0:00

to the New Books in National Security,

0:02

a podcast on the New Books

0:04

Network. My name is Luca

0:06

Trenta. I'm an associate professor in international

0:08

relations at Swansea University in the

0:10

UK. I research intelligence,

0:13

covert operations, and state -sponsored

0:15

assassinations. This is actually my

0:17

first episode for New Books Network, and

0:19

I'm very happy that my guest today

0:21

is Dr. Paul Magar. Paul

0:24

Magar is a lecturer in intelligent

0:26

studies at King's College London. He

0:29

has published several peer -reviewed

0:31

works including journals and book

0:33

chapters on South Asian

0:35

security and intelligence issues. These

0:38

articles have appeared in journals such

0:40

as Intelligence and National Security, the

0:42

Journal of Strategic Studies, Diplomatic

0:45

History, the International History

0:47

Review, and many other journals

0:49

and edited collections. He

0:51

is also the author of two monographs. The

0:54

first one, The Cold War in South Asia,

0:56

Britain, the United States

0:58

and the Indian

1:00

subcontinent 1945 -1965, published

1:02

by Cambridge University Press in

1:05

2013, and Spying

1:07

in South Asia, Britain, the United

1:09

States and India's secret Cold

1:11

War, published by Cambridge University

1:13

Press in 2024. Spying

1:16

in South Asia is the subject

1:18

of our conversation. It is

1:20

the first comprehensive history

1:22

of India's secret Cold War. The

1:25

book examines interventions made by

1:27

the intelligence and security services

1:29

of Britain and the United

1:31

States in post -colonial India. It

1:34

also examines their strategic, political

1:36

and socio -cultural impact on

1:38

the subcontinent. It showcases

1:40

how the intervention of these

1:42

intelligence agencies have had a

1:44

significant and enduring impact on

1:47

the political and social fabric of

1:49

South Asia, in particular

1:51

the specter. of a foreign

1:53

and or external intelligence activity

1:55

real or imagined as occupied

1:57

the prominent place in India's

1:59

political discourse in journalism and

2:02

in cultural production. The

2:04

book probes the nexus between

2:06

intelligence and statecraft in South

2:08

Asia and how the

2:11

relationship between intelligence agencies and

2:13

governments has shaped Indian

2:15

democracy. Paul, welcome to

2:17

the podcast. Thanks for having

2:19

me, Chris. It's a pleasure to be on. So

2:22

Paul, I very much enjoyed

2:24

your book. We spoke

2:26

about it at various points,

2:28

so it's nice to

2:30

have you on the show. My

2:32

first question has to do really

2:34

with how you came to write the

2:37

book. As I mentioned in the

2:39

introduction, you also wrote in the area previously, so

2:41

to what extent does this new

2:43

monograph build on previous work that

2:45

you've done and on your previous

2:48

book? Yeah, that's

2:50

a really good question. Thanks, Laker. It does

2:52

build on the previous book. I think any

2:54

book project tends to be a sort of,

2:56

you know, a labour of love, I'd extend

2:58

over many, many years. And this book project

3:00

really comes out of the first monograph I

3:02

read, which was... the Cold War in South

3:04

Asia. We looked at Britain, the United States

3:06

and their interventions in India and Pakistan after

3:08

1947. And really, that

3:10

was a look at not only

3:12

strategic interventions around statecraft and diplomacy,

3:14

but also around economics and culture

3:16

and lots of different areas in

3:19

which the United States and Great Britain

3:21

sort of moved into that post

3:23

-colonial space in India and Pakistan

3:25

after 1947. And while I was

3:27

researching that and writing the book, I

3:29

came across lots of information. I never thought

3:31

about writing about intelligence per se within

3:33

that book. But I kept coming across lots

3:36

of files within the British archives, the

3:38

American archives, in which intelligence sort of leaned

3:40

large really. And there are lots of

3:42

sort of issues around how Britain and the

3:44

United States are quite a large intelligence

3:46

footprint. both in India and in

3:48

Pakistan. I was more sort

3:50

of interested in India largely because the

3:52

Pakistani element of intelligence has been

3:55

covered by other scholars about ISI and

3:57

its relationship with the CIA, etc, from

4:00

the early 1950s onwards really. But

4:02

not so much about India and its

4:04

links to Western intelligence. So yeah, I kept

4:06

coming across lots of archival material that

4:08

was really interesting and lots of really good

4:11

stories, but I couldn't quite shoehorn them

4:13

into the first book really. It was just

4:15

the scope of the book, it wasn't

4:17

working. So I did mention some intelligence in

4:19

there, particularly around propaganda and the Information

4:21

Research Department, the British propaganda unit linked to

4:23

the Foreign Office and also some CIA

4:26

activity, but only some sort of tangential

4:28

sort of approach really. And so I had all this

4:30

material left over. I thought

4:32

that was quite interesting, I could tell a

4:34

good story and then I did some

4:36

more digging and I managed to sort of

4:38

get a coherent narrative based chronologically and

4:40

thematically over an extended period of time. I

4:42

thought that might be quite an interesting

4:44

second monograph really. But more than that,

4:46

it was also about trying to make sense

4:48

of the first book in a way. I

4:50

felt there was a lot of the social

4:52

interaction that had happened in India and all

4:54

of the political intervention by the United States

4:56

and Great Britain was really driven by intelligence

4:58

and I hadn't really been able to tell

5:00

story in the first book. So it was

5:03

trying to make it sort of round out

5:05

the story really and add another dimension to

5:07

it, which I think was really important. So

5:09

the idea of a secret diplomacy in a

5:11

secret statecraft, which hadn't really made it into

5:13

the first book, was something that I thought

5:15

was worth exploring. So that was it. The

5:17

other really reason, however, if that indeed more

5:19

generally actually was You know, coming

5:21

from Britain, we would talk quite a lot about

5:23

Imperial history when we were growing up at

5:26

school and stuff, but it was quite limited and

5:28

it was very, even quite an early age,

5:30

it was a sort of unsatisfactory sort of type

5:32

of history, really. And I wanted

5:34

to know more about India and the Indian subcontinent

5:36

because of the Britain's connections to the East India

5:38

Company. And I found something falling

5:40

back on popular culture and also just

5:42

literature as well. So Paul Scott's The Raj

5:44

Quartet and books like that, which are

5:46

quite popular. in the 1980s and

5:49

1990s were sort of filling a

5:51

void where the historians were really

5:53

writing about the period after

5:55

1947. So he had a

5:57

massive surfeit, huge number of

5:59

novels and nonfiction works about the British

6:01

Raj and from the 1850s through to the

6:03

1940s, but nothing after that. So it's

6:05

almost like, I think, you know, lots of

6:07

these stories are such a Britain thought

6:09

Indian history ended in 1947. But

6:12

it didn't. And it was trying to, I

6:14

really couldn't find anything. So it's that classic

6:16

story of, well, if you read

6:18

something that you want to read, write the book. So you're

6:20

sort of like, well, I had to sort of feel that

6:22

boy, really. So partly it was written

6:24

by that as well. That sort of need to

6:26

want to know more and not be able to

6:28

find a really good source that could explain

6:30

what happened after 1947. I

6:33

mean, it's very interesting that

6:35

you mentioned Empire because they found So

6:38

the book to be very timely because

6:40

it comes at a time in which

6:42

there is a renewed interest in the

6:44

history of empire. In the

6:46

sort of the history of the

6:48

Cold War there is an effort

6:50

to move beyond sort of the

6:52

superpower confrontation or I would say the

6:54

sort of usual suspects of Cold War

6:57

history like for example Latin America. Gross

6:59

and intelligent studies this

7:01

is happening quite regularly at

7:03

the moment where you have For

7:05

example, Hugh Wilford publishing on the

7:08

Imperial history of the CIA, for

7:10

example, as well as, I

7:12

think, the now well -established sort

7:14

of cultural turning intelligence

7:16

studies. And I think the

7:18

book fits really well in this

7:20

type of scholarship. To what extent did

7:22

you think we're taking influence from this

7:24

type of works and this

7:27

