By Lama Shree Narayan Singh

“What is politics -- it is more and more of us and less and less of them!”

Mao-tse-Tung

It is unprecedented in the history of a modern, secular nation that a religious leader becomes the head of state and that too a person from another land -- a foreigner! Amazingly this is what had happened in India during the dispensation of the National Democratic Alliance, NDA, 1998 - 2002. This person was none other than the Taala’i Lama who had been elevated to the status of an extra constitutional monarch by that govt.

Repeatedly over the years, this writer has attempted to draw the attention of the govt to this strange anomaly. How this Nobel Laureate came to reach such heights will never be known. However, it is clearly due to the presence of subterranean vested interests that the Taala’i Lama has continued to be accorded this high status with drastic consequences for India ! Surely the reader will be surprised. To quote the hackneyed adage, ‘In politics there are no permanent friends; only permanent interests!’

‘The difference between us and China : China is a nation; we’re just a bunch of people who happen to belong to one country.’

Prem Shankar Jha in ‘One Man’s Folly...’ Outlook April 24, 06.

The greatness of Adolf Hiedler, better known as Hitler, lay in the fact that he was able to mobilise Germans to become a single nation in its true sense which includes ethnicity, history, language and culture. The greatest weakness of India lies in its very lack of cohesiveness! Can India ever become a nation is a question time alone can answer. As of now there exist countless fissiparous forces which threaten the very fabrique of a fledgeling nation

It is to the credit of the NDA that it sought to forge this sense of national identity in India . Its weakness lay in the fact that in matters of national security and diplomacy, it relied heavily on the Taala’i Lama. Nostalgia concerning the mythical days of Rama Rajya permeates throughout the Hindu consciousness, of this there can be no doubt. If Brahminism is to be believed, monarchs of yore invariably had each one’s own Raja Guru.

This is the case in the modern Kingdom of Bhutan where the elected Je Khenpo sits on a throne marginally lower than His Majesty the King. However, the crux of the matter is that the Je Khenpo is a thoroughbred Bhutanese. Similarly the rishi munis of yore were purportedly aryan, indigenous to the country, not foreign imports, an emotive issue continually raked up by the NDA itself vis a vis Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.

Hence it is inconceivable that in its effort to recreate Rama Rajya, the Sangha Pariwar would have chosen a person of mongolian descent -- a Tibetan refugee -- to advise the govt on critical issues. It would have been far better for it to have selected a God man indigenous to India .

Much has been written elsewhere on the Taala’i Lama hence a brief summary of who he is will suffice. Basically he is the failed king of a failed state. The Govt of the Peoples’ Republic of China, PRC, was simply far too smart for him and his medieval and feudal establishment. Crucial naturally, was the issue of Chinese largesse lavished by its govt on the powers that were in Lhasa prior to Mar 31, 1959 . Trained as a Gelugpa monk, with all its strengths and drawbacks, the teenage ruler, when he ascended the throne, had absolutely no inkling of governance! And yet he was enthroned and expected to govern! This is a fact he himself has acknowledged in a rare moment of frankness!

Surely this is the unquestionable greatness and of course, specialty, of the Gelugpa psyche. Be that as it may, the end result of all its medieval confabulations, and all the esoteric tantric powers at his disposal, Tibet was lost and the Taala’i Lama fled in accordance with a CIA-IB plan, to cross the NEFA or Arunachal border that fateful day. He was preceded and followed by a hundred thousand compatriots who were then unhesitatingly settled in India as refugees.

This was magnanimity at its best! Unfortunately this does not pay in politics. Some may remember that in the spring of 1976 approximately 2000 Tibetans were forced to leave the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan to seek refuge in India . It wasn’t that Bhutan was being barbaric! The issue simply was that the kingdom was unwilling to host people with dual loyalties. A person resident in Bhutan , must naturally be loyal to it, not to the Taala’i Lama or Free Tibet.

India has yet to learn this fundamental lesson then from its small neighbour; this remains its greatest blunder!

‘King Gyanendra, a great believer in the esoteric sciences, perhaps didn’t notice the clouds of darkness in his astrologer’s crystal ball. Or maybe he just ignored them, as a kings often hear only what they want to.’ TNN April 27, 06.

In spite of this he was compelled to recapitulate to the popular will! A half century earlier, the Tibetan govt had attempted to ward of the Chinese onslaught similarly but failed miserably! Ever since, the Taala’i Lama’s esoteric prowess has failed to take him back to his fatherland.

