve of these nominated Patel. Nehru got none, and the remaining three committees chose not to nominate anyone. 

Surprisingly, Gandhi vetoed their decision. He requested that Patel withdraw his candidacy and suggested the Cambridge-educated, modern-looking Nehru to become the Party President and Patel to be his Deputy. Being a 'respectful lieutenant' and showing his respect for Gandhi, Patel obliged. 

Gandhi believed the modern, forward-thinking Nehru would be a better choice than the traditional-thinking Patel. However, insiders suggest that it was probably Gandhi's fear that Nehru might cause trouble if he was not selected. The Congress might split, and the British could use that as an excuse to delay self-rule. 

Being the compassionate man Gandhi was towards the Muslim plight, he thought Patel, as the Prime Minister of India, would be harsh against Muslims. 

 

Nehru became the Prime Minister with Patel as his Deputy and Home Minister during the tumultuous times of newly independent India. With Pakistan being the albatross around India's neck and Patel and Nehru disagreeing on everything about the handling of Kashmir, it is a surprise how the Indian machinery remained intact. 

King Hari Singh initially aimed to remain independent, like Nepal and Bhutan. When Pakistani agents infiltrated Kashmir, Hari Singh abdicated to Jammu. He consented to accession to India. Nehru, contrary to Patel's suggestion, called in the United Nations and advocated for a plebiscite. Patel had wanted the Indian Army to march in. The result of this approach led to repeated unrest, two subsequent wars, and the latest confrontation. 

Junagadh, a princely state with a Hindu majority and no shared border with Pakistan, had a Muslim ruler determined to join Pakistan. His subjects revolted against him, and he abdicated in favour of Pakistan. With India's support, Junagadh was integrated into the State of Gujarat. 

Another state, quite distant from Pakistan, that wished to join the dominion was the landlocked state of Hyderabad. It was surrounded by regions under India's control. The Nizam, once the wealthiest man in the world, also ruled over a Hindu majority. Using his immense wealth, he managed to procure arms from Europe through British arms dealers, pre-Partition. The Nizam had deployed a paramilitary group, the Razakars, led by Qasim Razvi, to terrorise Hindu peasants into submission. Meanwhile, the Communists were also attempting to benefit from the situation. Patel, citing Nehru's departure as an excuse, used the nation's machinery to launch police action to forcibly annexe Hyderabad into the union.

Nehru and Patel's differences were challenged by a series of resignation letters, but they were softened by Gandhi's persuasion. Gandhi's assassination compelled these two leaders to collaborate until Patel's death.

 

In recognition of his contributions to India's political integration, the Statue of Unity, the tallest statue in the world, was erected in Gujarat.

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On the other side of the Iron Curtain...

The Mitrokhin Archive II (2005)

It all sounds like a plot of an espionage paperback set in the Cold War era. The only thing that makes it interesting is that it is said to have happened in the real world - that a KGB employee, disillusioned with the direction that Communist Russia was taking, should decide to painstakingly make short notes, via his handwriting, of secret documents as the KGB headquarters was relocated and the archives, in the pre-internet days, were transferred. Vasili Mitrokhin, the low-level official, after the collapse of Soviet Union, in 1992, decided to take his 10 years worth of handwritten documents and to defect to the West. He had apparently shown up at the American Embassy in Latvia with his papers but was turned down. At the British Embassy, however, he was cordially offered a cup of tea and the rest, as they say, is history.

   

The papers were a damning account of the clandestine activities of Soviet Russia in many countries of the world.  In simple words, the archives were accusing Russia of spying many countries around the globe whilst influencing their leadership. From bugging of Henry Kissinger's office to forged documents in promoting false narratives to placing informants amongst leaders in South America and the Middle East, assassination plots of some world leaders and even literally putting heads of India in the KGB payroll. 

Christopher Andrew, an MI5 historian, released two books based on the records- The Sword and the Shield (1999) and The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (2005). Almost immediately after the release of the first book, select committees were set up in many countries to investigate its allegations, namely the UK, Italy and India.

With the heat and adrenaline associated with the ongoing India Elections, one by one, KGB's involvement in the administration of newly independent Congress ruled India is coming to fore. Call it sensationalisation, call it political slandering. The documents are freely available on the public domain for scrutiny.

It was no secret that Nehru had reverence to the Soviet Union and the course of socialism. Maybe deep inside, he was a closet Communist. Russia took notice of him after the Bandung Conference in 1955 and his involvement in the Non-Alignment Movement. The largest democracy, India, became KGB's most concentrated operation. India was regarded as an imperialist puppet. At one time, the Soviet Union had such a free hand in running the country. Its money ran the Congress Party, and they had a firm grip on the succession of leaders. Indian Embassy in Moscow was infiltrated by the KGB. Even though the Communist Party of India was funded by Russia, it also had access to India's Intelligence Bureau's knowledge of the activities of the party. 

Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister, was earmarked to be Nehru's successor. Menon was instrumental in sourcing for Russian weapons to arm itself, instead of Westen ones. Unfortunately, his nonchalant outlook of the 1961 Chinese invasion of India brought him into disrepute. Lal Bahadur Shastri took the realm after Nehru's demise even though Gulzarilal Nanda was their man. Shastri mysteriously died one and a half years into the tenure in Tashkent. There is another conspiracy theory behind that one.

Vasili Mitrokhin

The KGB had their eyes all set on young Indira Gandhi even as a young girl. She was viewed as a possible popular figurehead whom they could manipulate. The last thing that the Russians wanted was for Morarji Desai, the right Hindu traditionalist to lead.

Indra, with her trusted advisor, Parameshwar Narain Haksar, was accused of selling of India to the Soviet Union. She, with her codename, Maimoona Begum was on KGB's payroll. Russia's involvement was there in 1971 war in defence of East Pakistan and throughout the Indian Government -intelligence, counter-intelligence, Defense and Foreign Ministries and police. 

Mrs Gandhi became increasingly unpopular as an obscene amount of money started flowing into the politician's coffers. It seems that Mrs Gandhi did not care if the money to run her party came from the KGB. Neither did she care that in return the communists virtually made a coup of the entire nation and occupied every vital position in all political, academic, judicial, executive and media institutions of the country. The whole country was up for sale, and Indira Gandhi sold it to the communists.

KGB also had an influence on the Indian press. The published materials are often said to be favourable to Russia's image. Soviet active measures manufactured unfounded evidence against the CIA and the unsubstantiated Pakistani intelligence behind the Sikh separatism.

As the Gandhi dynasty came crumbling and the Soviet bloc was beginning to disintegrate, the Indo-Soviet relationship, to which the KGB had devoted much of its energies, came to an inglorious end.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/07/06/kgb_papers_kept_in_secret_since_1992_released_by_british_archive.html

https://mitrokhinarchiveii.blogspot.com/2005

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive

https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/52/mitrokhin-archive

http://indiafacts.org/indira-gandhi-soviet-agent/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.