emerging scholarship? Yeah, really

7:29

interesting. So Hugh's written lots of really, really interesting

7:31

books, I think on the cultural Cold War, and

7:33

most recent one looking at the CIA as a

7:35

sort of imperial construct or an imperial project, I

7:37

think was really interesting. And it did sort

7:39

of resonate with all the stuff that I

7:41

was writing and thinking about. So yeah, really

7:44

timely. And I think it's a good compliment

7:46

to the book I've written is a good

7:48

compliment to Hugh's book. I think obviously it's

7:50

more specific about South Asia. But but I

7:52

found both British and American diplomats, but also

7:54

intelligence officers. really had a

7:56

sort of a long legacy

7:58

of imperial connections and although

8:00

those connections were interesting, so for example

8:02

you know Kim Filby famously grows

8:04

up in India, he speaks Punjabi, you

8:07

know his father's in Ambala were

8:09

crucial points, he gets his nickname Kim

8:11

from Roger Kipling's books, those are

8:13

the strong imperial connections post -1947 to

8:15

India and the British intelligence establishments but

8:18

I was really surprised to the

8:20

extent to which both diplomats and intelligence

8:22

officers really clang clang on to

8:24

that sort of imperial history almost we're

8:26

lucky to let it go and

8:28

it's a sense of sort of anchoring them

8:30

really so I I came across such surprising

8:32

things like British diplomats who were posted to India

8:34

in the late 1960s had a recommended reading

8:36

list you know these are the books that you

8:39

need to know doing to read to get

8:41

to know India because I'll tell you about India

8:43

and one of the first books on that

8:45

list was Kim by Roger Kipling. And

8:47

we're talking about the late 1960s, you

8:49

know, a book that started in 1901

8:51

about mythologised sort of intelligence, great game

8:53

happening on the borders of Afghanistan and

8:55

India with Russia and Britain. I thought

8:58

was just really interesting and illuminating that

9:00

that book is still being given to

9:02

British diplomats as late as the late

9:04

1960s to say, this is the book

9:06

that will tell you what it is

9:08

really like. I think many Indians would

9:10

have been horrified and bemused to be

9:12

sort of informed about that really. But

9:15

I think shows the extent to which

9:17

the sort of imperial strand or

9:19

thread where he runs through British post

9:21

-colonial history and to some extent which

9:23

I found interesting. I mean in

9:25

many ways the book was about trying

9:27

to unpick or enable me to

9:29

explain or sort of intellectualize what would

9:31

happen without the sort of that

9:33

move from a post -colonial state and

9:36

from a colonial state to a post

9:38

-colonial state and the extent to which

9:40

Often that was a collaborative process

9:42

as well. So I was really surprised

9:44

to find, for example, that the

9:46

last head of the Indian Navy, there was

9:48

a British head of the Indian Navy

9:50

until 1958. So independence

9:52

comes in 1947, but the British

9:55

military is still really embedded in

9:57

the Indian armed forces. And so

9:59

we get the heads of

10:01

the army into the late 1940s early

10:03

1950s and the navy goes even

10:05

longer to 1958 and they retain all

10:07

those British traditions which are quite

10:10

symbolic and sort of embedded around the

10:12

empire really and the same sort

10:14

of thing I found in intelligence circles

10:16

as well really close relations between

10:18

British intelligence and Indian intelligence you know

10:20

right through the 1930s 90s 60s

10:22

into the 1970s in ways I didn't

10:24

really expect I'd be naively I

10:27

think I thought In 1940s, it never

10:29

thought it would be a rupture, a schism, where,

10:31

you know, one day we have

10:33

colonialism and then another day we have

10:35

independence. You know, that process of transition

10:37

is a lot longer, a lot more extended. But

10:39

I was surprised just how extended it became. and

10:42

how willing Indian officials

10:44

were to still rely

10:47

on British support, based

10:49

structurally, logistically, economically, in

10:52

terms of intelligence and how long that

10:54

relationship carried on. So that was a

10:56

surprise for me. There's always a battle,

10:58

I guess, between national security and sovereignty

11:00

in post -colonial states and having to

11:02

rely on the former colonial power to

11:04

some extent, the stability and security. But

11:06

I was surprised how close that relationship

11:08

was. and how long

11:11

it extended past 1947. So

11:13

yeah, the imperial legacy, I think,

11:15

is really, really important. I think psychologically,

11:18

but also practically as well in terms of how

11:20

it plays out terms of new security. Yeah,

11:22

I think that is a very interesting

11:25

point. I think in my own research,

11:27

if I'm not mistaken, I had also

11:29

found, for example, in 1960, 1961, when

11:31

the crisis in Congo is ongoing, that

11:33

I think Ghanaian, the Ghanaian UN

11:35

contingent is still under British command. So

11:37

there was a certain medium

11:39

or long -term

11:42

influence of colonial heritage,

11:44

so to say. And I think

11:46

that may be a good question

11:48

to move on to. I think

11:50

you do discuss in the

11:52

first few chapters the ways

11:54

in which the transfer of

11:56

power from Britain to

11:59

India happens and what are the

12:01

implications of this for For

12:03

intelligence and so on but could

12:05

you talk us a bit through

12:07

that process how it happened and

12:09

what were the implications of

12:12

the, I guess, the major decisions

12:14

by Britain on how this transition

12:16

should happen. Yes, thanks

12:18

Nick. That's another excellent question. I think,

12:20

yeah, I talked earlier about not being satisfied

12:22

with some of the history that was

12:24

written about India and the United States. and

12:27

the UK post 1947. One

12:30

of the big issues I found

12:32

was intelligence had been largely written out

12:34

of the issue about partition and

12:36

independence. So huge amount of literature around

12:38

the partition of India and Pakistan

12:40

in 1947 and how those states come

12:42

into being and lots about economics

12:44

and politics and the communalism and that

12:46

sort of stuff. But nothing really

12:48

about intelligence. And I found intelligence was

12:50

a really important component about that

12:52

and in surprising ways I thought. So

12:55

the British are planning for

12:57

independence for a reasonably long

12:59

time politically. So, India acts

13:01

a pastor in the 1930s, which

13:03

give, you know, greater, greater self -governance

13:05

on a regional level to Indian politicians.

13:08

And they're sort of trained to

13:10

accept the sort of coming transfer of

13:12

power from the sort of, you

13:14

know, the early 1930s onwards, really. But

13:16

that doesn't happen in intelligence terms.

13:18

So, although there's a political transition where

13:21

people like Nieru and Jinnara are

13:23

accumulating experience of governance, to

13:25

smooth that political transition. It doesn't happen

13:27

in intelligence terms. The British

13:29

are really reluctant to bring Indian

13:31

and what came to Pakistani officials into

13:33

the intelligence tent. And for obvious

13:35

reasons, the British security state in India

13:38

is really about containing nationalism. And

13:40

that's its focus, really, it's a

13:42

very internal focus on containing Indian nationalism

13:44

and sort of surveilling those sort

13:46

of Indian nationalist leaders. So quite

13:48

difficult to bring Indians into that

13:50

intelligence sort of infrastructure. But the British

13:52

always leave India when they leave

13:54

47. They leave sort of nothing

13:56

behind in terms of an intelligence structure.

13:58

They haven't trained any intelligence officers. There's

14:00

no no carter of Indian intelligence

14:03

officers that can then pick up

14:05

the intelligence system. They've burnt

14:07

all the intelligence records. So all

14:09

the institutional memories disappears almost overnight. So

14:12

they don't leave anything behind them in terms of

14:14

structure. And the idiots are aghast

14:16

at this because Just when they need intelligence

14:18

more than ever, when the country looks

14:20

like it might be fracturing into a thousand

14:22

pieces, you've got widespread

14:24

communal violence, a war between

14:26

India and Pakistan, the country seems to be

14:28

teaching a brink of disaster, when

14:30

you need to know what's happening and where

14:32

it's happening and where those threats are manifesting.