The message is loud and clear -- spirituality, religion and tantricism have limited relevance in politics which is played by a different set of rules altogether. HH the XVIth Gyalwang Karmapa had fully understood this, as also does the authentic HH the XVIIth Gyalwang Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje resident in Kalimpong, WB under the tutelage of HE Shamar Rinpoche!

Successive govts in India have been unable to envisage the threat this parallel polity has consistently posed to the country. This in spite of warnings sounded by Sardar Patel, the Defence Minister in 1953 that the fealty of ethnically mongolian peoples would naturally veer towards their origins.

The Chinese Aggression of 1962, the various Indo-Pak wars failed to shake the GOI from its apparent somnolescence to a realistic appraisal of the situation vis a vis the Taala’i Lama and his compatriots. The US had already befriended Pakistan after independence under the Dulles Doctrine. China befriended it too for reasons of containing a potentially powerful neighbour, the other being out of pique that the Taala’i Lama had been given asylum in India and thus foiled its plans of having him in its custody!

Matters were pretty much static until the advent of Deng Zhiao Ping who displaced what came to be termed as the Gang of Four! He advocated the principle of active engagement following the dictums of Chairman Mao. Astutely he permitted Tibetan refugees to visit their homeland making it clear in the process that Tibet was now irretrievably the Tibetan Autonomous Region, an integral part of the great motherland!

The PRC was thus enabled to exploit the sentiments of a substantial expatriate population which suddenly found itself relinked to its ‘fatherland’ creating an expatriate bank resident in India but owing loyalty to China! This has manifest itself in the Chinese Karmapa being unequivocally accepted by the majority of the Tibetan diaspora! There has been no turning back since.

The PRC realised that the Tibetans being deeply religious, the only access to their psyche can be through permitting its Lamas to reconstruct their monasteries copiously funded from abroad. This renewed interest in the rebuilding of the religion, culture and possibly spirituality of Tibet , merely created a cohesiveness in the disparate Tibetan refugee polity, giving it direction and a sense of purpose -- the development of its country of origin. For this they united unequivocally under their former God and King, the Taala’i Lama!

These sentiments had been nurtured previously as well with the illegal exiled Tibetan govt maintaining its influence on its refugee population adroitly under the guidance of the CIA. The GOI has consistently remained silent on the issue of Tibetan Nationalism, perhaps even covertly nurturing it for the attainment of short term objectives rather than compelling Tibetan refugees to swear loyalty to the Indian flag! Certainly this would have been the logical thing to do!

The results are only too obvious. The PRC has successfully created within India , a caucus which is far more loyal to it than to its host country India . Such an anomaly can exist only in India which is why the Taala’i Lama calls India his home -- where he is free to do as he will with no questions asked. It is hardly likely that any western nation would permit him and other Tibetans to play politics according to his personal whims and fancies, directed by the super natural to which he claims access but which certainly does not stand him in good stead on crucial issues!

His aim has been his return and that of his compatriots to a Tibet where modern human rights are guaranteed. Thus he nurtures the chimera of a Tibetan Constitution, Parliament and Cabinet of Ministers in India and enacts a tremendous charade for the benefit of his western sponsors. The only relevance these have is to beguile his own peoples and the west with this show of liberalism under cover of which the Taala’i Lama enacts his evil version of clandestine politics!

The PRC has repeatedly outsmarted him in striking deals with him in which the Taala’i Lama has performed his part of the bargain with the PRC continually reneging on its part and then requiring him to do more to prove his loyalty. There is perhaps no other way to understand his misconceived entry into the Karmapa Controversy in the early nineties other than that of Chinese concerns and those of Tibetan nationalism which decrees that a high incarnate lama must necessarily be Tibetan, a lebensborn.

The manner in which he worked himself into being the most powerful person in India during the NDA dispensation is not known. Surely it would have entailed the transfer of large amounts of the tax free contributions he has continued to receive as donations from the west for his Free Tibet campaign. This campaign is pretty much defunct by now.

As a tremendous ploy however, it continues to attract enormous public sentiment together with millions of dollars from abroad on which he and his cohorts gorge themselves. He conveniently adapts Buddhist teachings in this context to suit his own purpose. This actually is his forte -- the manner in which he is able to pervert the Teachings of the Buddha to suit his own personal interests! The old adage runs -- the devil can quote scriptures to suit his own purpose!

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize 1988 merely helped boost his image. It was only subsequently that he honed to perfection the art of manipulation of the western psyche. This is an art which only the Gelugpas can ever excel in since its origins lie more as a politico religious movement rather than a vehicle for the attainment of enlightenment in spite of various claims and counter claims. This has been substantiated through its five centuries of existence.