14:34

India sort of goes dark in the intelligence

14:36

terms when the British leave. And

14:38

so, you know, the Indians fall back on quite

14:40

quickly getting back to London and saying that

14:42

we need your help, we need your support to

14:45

come back and help us establish an intelligence

14:47

system. And that's interesting, I

14:49

think, partly. that the Indian

14:51

leader, the Indian prime minister at the

14:53

time, Jawaharlal Neera is quite reluctant to do

14:55

that. Neera has a very conflicted approach

14:57

to intelligence, I think. And Neera is a

14:59

highly effective and intelligent and erudite statesman.

15:01

He's an Anglophile as well. And he's the

15:03

level of time in the UK. He

15:05

studied at Carrow and Cambridge. And, you know,

15:07

he's certainly someone who has really close

15:10

connections to elite levels of British society. Work

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to use. he's

15:44

experienced the worst of excesses of

15:46

British repression in security terms. His

15:48

family have been locked up and

15:50

serenity in prison, as has he.

15:53

All these friends have been put

15:55

under oppressive surveillance by the

15:57

British security state. So Nero is

15:59

really conflicted about the need for a

16:01

modern intelligence service, because on the one hand,

16:03

he knows it's vital to end his security,

16:05

both internally and externally. On the

16:07

other hand, he knows how it could

16:10

be misused by repressive forces. So

16:12

he's got this sort of ambivalent and

16:14

confused, conflicted relationship, I think, with

16:16

intelligence. He does allow Indian

16:18

officials to work with MI5 particularly

16:20

to reconstitute an intelligence service that

16:22

he knows a modern nation state

16:25

like India is going to need

16:27

because it's facing internal threats and

16:29

external threats in the 1940s. I

16:31

think interest lead for Nero, one

16:33

of the key red lines for

16:35

Nero in terms of managing that

16:37

quite complex intelligence relationship is not

16:40

to engage with MI6 and not

16:42

to engage with British external intelligence,

16:44

so not to associate with service

16:46

in Britain that's engaged in espionage.

16:48

He's really wary about SIS, an

16:51

MI6 operator in India, and

16:53

effectively he authorises a head of

16:55

the Intelligence Bureau in India to

16:57

work with MI5 quite closely, and

16:59

that relationship persists into the late

17:01

1960s. It's not until 1968 -69

17:03

that MI5 actually leave India. They

17:06

station an officer in New Delhi

17:08

throughout that period, and even then

17:10

when the MI5 leaves, it's not

17:12

because in his kick them

17:14

out. It's because of economies that are

17:16

in the same situation where now, I

17:18

guess, a British state is trying to

17:20

save money, because it's desperate, desperate financial

17:22

straits under the Wilson Labour government, the end of

17:24

the 1960s, when it's getting bankrupt. And

17:26

so they call back MI5 officers just

17:28

to save money. It's a treasury that's

17:31

really driving that process. So

17:33

Neera is sort of okay with that

17:35

happening, because he knows MI5 is really

17:37

focused on domestic security. He's not okay

17:39

with their size operating in India. There's

17:42

a big debate that goes on in

17:44

Whitehall, interestingly, from about 1946 through

17:46

to about 1949, when SIS

17:48

are desperate to get a station back

17:50

in India. They really want an intelligence

17:53

presence and they want that to be

17:55

undeclared to the Indian government. Many

17:57

British diplomats in India think that's

17:59

a terrible idea that there's no way that station

18:01

can be kept secret. It's going to create lots

18:03

of problems. But SIS actually win

18:05

that debate and they do open a station in

18:07

India in 1947, but quickly it gets into all

18:09

sorts of trouble. and Nira and

18:11

the Indian government find out what's

18:14

going on. They find that SIS is

18:16

trying to recruit Indian agents, and

18:18

they declare the two SIS officers,

18:20

Prasen and Ongrata, in the late 1940s.

18:22

And SIS is effectively banned under

18:24

the Abbey Doctrine from going back

18:26

into India until 1964. So

18:28

a big hiatus where that relationship...

18:30

really governed by nearly suspicion,

18:32

really, of extended intelligence. I

18:35

think the interesting thing

18:37

with that is there's a complete paradox

18:39

that goes or a flip that occurs

18:41

in terms of America's intelligence relationship with India.

18:43

And that's really due to serendipity. It's

18:45

due to personal communication. So one of the

18:47

things I didn't really cover so much

18:49

in the book, but I'd like to develop

18:51

in future, is the point of personality

18:53

and intelligence relationships. I think it's really crucial.

18:56

And one of the things that

18:58

happens in in the late 1940s is India

19:01

not only goes to Britain for intelligence

19:03

support, it also goes to the United

19:05

States and the head of Indian intelligence

19:07

at the time. In 1947, there's a

19:09

guy called Sanjevi Pillai. He's an Indian

19:11

policeman from southern India. Doesn't have a

19:13

huge intelligence background, but he's worked in

19:15

special branch in including India. He's made

19:17

head of the Indian Intelligence Bureau. He

19:19

goes to Washington because he's a great

19:21

fan of Jay Gauver. He really likes

19:23

Jay Gauver. He thinks Jay Gauver has

19:25

been a fantastic success in the United

19:27

States. He's seen he's read about the

19:29

FBI. you think Steve has potentially

19:31

been this great. great person that's going

19:33

to help in your established domestic security

19:35

service. He goes to the United States

19:37

and he just doesn't give him any time

19:39

at all. I mean, although the unpleasant is

19:41

a really good reason to look back Jerk

19:44

who would sort of just adds to this,

19:46

this knowledge we have about him being a

19:48

deeply unpleasant person and an unreconstructed racist and

19:50

not the sort of person that's going to

19:52

welcome someone from the Indian subcontinent in the

19:54

1940s. And he absolutely shunned Sanjay. He went

19:56

have anything to do with him. He palms

19:58

him off on junior FBI officials. Sanjay

20:00

is given a tour of the FBI.

20:02

and he's absolutely furious because he equates it

20:04

to what high school student would receive

20:07

on going to the FBI. He's treated like

20:09

a child, effectively and infantilized, and he

20:11

gets really deeply wounded by this. So

20:13

the FBI almost sort of, you

20:15

know, alienate Indian intelligence, you know, straight

20:17

away. The CIA are really clever.

20:19

They don't do that. They see India as potentially

20:21

a big bulwark against communist China in Asia.

20:23

And they whine and dine Sanjay V. They share

20:25

around Langley. They spend a lot of time

20:28

and effort on him. And they cultivate their relationship.

20:30

And it's because of that personal connection

20:32

that Sanjay V manages to persuade

20:34

Jawaharl Nehru back in New Delhi. to

20:37

get a liaison on a ship

20:39

with the CIA. And I think that

20:41

is really consequential because it sets

20:43

American intelligence off as a completely different

20:45

track to that British intelligence in

20:47

India. And it means that the Indian

20:49

intelligence is drawn more towards covert

20:51

action, particularly from the 1950s onwards. So

20:53

you see India getting involved, the

20:55

joint CIA covert action in Kerala, which

20:58

which elects the first Congress government in

21:00

1957, the democratic elected anywhere in

21:02

the world, also against China and

21:04

into Tibet from the late 1950s. 1960s

21:06

and I think that has profound

21:08

consequences for the sort of evolution of

21:10

that relationships. An accident

21:12

that when India becomes much

21:14

more skeptical and suspicious and

21:16

hostile towards Western intelligence, which

21:18

is a process that begins in the

21:20

late 1960s and evolves under the Nixon

21:22

administration in the late 1970s, the target

21:25

of Indian ire, the target of the

21:27

Indian press' focus in terms of attacking

21:29

Western intelligence is not written. it's

21:31

the United States. And partly that's because of

21:33

the global relationship with the CIA and

21:35

its global footprint. Alan Dulles has courted that

21:37

mystique around the CIA being all -powerful. Partly

21:39

is that. But also partly is the

21:42

fact that the British have been much more

21:44

low -key in India. They've been much more

21:46

focused on domestic security. They've been 3MI5.

21:48

That's been the conduit rather than SIS. I

21:50

think HADASI has been the lead agency

21:53

for the UK and India. They would have

21:55

attracted a lot more attention, a lot

21:57

more approbation, a lot more

21:59

criticism when India finally it turned

22:01

against Western intelligence in 1960. So

22:03

it is consequential. And to some

22:05

extent, it's about serendipity and personality.

22:07

And so quite interesting, I think.

22:10

Yeah, I mean, I think you certainly touched upon

22:12

a couple of things that I wanted to ask. I

22:15

think the book does a

22:17

very good job at combining

22:19

sections in which you're actually

22:21

discussing Western or at times, Western,

22:24

meaning the US or the UK,

22:26

and at times, Soviet. concerns

22:28

about where India is going or

22:30

what is happening in India and so

22:32

on. There is a chapter, for

22:34

example, on India's so -called

22:37

Rasputin and how terrified to

22:39

almost paranoid really

22:41

Western intelligence was about him. And

22:43

maybe you can tell us

22:45

a bit about this character. But

22:48

also in the book, you also give

22:50

a lot of space to actually sort

22:52

of Indian agency and how much India

22:54

is able to, I guess, play.

22:56

or lack of a better world in

22:58

the cold war confrontation, play the superpower

23:00

against each other, and

23:03

play Britain against the United

23:05

States. So how did

23:07

you balance these two aspects in

23:09

the book? So the external perceptions

23:11

of India, but also what India

23:13

is doing in the superpower confrontation?

23:16

Yes, another excellent question. Thanks, I think one of the things

23:18

I was really fortunate. fortunate

23:21

to have it, is really good

23:23

luck in terms of timing. And by

23:25

that, I mean, people would have been impossible to write

23:28

this type of book 10 years ago. It's

23:30

only relatively recently that Indian archival sources

23:32

are opened up, particularly in intelligence

23:34

terms, and enabled scholars to go

23:36

into the New York Library and Indian

23:38

National Archives and uncover a sort of

23:40

documentary record that enables you to tell

23:43

not a complete but a relatively comprehensive

23:45

and coherent story about Indian intelligence. 10

23:47

years previously that just wouldn't have been possible. And I

23:49

would have been reluctant to write a book. I think there

23:51

was just Western centric. I think,

23:54

I mean, maybe we can talk about it

23:56

a bit later. One of the issues I

23:58

think has medeviled intelligence studies, and maybe even, and

24:00

I know we may get onto this,

24:02

but the recent releases of the JFK

24:04

assassination records is the extent to which

24:06

a tsunami almost of Western intelligence records

24:08

principally from the United States, let's say

24:10

from the UK. I've sort of driven

24:12

the narrative really, so it makes it

24:14

much more difficult to tell a a

24:16

coherent and comprehensive and balanced story about

24:18

intelligence in the global South when so

24:20

many of the records you rely on

24:22

come from the United States. So difficult

24:24

to get records from Ghana, difficult to

24:26

get records from South Africa or in

24:28

Europe elsewhere or Chile or wherever it

24:30

might be. Not impossible now and much

24:32

much easier. It has been previously but

24:34

still in relative terms much more difficult

24:36

and that leads to unbalanced histories I

24:38

think. So I was really you know

24:40

keen to explore Indian archives and to

24:42

be able to tell a more balanced

24:45

story really and I think that That

24:47

was really important because it did lead

24:49

to questions around Indian agency. So

24:51

part of that narrative was the extent

24:53

to which Indians were really quite sophisticated.

24:55

And at all levels I found which

24:57

I thought was quite interesting, basically the

24:59

lead level, the top levels of the

25:01

Indian government, they were quite sophisticated at

25:03

trying to play the Soviet Union. and

25:05

the United States, particularly off against each

25:07

other in intelligence terms. And that worked

25:09

quite effectively. But also at the lower

25:11

levels, what I found, for example, when

25:13

Britain, the United States were conducting propaganda operations

25:15

in India, covert propaganda operations, which often

25:17

involved funding in the newspapers and publishing

25:19

houses to print certain books or certain

25:21

works that were anti -communist in nature, often

25:23

Indians, you know, behind those publishing houses

25:26

or Indian journalists were really great at

25:28

playing the Soviet embassy off against the

25:30

American embassy. Like, give us this will

25:32

publish your book and the next day

25:34

they were walking around the Soviet Embassy

25:36

saying well if you give us money

25:38

we'll publish your book. So they were

25:40

really like exploiting both sides of the

25:42

sort of Cold War fence really for

25:44

their own economic benefit and I think

25:46

they concluded that's absolutely fine to do.

25:49

from a sort of moral perspective because they

25:51

really didn't have much, they didn't have much

25:53

faith that this propaganda was touching the average

25:55

Indian. So it wasn't making a difference. So

25:57

I think they felt like this is work

25:59

that we're being paid for by both sides.

26:01

And actually we're not fundamentally corrupting or

26:03

changing the dialogue in Indian politics in

26:05

any significant way. So we're quite happy

26:07

to go along with this really. So

26:10

I think basically at the lower level, which

26:12

I think was really interesting and at the higher

26:14

level. There was a lot of agency exercised

26:16

by India, I think, and exploiting that tension between

26:18

the East and West during the Cold War. I

26:21

think the other thing was interesting. You

26:23

mentioned V .K. Krishnam Menon, who was

26:25

India's High Commissioner to the UK, who

26:27

was really India's Rasputin, but the West, particularly

26:29

the United States, felt that Menon was

26:31

a communist. Again, I

26:33

think that was an interesting story

26:35

because having an Indian perspective on

26:37

that really have some consolidated and

26:39

illuminated the extent to which Western

26:42

ideology during the Cold War was

26:44

so binary and often so unsophisticated.

26:47

So Menon, for example, was very much seen

26:49

by many Indians as a little bit of

26:51

a troublemaker, a little bit of a

26:53

sort of loudmouth and quite a sort of

26:55

exuberant character, but certainly not a communist. He

26:57

was a socialist, absolutely, but there were so

26:59

many members of the Union Congress party at

27:01

that time near included. But he certainly wasn't

27:03

a communist, but he was a pragmatist as

27:05

well, which is quite interesting. So he spent

27:07

a lot of time in London in the

27:09

1930s prior to independence. working for

27:11

the Indian League, which was a sort

27:14

of London -based campaign on Britainian independence. And

27:16

he needed support. He had

27:18

great little support from the British establishment then. So

27:20

he reached out to people who would give him

27:22

that support. Many of him happens

27:25

to be communists so that he was quite

27:27

closely British Communist Party not ideologically I

27:29

don't think although he was a socialist but

27:31

because they offered him support both logistically

27:33

and in terms of finance So he was

27:35

willing to take that The United States

27:37

of Britain both interpreted that as men and

27:39

being communists or having close links to

27:41

the Communist Party Which was true, but he

27:43

wasn't a communist himself So I think

27:46

they they were very and the United States

27:48

particularly was pushing Britain ever further really

27:50

to to sort of demonize individuals that

27:52

would far more complicated politically I

27:54

think in terms of what they

27:56

wanted for India during this World

27:58

War period really. So I

28:00

think access to Indian records really I

28:02

think unpicks and

28:04

reveals sort of the sophisticated approach in

28:07

his hand to the Cold War

28:09

about how they were willing to play

28:11

by sides of the Cold War

28:13

fence really effectively, I think, and exploited

28:15

ruthlessly, I think, sort of the

28:17

hardening of that sort of ideological divide

28:19

between East and West really from

28:21

the early 1950s onwards. Yeah,

28:24

I mean, I think the effort to to

28:26

paint into black and white terms

28:29

like communist or non -communist characters

28:31

that are perhaps much more

28:33

complex is certainly like a hallmark of

28:35

the early cold war especially the u .s

28:37

approach to to the early cold war and

28:40

i think you mentioned in a

28:42

previous answer that the reputation of the

28:44

c .i .a somewhat turns were the

28:46

wars in in under nixon and

28:48

in in the early 1970s and

28:50

i think throughout the book you do

28:52

mention at various points that The

28:56

CIA with its main

28:58

operations, primarily sort of

29:00

electoral interference, covert regime

29:02

change, and at times,

29:04

assassination. All of these

29:07

operations do reverberate in

29:09

India. And I think you're

29:11

right at some point that

29:13

the domestic environment in India

29:15

was already predisposed to be

29:17

somewhat almost hostile towards intelligence

29:20

and covert action. So

29:23

I do wonder to what

29:25

extent actually all of these operations

29:27

by the CIA and the

29:29

revelations surrounding these operations in

29:31

the 1970s were

29:33

actually detrimental to US,

29:36

India relations, but also to

29:38

intelligence relations? Yeah, I really

29:40

good question. I think I think that absolutely

29:42

is right i would agree that i

29:44

think intelligence becomes a real wider diplomatic

29:46

and social problem in the united states relationship

29:48

the india certainly by the time we

29:50

get to the early 1970s and i

29:52

think partly that's an interesting one i'm

29:54

going back slightly i think partly that's

29:56

due due to imperial issues so i

29:58

think india as a society is predisp

30:00

- base towards conspiracism.