The other traditions of Himalayan Buddhism, the Nyingmapa, Sakyapa and the variously morphed Kagyu traditions have fortunately not been seen to subscribe to such nazi-ism per se in Tibetan history for the last three hundred and fifty years. Leaving this to the Gelugpas, they have nurtured more the impetus for the attainment of liberation amongst their following with amazing results.

It is also not clear as to how the Sangha Pariwar veered towards him and began to treat him as an incarnation of Vishnu! However, it is true that the Taala’i Lama has successfully conned Indians, particularly Hindus, making them believe in his purported righteousness. In this context, the gullible leadership of Hindutva, has been no different from his blue eyed, blonde haired sponsors overseas.

It is important now to focus on a few facts concerning the NDA dispensation. The most outstanding one of course, was the manner in which a renowned Chinese sympathiser, Tai Situpa, was permitted to re-enter India through the tireless efforts of Sri Ram Jethmalani, then Union Minister for Urban Development, who broke all existing norms to enable this to happen. That was Aug 1998, exactly four years after he had been banned from re-entering India by Sri Narasimha Rao’s govt. It is said that he was amply rewarded for his efforts.

A couple of months earlier, according to Sri A. K. Doval, Director of Intelligence Bureau 2004-05, echoed by General Mallik in his recent book on Kargil , Pakistan ’s intentions had become known June 2, 1998 . Intelligence concerning this had been sent to the National Security Advisor, NSA, Sri Brajesh Mishra and the Union Minister of Defence, MOD, Sri George Fernandes. Action however was not taken until nine months later spring 1999, when the intrusion could no longer be ignored. Operation Vijaya manifest the heroism of our officers and jawans who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our country, some four hundred and more. General Pervez Musharraf, who claims he is no one’s poodle, was then in Beijing , his orders were intercepted by army intelligence!

The question which needs to be asked of the GOI is why the Ministry of Defence slept on this intelligence. The answer is extremely simple -- the matter was referred to the extra constitutional monarch of India -- the Taala’i Lama -- who in his boundless vision and compassion advised inaction!

The saddest part of this is that the Taala’i Lama factor is extremely well concealed in India, with the average Indian, as also his apparently devoted following in the world, knowing absolutely nothing about him, nor having any desire or reason to do so.

That Sri Lal Krishna Advani has recently raked up the ghost of Kandahar as it were and Kargil as well, could very well mean that the Sangha Pariwar is in the process of a rethink concerning the Taala’i Lama and its misconceived image of him. In short, the BJP has truly been shaken by the Taala’i Lama’s track record! This is an extremely fortuitous development for the country!

It was around this same time that the seeds for the ‘flight’ of Urgen Trinlay Dorjee, the XVIIth Karmapa as recognised jointly by the PRC and the Taala’i Lama, [wonder of wonders!] were planted. Clearly the anti PRC rhetoric which emanates from the Taala’i Lama is mere ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’!

The plan involved some in the GOI for sure, Govt of Sikkim and the so-called Joint Action Committee of Sikkim as is known and of course the astute Chinese who have rarely had any compunctions in planting their own agents in India through the Tibetan diaspora and otherwise, as is well known throughout the land. It hardly needs to be stated that the Taala’i Lama and his CIA sponsors including the ISI, were also involved.

One must remember that the world was governed by different vectors in those heady days immediately preceding the infamous attacks on the WTC Sep 11, 2001 when India bashing was exulted in.

Some aspects of this have already been dealt with by this writer in another article ‘Terrorism - the true face of the Taala’i Lama’ already on this website. However, the more comes to be known of the sequence of events of that fateful IC814 hijacking to Kandahar , the more one becomes aware of the not-so ‘divine hand’ guiding the destiny of India , its peoples, and as was to transpire shortly, that of the world.

It has already been averred in ‘Terrorism - the true face of the Taala’i Lama’ that this hijack was a ploy jointly hatched by the PRC, ISI and the CIA. Almost a month has gone by since its posting on the web but there has been not a single protest, rebuttal or refutation from the Taala’i Lama. Yes, there has been a cowardly attempt to use black magic April 15, 06 7 p.m. onwards. This is quite in character of the Gelugpa outfit which obviously places a premium on cowardice. Why does not the Taala’i Lama openly refute all that this writer has been accusing him of in this website for more than half a year?

Applying the old dictum -- silence means consent -- the Taala’i Lama clearly accepts the perspective of this writer as being correct!