30:03

And I think this is the same for Pakistan

30:05

as well. And I think largely that's because

30:07

of the colonial security state that operated in India

30:09

for such a long period of time. So

30:12

Indians, I think, were became became

30:14

sort of very suspicious of state

30:16

intelligence and security activity because of

30:18

what the British were doing to

30:20

maintain their grip on power. So

30:22

That colonial period, I think, fueled

30:24

conspiracism or conspiratorial culture within Indian

30:26

society, which never really went away.

30:28

So I think even after 1947,

30:30

Indians are sort of predisposed towards

30:32

a conspiratorial sort of approach when

30:35

it comes to intelligence. And then

30:37

you get that overlaid by the

30:39

sort of gold and the so -called

30:41

gold and age of the CIA

30:43

in the 1950s where Indians are

30:45

well aware of what's going on

30:47

in Iran and Guatemala and Indonesia

30:49

and elsewhere. And that has a

30:51

big impact on the Indian psyche,

30:53

I think. And even people

30:55

like Alan Dulles, they hardly hide

30:57

the fact that the CIA is behind

31:00

these sort of things. They're quite open in

31:02

promoting sort of the extent to which this

31:04

omnipotent image of the Central Intelligence Agency. And

31:07

there's been some great quotes on information

31:09

that comes out of Indian archives on

31:11

Europe's approach to that. And Europe being really

31:13

scathing about American intelligence. I mean, again,

31:15

it's a very interesting story because Now,

31:17

Alan Dulles spent quite a lot of

31:19

time in India. You know, he comes from

31:21

the Dulles family who were mysteries, one

31:23

branch of the mysteries. And Dulles actually gazed

31:25

to India and spent some time just

31:27

before the First World War. So he's actually

31:29

a bit of an indefile, you know,

31:31

Alan Dulles. Spends some time in India, gets

31:33

to know the Nehru family, interestingly, so

31:35

he gets quite close to Nehru's sister. Vijay

31:38

will actually be panned out there, they're quite close.

31:40

um so he still has this this relationship

31:43

with him and he when he goes back

31:45

to india he meets with nier reggae and

31:47

they have you know teta tets and personal

31:49

chats because they have this relationship that goes

31:51

back many decades um but nier is really scathing

31:53

of the way delis handles the central

31:55

intelligence agency and again i guess it speaks

31:57

to that complexity that have to overlook

31:59

that nier personally is actually quite close to ellen

32:01

delis in surprising ways and there i would

32:03

say they are friends but

32:05

Nero absolutely abhors and is

32:07

deeply critical of Dulles'

32:09

handling of American intelligence. And

32:12

sort of they seem contradictory, but

32:14

they're sort of not. Nero is

32:16

able to sort of segment and

32:18

move away that the personal element

32:20

of his relationship with the professional

32:22

practical element. And he's really skating,

32:24

particularly about the Bay of Pigs,

32:26

for example, where he excoriates Dulles

32:28

and the CIA for a terrible

32:30

action. And morally, it's indefensible. Practically,

32:32

it's a disaster in every way.

32:35

failure. And he's deeply critical.

32:37

I mean, around about this time, Indian intelligence

32:39

are thinking about restructuring. And they come

32:41

to near and say, look, we're thinking about

32:43

restructuring. Let's look at the CIA. And

32:45

you know, what are you talking about? Look

32:47

at what they've just done in Cuba.

32:49

They're an absolutely there's the last people you

32:51

need to model intelligence agency. Honestly, surrender

32:53

is what they're doing. So yeah, there's that

32:55

sort of that contrast and conflict, I

32:57

think between the two. So the Golden Agency

32:59

operations are an up to 1961 of

33:01

the Bay of Pigs, I think has a

33:03

massive impact. on India's psyche. I

33:05

mean, interestingly, when the revelations come, and

33:08

you're a good intelligence in 1975 with

33:10

the Church of the Pipe Committees, I

33:13

think periodization is one of the other things.

33:15

I think it's different between when you look

33:17

at intelligence from the lens of the global

33:19

south and the lens of the west. So

33:22

the year of American intelligence comes in

33:24

1975 when the Church and the Pipe

33:26

Committees are in full flow. But India

33:28

has its year of intelligence. like

33:31

eight years earlier in 1967 when

33:33

a whole series of revelations break

33:35

out around ramparts and the sort

33:37

of revelations about CIA funding for

33:39

various groups both inside and outside

33:41

the United States and lots of

33:44

those groups are based in India and

33:46

that creates tremendous uproar in India

33:48

and lots of anti -CIA sentiment is

33:50

generated in the back of the ramparts

33:52

disclosures in 1967 and the fact

33:54

there's an Indian election national election going

33:57

on in 1967 just pours fuel

33:59

onto the flames really because then you

34:01

say oh well of course the CIA are

34:03

now interfering in the elections they're trying

34:05

to influence what's going on so he has

34:07

a big big sort of impact really

34:09

so really from 67 onwards Indians are sort

34:12

of or the CIA's case really in

34:14

lots of lots of ways through the press

34:16

and through political criticism. But I think

34:18

that does have practical consequences. Often we say,

34:20

well, what does it matter? What's the

34:22

impact? I think you can trace

34:24

actually, there has a really big impact that

34:26

that sort of process of vilifying the

34:28

CIA publicly and privately, which is such a

34:30

fever pitch under Nixon in the

34:33

early 1970s, that the State Department

34:35

basically stopped shutting down the CIA

34:37

station in in India, because it's

34:39

just not worth being there. It's

34:41

just they can't operate the is

34:43

so hostile to American intelligence they

34:45

stop shutting down the station, but

34:47

also because of the attacks on

34:49

the central intelligence agency and lots

34:51

of accusations, some of which are

34:53

true, many of which aren't true.

34:56

The state department starts retaliating, so it starts

34:58

cutting off economic aid to India, starts

35:00

shutting down scientific and educational

35:02

exchange programs. It actually uses

35:04

a big stick. and to punish India

35:06

for vilifying the Central Intelligence Agency. So,

35:09

you know, a bit like Trump today

35:11

in his vindictiveness, the Nixon

35:13

administration is perfectly happy to, you

35:15

know, to impose economic, political,

35:17

social penalties on India because of

35:19

its attack on the United States

35:21

through the Central Intelligence Agency. So

35:23

it does have real world consequences,

35:25

I think, for Indians in lots

35:27

of different areas. I mean,

35:29

with a possible exception on this

35:31

Nixon era, it was my impression reading

35:33

the book. that there

35:36

is some sort of a

35:38

discrepancy between the actual

35:40

operations or actual intervention

35:43

and interference conducted

35:45

by Western intelligence services

35:47

sort of in practice

35:49

and what the perception of

35:51

these or their sort of

35:53

sociocultural impact is in

35:55

India. So the impact

35:58

seems to be much bigger

36:00

to me than what is actually going on

36:02

in practice. I

36:04

would agree with that completely. And I think

36:06

it's interesting, there's a paradox, I think, in

36:08

the book, which I found in my research, is

36:10

that lots of CI activity in India starts.

36:12

It starts in 1947. There's the CI bit

36:14

of station in there in 1947. And

36:17

that activity picks up progressively during

36:19

the 1950s and probably peaks in

36:21

the mid -1960s under the Johnson

36:23

administration. And here we're talking about

36:25

electric interference, cave at action, physical

36:27

propaganda, really quite an

36:29

active... CI presence at quite

36:31

a large CI station in the it's

36:34

one of the largest stations anywhere in

36:36

the world in the late 1950s early

36:38

1960s under Kennedy. It's a huge station

36:40

and very active. But the

36:42

CI attracts almost no criticism

36:44

politically or publicly or even privately

36:46

from the Indian state during

36:48

the period where it's most active

36:50

and interventionist and consequential in

36:52

India. Once it starts to

36:54

ironically sort of plays down or

36:56

sort of reduces activity and operations

36:58

in India, it starts to attract

37:01

a lot more criticism. And

37:03

partly it's because of the legacy of this golden

37:05

era of COVID operations. And partly

37:07

it's because of 1967 as a

37:09

watershed, really, I think in that relationship.

37:11

But I think after that point, when

37:13

under the Gandhi administration, particularly under Richard

37:16

Nixon, the CIs criticised were

37:18

repeatedly almost on a daily basis

37:20

for undermining Indian democracy. And

37:22

actually the CIs doing very, very little

37:24

in India at that point. So there is

37:26

a massive disconnect between what the CIs

37:28

doing on the ground and the number of

37:30

CA officers operating in India. and

37:32

the impact the Indian government is claiming the

37:34

CIA is having on Indian democracy. So

37:37

it's a huge disconnect between the two, I think.

37:39

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the sort senator

37:41

from New Yorkers, Nixon sends quite

37:44

unexpectedly, I think, to be United States Ambassador

37:46

to India in the early 1970s. One of

37:48

the reasons Moynihan cut short his tour

37:50

of India is because he just cannot cope

37:52

anymore with the amount of vilification that

37:54

the Central Intelligence Agency is getting. He publicly

37:56

goes to India again. He says, look, you

37:58

know we are not doing this. You know we

38:01

have got very little No, very little operations

38:03

going on in India. We're not doing what

38:05

you're telling. We're not in sphere of your

38:07

elections We're not really doing propaganda anymore. We've

38:09

sort of shut down our base of operations

38:11

in India But you're still attacking us and

38:13

really the reason Gandhi's doing that is because

38:15

political opportunity isn't it's the foreign hand element

38:17

if things are going wrong if the economy

38:20

is tanking if you can't really control your

38:22

electorate just blame it on foreign force so

38:24

the CIA becomes that sort of That sort

38:26

of that that ability really that that that

38:28

totem that the Indian Indian politicians of the

38:30

Gandhi government particularly can blame for everything that's

38:32

going wrong with India in the 1970s.

38:34

Yeah, I think there's a there's a huge

38:36

disconnect between what the sea actually does

38:38

in India and the the accusations that are

38:40

leveled against it as this sort social

38:42

political matter factor. It just isn't as consequential

38:45

or on the ground in India, I

38:47

think, as any government would lead us to

38:49

believe. A quick follow

38:51

up perhaps. Does the same happen

38:53

with with Soviet intelligence? I wonder. Is

38:56

there a national discrepancy? Yes,

38:58

interesting. So the United States becomes like

39:00

public enemy number one in India

39:03

for all the reasons we've discussed. Britain

39:05

to a large extent doesn't. The British

39:07

government, really from 1967 onwards, is really

39:09

worried that it's going to be targeted

39:11

by the Indian government for attack. It

39:14

never is really in India, although SIS

39:16

is active in India again from 1964

39:18

and the information research department on the

39:20

COVID propaganda arm with the foreign office

39:22

with close links to SIS. He's really

39:24

active in India. So the British are

39:26

up to no good in India. They

39:28

never really come under public criticism. And I think

39:30

that's for two reasons, really. One, because

39:32

Britain isn't an important global power

39:34

anymore. So India looks at Britain and thinks,

39:36

well, you know, they're not. on the

39:38

same, they're on the same league as the Soviet Union

39:40

and the United States, we really don't need to worry

39:42

about them so much. And actually, that is true. I

39:44

think that to a certain extent, British intelligence

39:47

operations or a much lower scale and partly

39:49

that's financial as we discuss and budgetary and

39:51

the British just aren't doing as much in

39:53

India as they would like I think. And

39:56

partly it's to do with

39:58

this this notion that attacking the

40:00

United States is a more effective sort political

40:02

sort of tool for India. I think

40:04

the seven union gets a bit of a

40:06

free pass in India for various reasons. One,

40:08

the Soviet Union has always been seen as a solid

40:11

ally of India. And India needs a

40:13

Soviet veto in the United Nations Security Council

40:15

for issues like Kashmir, which are really crucial

40:17

to India. So they're not really willing to

40:19

get the Soviets offside. The Soviets

40:21

are providing increasing amounts of

40:23

economic and military aid to

40:25

India, really from the late

40:27

1960s onwards. So India becomes

40:29

much more reliant on the Soviet Union

40:31

in terms of energy security, in

40:33

terms of military hardware. and

40:36

in terms of economic age already from

40:38

that point on. So there's a sort

40:40

of leverage that the Soviets have during

40:42

that period, I think. And particularly after

40:44

1971 in the India -Pakistan war, where

40:46

Nixon administration signed to Pakistan, India

40:49

signed a mutual security treaty with the

40:51

Soviet Union, they become really wedded from

40:53

that point onwards and ready for the

40:55

remainder the Cold War already from the

40:57

late... late 1960s early 1970s the Soviet

40:59

Union is India's sort of security gown tool

41:01

early for the made of the Cold

41:03

War period so any very reluctant to criticize

41:06

the Soviet Union so yeah the KGB

41:08

is and the GRU are really active in

41:10

India I would say from the big

41:12

1950s onwards but they pretty much

41:14

get a free pass. So it's

41:16

interesting that they don't attract the same

41:18

public criticism from Indian politicians, I

41:20

think, than the CIA does. You might

41:22

have to do with perhaps common

41:24

enemies as well, not only Pakistan, but

41:27

China. Yeah, I agree. We

41:30

referenced a couple of times, I guess,

41:32

the so -called golden age of the

41:34

CIA. And I think a lot

41:37

of what we learned in the past few years

41:39

about the golden age of the CIA comes, as

41:41

you mentioned earlier from the JFK

41:43

assassination records and from

41:45

the various releases that have

41:47

come over the years. There

41:50

have been many with thousands

41:52

and thousands of documents

41:54

and there was one just

41:56

recently with the Trump administration promising

41:58

that they would release documents and

42:00

that these would be unredacted

42:03

and they actually were unredacted. So

42:05

I found some interesting material

42:07

for my own research. But

42:09

I was wondering whether we've learned anything new

42:12

regarding India or

42:14

some stories that have been made a

42:17

bit more complex. What

42:19

was in the files, I

42:21

guess? Yeah, I think

42:23

there's nothing remarkably new or surprising

42:25

or shocking in the files. I think

42:27

what they do is complicate things and

42:29

add a sort of level of granular

42:31

detail that wasn't there before. And

42:34

also, I think they confirm things that would

42:36

probably already knew or suspected with the case.

42:38

But now we have more concrete proof that

42:40

is actually the case. I think

42:42

in terms of scale, so there's there's a

42:44

famous memo that came out from Alfred Sturzinger

42:46

that's just been published, which shows the scale

42:48

of CA operations across the globe in the

42:50

1960s under Kennedy. That's certainly the case in

42:52

India. So that's a corroborate swap. Many

42:54

Indian politicians were saying at the time, and

42:56

also some some American politicians as well,

42:59

about the scale of security operations. I

43:01

think there are some interesting cases. There's a

43:03

really interesting case. I won't I'm not going

43:05

to reveal this totally now. I'm going to

43:07

write an article about it, I think. But

43:09

there is one file that's really interesting from

43:11

the mid -1950s, which shows the CIA working

43:13

with literary figures in the United States. They

43:15

had a program sending culture from ambassadors out

43:17

to India and across the developing world. There's

43:20

a really prominent American

43:22

literary figure from the mid

43:24

-1950s. that we now know after

43:26

the latest release was working Whitting League for

43:29

the Central Intelligence Agency, promoting anti -communism in

43:31

India in the mid -1950s. That individual is

43:33

a really quite prominent individual in United

43:35

States and I don't think that's ever been

43:37

released or revealed before and there's a

43:39

whole story to tell about how that plays

43:41

out which is quite interesting I think.