This hijack was a decoy operation under cover of which the Chinese Karmapa was to enter Sikkim , appropriate the Black Vajra Crown and other spiritual objet d’art from Rumtek Monastery and return home a national hero. Unfortunately for these planners, they forgot that ‘Man proposes and God disposes!’ particularly relevant in the Tibetan context where Dharmapala divinities both wisdom and others committed to protect it are known to protect the Dharma assiduously against the Taala’i Lama’s confabulations.

The hijacking went ahead. The plane halted at Amritsar airport about 8 p.m. that fateful Dec 15, 1999 for refueling. The NSA Sri Brajesh Mishra and the MOD were contacted by the Govt of Punjab seeking specific directions. Precious minutes ticked away, yet there was not a whisper from New Delhi . What was the Cabinet doing?

It’s all very simple -- it was trying to contact the Taala’i Lama, its Raja Guru for guidance. The Taala’i Lama, fully in the know of events, was conveniently ensconced in meditation. Thus, when the hijackers were unarmed and the GOI could have merely had the tanker positioned in front of the aircraft, its tyres blown off or even a simple stool placed in front of the wheels of the aircraft to prevent it from taking off, this was not done! All this confusion was the result of the reliance the NDA placed or misplaced on that Nobel Peace Laureate!

As the crisis deepened, it has been reported recently in Zee News that a 35 seater jet with twenty specially trained and equipped Indian commandos on board had landed at Kandahar airport with the Deputy Director of Intelligence Dec 26, 99 . For two days they sat there waiting for orders to storm the plane. These orders never came from New Delhi even as the Taliban went on to surround the plane much later. The rest is history. India was humbled under international glare!

What could have been the reason for this? The only answer is that the incorrigible Taala’i Lama advised inaction. It was through his efforts that the three dreaded terrorists were released in exchange for the plane and its passengers. This was exactly what he had been ordered to do by the PRC, ISI and the CIA. And this is what the faithful Taala’i Lama went and did for them!

If he ever had a conscience and if he lived in accordance with even an iota of all he eruditely teaches and writes as the purported ‘Spiritual Leader of Tibetans’ and supposedly the ‘face of Buddhism in the world’, surely this would not have come to pass. The reader is left to decide as to whether a spiritual leader can ever be a successful politician or vice versa.

Unfortunately he was under the delusion that the wisdom divinities of Buddhism would certainly support him. Perhaps he felt that the not so wisdom deities of his pet Gelugpa sect, are more powerful than those of the other three Himalayan Buddhist traditions. He had clearly forgotten that just as had happened in Bhutan three decades ago, it would have been impossible for his political finaglings to penetrate the shield of protection created by genuine wisdom divinities around the Vajra Crown and other articles owned by the XVIth Gyalwang Karmapa.

Even though the three terrorists were released, the plane and its passengers retrieved, the Chinese impostor Karmapa failed to reach Sikkim and ended up in Dharamsala, HP as there was nowhere else he could go. His attempt had failed but with drastic consequences to the world as was to be evidenced later! The released terrorists included Maulana Masood Azhar who killed Daniel Pearl and was a key figure in the WTC attacks.

Yet again the Taala’i Lama had goofed just as he had with the Panchen Lama’s incarnation! The manner in which the CIA, PRC and ISI have continued to use him against India and then regularly leave him in the limbo, defies common sense. But then the Chinese are profound, their policies deeply thought out!

The world, particularly the US , has a penchant of finding scapegoats and punishing them. The most recent is Zacarias Moussaoui who has been sent to prison for life for his purported role in the 9/11 WTC attacks. If anyone should be tried and convicted, it is most certainly the Taala’i Lama for the pivotal role he played in the Kandahar affair which turned out to be merely a precursor to 9/11. But then how can the US charge its own poodle with a crime in which it was a more than equal partner? That the govt of the USA is fast losing its credibility in international fora is beyond doubt!

Questions of the maturity of the Chinese Karmapa were asked even on that fateful Jan 5, 2000 by Andrew Whitehead, the BBC correspondent who had covered his arrival live. The BBC has conveniently buried this report! This issue came into focus yet again at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Chandigarh , where the Chinese impostor Karmapa, Ugen Trinlay Dorjee, UTD, was sent. A thorough medical check up over a period of three weeks April 2000, with UTD as an in patient, revealed that he was not the purported 15 years old, as declared by the Taala’i Lama, rather between 24 - 27 then.