43:43

A lot of that interestingly is based on

43:45

race as well and the extent to

43:47

which that individual was very Pro

43:50

-African -American the United States during the civil

43:52

rights movement very closely attached to it

43:54

and the CIA particularly thought they

43:56

would be a useful conduit to

43:58

to sort of dampen some of the

44:00

criticism about a racial inequality in

44:02

the United States in the 1950s. So

44:04

the use of a cultural ambassadors by the

44:07

Central Intelligence Agency, particularly, is there's nothing new

44:09

in that, I think in terms of India,

44:11

but it's a really interesting story to tell

44:13

about an individual that's quite prominent, we didn't

44:15

know about. I think the other, the only

44:17

other thing I'd say that's really interesting Well,

44:20

two things actually. One is

44:22

the extent to which

44:24

operations, I'm sure you'd

44:26

have seen there, because some information,

44:28

interesting information came out about British

44:30

Guiana in the 1960s, and the

44:32

CAA and SIS joint operations gets

44:35

Chedigas de Guiana and his government

44:37

in British Guiana. And I was

44:39

interested to see the extent to which

44:41

that was filtered through labor unions and George

44:43

Meany and et cetera. And the

44:45

bottle, the blueprint. All that

44:47

operation, which is covering quite interesting detail,

44:49

I think in the latest JFK

44:52

release, maps really closely onto what

44:54

happens in Kerala in 1957. So

44:56

we know in Kerala in 1957

44:58

from people like Elzer Bunker, the American

45:01

ambassador at the time, that this

45:03

site was active and it was funding

45:05

money through labor unions to uprisings

45:07

and discontent in Kerala. frustrating

45:09

you there was nothing in the entity

45:11

you released is about Kerala in 1957

45:13

but it's amazing if you overlay the

45:15

two how closely they map together so

45:17

there's some interesting maybe future research but

45:19

all this is Kerala test case. or

45:22

is it for what happens later on

45:24

in British Guyana? It seems

45:26

likely or possible. There's no concrete

45:28

evidence for that yet, but that's quite an interesting line

45:30

to follow, I think. The other thing

45:32

I was really interested in, which I don't think

45:34

has come out much, is the extent that you see

45:36

I was operating domestic in the United States against

45:38

Indian targets. So there's a whole

45:40

series of information about the San

45:42

Francisco consulates. in California

45:44

and how the CIA were

45:46

targeting the Indian consulate

45:48

in San Francisco, but also

45:50

the consulates of Japan

45:52

and other nations. and

45:54

quite active in recruiting agents inside those

45:56

consulates and using quite senior CIA officers

45:58

do so. So there's some background information

46:01

about that, which I think is quite

46:03

new, quite interesting. We sort of knew

46:05

that was happening, but so yeah, I

46:07

think it's adding color and depth and

46:09

complication, but not really completely changing the

46:11

direction in which we're thinking about the

46:13

Cold War, but as you say, some

46:15

interesting material, I think. This is a

46:17

very good answer and at the same

46:19

time creating a good level of suspense for

46:21

our listeners to follow your work. And

46:23

I think in a similar situation because I

46:26

also found some interesting files on a

46:28

sort of very well known CIA contractor, where

46:30

one point was hired to

46:32

spy on French and

46:35

Vietnamese diplomats in Washington, something

46:37

that we discovered just now. But

46:39

again, it's. it's coming,

46:42

there's no need to reveal too much

46:44

at this point in time. The

46:47

book is primarily, I think most of

46:49

the book has to do with the

46:52

Cold War, but you

46:54

also touch upon more recent

46:56

times, and in particular you

46:58

follow developments at the end of the

47:00

Cold War, and I think there are

47:02

some funny segments about the

47:04

early war on terror and

47:06

a Tony Blair trip. to

47:09

India. So I think my question

47:11

would be what changes with the end

47:13

of the Cold War and of course, even

47:15

if it's like a series of big jumps,

47:18

what happens in the immediate aftermath of

47:20

9 -11? Yeah, so

47:22

I think the Cold War

47:24

is interesting because just in broader

47:26

political and economic terms, I think the

47:28

end of the Cold War sees

47:30

the United States, United Kingdom pivot towards

47:32

India. in a way hadn't previously

47:34

done. So the Bush administration, particularly in

47:37

the Cold War, is

47:39

really trying to see, again, it

47:41

sees India, I think, as a great

47:43

post -Cold War prize with economically in

47:45

terms of the potential in Indian

47:47

economic development, and for you to

47:49

become an economic superpower. And

47:51

also partly, it goes back to sort of

47:53

well -honed Cold War narrative really about, well,

47:55

if we're trying to contain the people's product

47:57

of China, and we're increasingly worried about that. China's

48:00

strategic ambitions, particularly in Southeast Asia, but

48:02

elsewhere in the Indo -Pacific. How do we

48:04

do that? And one of the things that

48:06

I think United States Washington come up

48:09

with, we need to harness India, whether it's

48:11

manpower, strategic location, you know,

48:13

that's what we need to harness to sort

48:15

of contain the people's Republic of China. So

48:17

India starts to become a really important player,

48:19

I think, for the United States in ways

48:21

it hasn't been. So as the Soviet influence

48:23

ebbs away at the end of the Cold

48:25

War, the sort of the United States relationship

48:27

with India is revitalized, I think, during that

48:29

period. That's complicated by 911.

48:31

And the need for the United

48:33

States to use Pakistan, and

48:35

particularly the interservice intelligence agency, Pakistan's

48:38

intelligence service as a strategic

48:40

ally in the war on terror.

48:42

So that complicates that relationship

48:44

with India. Again, further complicated by

48:46

terrorist attacks on Mumbai, which

48:48

are linked to ISI, which create

48:50

tension in that relationship. that

48:53

the the war on terror crisis of

48:55

hiatus period, I think, where Pakistan once

48:57

again comes to the forefront of the

48:59

United States attention in national security terms.

49:01

Now effectively 9 -11 is ebbed away a

49:03

bit. I think the United States has

49:05

pivoted back once more to seeing India

49:07

as a bigger strategic partner they really

49:10

need to get on side with. It's

49:12

a member of the Quad with Japan,

49:14

Australia, the United States and India. So

49:16

it's part of regional security relationships that

49:18

I think are really important to the

49:20

United States. And I think partly

49:22

that's that the importance of India has been, has

49:26

been illuminated by recent intelligence events, which are

49:28

quite interesting. So, you know, Luca, you

49:30

were in a fantastic book, which are these

49:32

brilliant unassasinations, which is seminary, and I

49:34

think will be the sort of, you know,

49:36

the book everyone goes to in terms

49:38

of thinking about United States and its relationship

49:40

with state sponsored assassinations and state sponsored

49:42

killing. And the recent sort of Indian involvement

49:44

in state sponsored assassinations, both in Canada

49:47

and the United States, I think a bit

49:49

really illuminating in terms of what they

49:51

tell us about the United States strategic priorities.

49:53

So obviously Justin Trudeau stands up in

49:55

parliament and attacks Indian government and says we

49:57

have lots of information for various sources, probably

50:00

some sickles intercepts that suggests that

50:02

the Indian embassy in Ottawa and

50:04

the Indian government are complicit. in

50:06

the assassination of a Canadian national

50:08

on Canadian soil who was linked

50:11

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Trudeau really quite stride and

51:45

quite outspoken. At least a

51:47

diplomats being spelled from the D .K .D.

51:50

diplomats being spelled from Indian vice versa.

51:52

So a big diplomatic sort of in

51:54

a raw over that. And the Biden

51:56

administration has to deal with a similar

51:58

problem. You know, attempted assassination on a an

52:00

Indian national with American citizenship

52:03

in Manhattan, Pan Am,

52:05

which isn't successful. The assassination

52:07

attempt, the plot is quite advanced

52:09

when it's interrupted by the

52:11

FBI. And the Biden administration handles

52:13

that very differently, very low -key,

52:15

very quiet, very trying to

52:17

sort of trying to make this

52:19

contain this diplomatic problem, I

52:21

think. So India's international sort of

52:23

experiment with state -sponsored assassination is

52:25

elicits very different responses in

52:27

North America from Canada and the

52:29

United United States. I think that's partly

52:31

because of the value the Biden

52:33

administration attaches to. India was a

52:35

strategic partner against China, particularly as we

52:37

move into 21st century. So yeah, interesting. I

52:39

think I think that sells as something

52:42

interesting about India's relationship with the United States,

52:44

but also really interesting about the development

52:46

of Indian intelligence. Why even intelligence

52:48

would want to get into that business of

52:50

state sponsored assassination. Why it's moved

52:52

from what it was really for most of

52:54

the Cold War period and post Cold War

52:56

period as a regional intelligence power that really

52:58

didn't operate much outside its backyards. So it

53:01

operated in Pakistan and Sri Lanka and

53:03

and Nepal and Myanmar but that was

53:05

really about it and now India is

53:07

becoming or seems to want to become

53:09

a global intelligence player for the first

53:11

time really and strike out a target

53:13

you know many thousands of miles away

53:15

in North America. I think that's interesting

53:17

about what it tells us about where

53:19

India thinks it might want to go

53:21

as an intelligence power. I

53:23

think interestingly it also tells us

53:25

something about the 1970s. about the

53:27

problems that media might have with

53:29

that in terms of it hasn't

53:32

got a robust structure for transparency,

53:35

for oversight, for governance. Indian

53:37

Intelligence still reports directly into the

53:39

Indian Prime Minister with no parliamentary oversight,

53:41

no public scrutiny. it's

53:43

deeply problematic when you start gauging

53:45

in extra -judicial killings where really there's

53:47

no sort of sense of oversight

53:49

by either Republic or the Union

53:51

Parliament, I think. So I

53:54

think that's thrown into sort of

53:56

harsh relief, systemic

53:58

structural problems with the needed intelligence,

54:01

but a need to be a democracy that they have

54:03

to sort of deal with and they haven't

54:05

really addressed. So yeah, there's lots of interesting things

54:07

coming out of that, I think. I mean,

54:09

it's interesting that you that you covered the topic

54:11

of assassination, because I think, and you may

54:13

be example of the Biden administration. And I think

54:15

the same argument could be made

54:17

about other countries regarding situations

54:19

in which strategic or financial

54:22

interests take precedence over

54:24

concerns for human

54:26

rights or exposing all

54:28

sorts of criminal activity. And

54:32

you pose those issues as

54:34

somewhat of a question. But I guess

54:36

this would be my last

54:38

question for the

54:40

episode. Why

54:43

do you think there has been

54:45

this change from, first of

54:47

all, from a more regional intelligence

54:49

agency to a more global one? And

54:52

second, if you have any views

54:54

on this, it seems to

54:56

me that there has been also a

54:58

shift in terms of

55:00

degrees of aggressiveness to

55:02

put it quite simply

55:04

in a sense that it did not seem that

55:07

State sponsored assassinations or extra

55:09

judicial killings, especially internationally was

55:12

something that Indian intelligence was

55:14

doing before and now it

55:16

seems to be. So

55:18

where do you think these changes

55:20

come from? Yeah, I think

55:22

it's complex and I do think

55:24

it I think partly it's to do

55:26

with Indian domestic politics So I

55:29

think the rise of the BJP as

55:31

a sort of the dominant political

55:33

party in India and the rise of

55:35

Hindu for a sort of Hindu

55:37

nationalist element within Indian politics and Modi

55:39

winning successive elections although his last

55:41

lecture result wasn't as strong as he'd

55:44

hoped for still return to power

55:46

and this notion of a

55:48

Hindu nationalist state wanting to project

55:50

notions of a strong, strong Hindu

55:52

power, I think. And we

55:54

see that channeled, interestingly, in intelligence

55:56

terms. So the Arthashastra, sort of

55:58

classic Indian work on intelligence and state's

56:00

craft, you know, which dates back

56:02

many thousands of years, is linked to

56:04

sort of, you know, Sun Susi

56:06

Art of War, where the Chinese equivalent

56:09

of that work. You know,

56:11

that's been sort of been channeled by indian

56:13

politicians to say look the indian state has

56:15

always been quite assertive it's always embrace intelligence

56:17

and covert action and espionage and we need

56:19

to go back to our hindi roots and

56:21

we need to embrace this notion if we

56:23

want to be a global player on a

56:25

global stage we need to act like the

56:27

united states and china and those powers that

56:29

use their intelligence and security services in

56:32

a much more proactive and expansive way

56:34

than we have done in the

56:36

past so partly i think it's to

56:38

play to a domestic audience which

56:40

quite lie the idea of a strong

56:42

assertive hindi india so I think

56:44

that plays well with Modi's base really

56:46

domestically. I think partly it has

56:48

to do with diaspora. So it's a

56:50

spread of Indian diaspora into Canada

56:52

and the United States. So the growth

56:54

in numbers, but also in political

56:56

power. So you know, in certain states

56:59

in the United States, the Indian

57:01

population is really powerful

57:03

politically. And that's

57:05

certainly in the case

57:07

in British Columbia

57:09

and Canada. And I

57:11

think the Modi government has been

57:13

worried about the extent to which

57:16

Sikhs who are within those populations

57:18

have sympathy for the Kalestan movement

57:20

and the movement for... independent Punjab

57:22

state in India. So there's

57:24

been more, I think, motivation for the

57:26

Modi government to take a more assertive view

57:28

of how do you control, how do

57:30

you contain those elements to pushing with

57:33

Kallistar. Maybe we can use individual search

57:35

analysis when you extend intelligent service to

57:37

target those individual groups. Now that's always

57:39

been going on. That's been going on

57:41

since the 1970s. There's

57:43

evidence of Indian intelligence targeting those groups,

57:45

both in the United States and in Canada

57:47

way back in the 1970s. But as

57:49

you said, in a much less kinetic and

57:51

much less aggressive fashion than they have

57:53

been recently. But I think that's partly to

57:55

do with the growth in power. I

57:58

think partly it's also to do with signalling.

58:00

So it's also to do with

58:02

saying, look, we are a really

58:04

robust global power now economically, politically

58:06

on the political stage, but also increasingly

58:09

militarily, we want to become our aspiration

58:11

is to become a global player. And

58:13

I think a lot of that is

58:15

directed against China. So you know, any

58:17

of us facing a in a border

58:19

dispute with China has been rumbling on

58:21

since the late 1950s, periodically explains into

58:23

violence, there's increasing Chinese competition

58:25

in the in the Pacific and

58:27

in the ocean. So there's this

58:29

jostling between. India and China really. So I think

58:31

this is a way of the Indian, Indian

58:33

government signaling to China that we are not

58:35

going to be a pushover. We are going

58:37

to be assertive. We will take action. So

58:39

there's lots of different dynamics going on in

58:41

that really. And as I said, I think

58:43

it's going to be quite problematic, particularly when

58:45

it comes to state sponsored assassinations for the

58:48

Indian state, because the blowback potential on those

58:50

is quite a significant thing. So how they

58:52

manage that is going to be interesting both

58:54

domestically. and internationally. So the

58:56

playback on state -sponsored international, uh,

58:58

uh, sustenance is domestic. It hasn't been as

59:00

large as I thought it might be. But

59:02

again, as India sort of, as this democracy

59:04

began, you know, continues to sort of evolve,

59:06

um, then that may become more problematic, I

59:08

think. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah,

59:11

I think we also have

59:13

an additive volume coming out on state

59:15

-sponsored assassination and the consequences, I guess,

59:17

of impunity and strategic decisions. So I

59:19

think that's, that's certainly a topic to,

59:21

to keep an eye on. And

59:23

Paul, thank you so much for the

59:25

episode. I thought it was a

59:27

fantastic episode. This is a great book.

59:30

Buy It is called Spying in

59:32

South Asia. It is published by

59:34

Cambridge University Press. And it

59:36

covers really both Cold War and

59:38

post -Cold War developments. Thanks a

59:40

lot, Paul. Thanks so much, Lika. Thanks for having me on.

59:43

It's been a pleasure.