The media picked up on this scoop. The NDA, acting at the behest of the Taala’i Lama, immediately had the reports suppressed leaving the world to continue to believe in his purported righteousness together with the authenticity of that impostor. Clearly the GOI could not offend Uncle Sam even though it was compelled to compromise its own national security interests. To add injury to insult, the Union Cabinet, even granted him refugee status early Feb 2001.

Yet again the Taala’i Lama had shown his sleight of hand. His finale was still due. After the attack on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani terrorists, Dec 13, 2001 . It was at his instance that the country spent Rs. 400 crores every month for the mobilisation termed Operation Parakrama. The GOI was prevented by him from attacking terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir! The country lost a tremendous amount of money during this operation which dragged on for many months! But then the Taala’i Lama had no reason to care for this. After all he had fulfilled his masters’ wishes! And India remains for him a highly disposable commodity!

The visit of Sri A. B. Vajpayee, then PM of India to China , too was at the behest of the Taala’i Lama. So was the proposal to open the sensitive Nathu La pass on the Sikkim border for open trade with China . The PM had absolutely no idea that the infrastructure for creating Siliguri as a dry port for goods from China routed through the port in Kolkata, just was not there. Simply stated, the national highway connecting Kolkata with the northeast continues to be in bad condition with high traffic density. Nor do the geological conditions of the mountains in Darjeeling and Sikkim permit the movement of heavy traffic.

Even as army intelligence continued to register its protests for reasons of national security, the Sikkim Chief Minister, Sri Pawan Chamling went on record to state that he wanted to see a direct bus service between Lhasa , capital of the TAR and Rumtek in Sikkim ! Astounding isn’t it!

And during this high profile visit, the PRC was quietly moving into some 30 kms of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh, claiming it to be Chinese territory. Clearly this was Indian diplomacy at its very best! Kudos to the Taala’i Lama for this excellent achievement!

One is constrained to assume that the premature elections called by the NDA early 2002 was also advised by its mentor. That it lost decisively has turned out to be a blessing for India resulting in the Taala’i Lama’s disempowerment! So much for the accuracy and the efficacy of his prognostications and his being an incarnation of Vishnu as the current King of Nepal supposedly is, or any benign Buddhist divinity!

The Taala’i Lama has clearly protected his own interests extremely well, sacrificing those of India . It has been India which granted him and his one lakh compatriots asylum and returned to them their basic human dignity when the PRC had threatened to treat them as sub human. Surely the country hardly has any need of enemies with friends such as these!

It would be incorrect to assume that he is a spent force yet. In an article titled ‘Religious Parochialism - Two outstanding examples’, this writer has already delved into the reasons why he is no longer a monk and even less a Vajracharya. In spite of these basic truths, the GOI and various state governments in the country continue to revere him as a genuine God man! His devotees know precious little about him to enable them to arrive at any informed decision concerning him!

Simultaneously it is true that he is out of synch with modern realities. During an interview in ‘Have your Say’ April 16, 06 the Archbishop of York, had clearly defined his priorities -- God, that he is a human being, that he is from Africa and that he is black, in that order. That one hour program demonstrated the depth and vision of that person exuding the best of self worth from each and every pore. Readers may refer to it at www.bbc.co.uk/haveyoursay.

For the Taala’i Lama, his God is the Chinese President, he is a Chinese, he is from the TAR and he is mongolian in origin. This is what defines him and in exactly that order of precence! Buddhism -- well, that seems to be a convenient toy for him to distract world attention! But then the world is far too enamoured by his facade to accept this and extremely distracted by the charade he skillfully plays out!

Believe it or not, he too is subject to the rigors of time and the truth has a nasty habit of surfacing sometimes sooner than later, sometimes otherwise! This writer’s contribution to the world is to keep on warning it of the evil that is embodied in this person!

But then can anything else be expected of a person who was deprived of his mother’s love during infancy?

Let us learn from the past to profit by the present and from the present to live better in the future. -- William Wordsworth

Iti shubham! Buddha Purnima, May 13, 2006 .

Postscripts:

Food for thought.

I

‘A king is much like the state, is the identity a people give unto themselves to deliver their ego that they are unable to deliver unto themselves. So, in their humility, the subjects identitfy themselves with the king in the hope that he will deliver unto them what they so deeply desire. And the king delivers unto his subjects the civic virtues of self respect and dignity. In doing this, the king returns to his subjects their ego. And the king uses various weapons that he is best capable of using to deliver self respect and dignity to his people either by way of military dominance or economic upliftment or social justice.

For the king to restore unto his subjects what they desire the most, he must reach out to the masses, that is, to the maximum number of people that make the community that makes the king. The king does this, in humility, sharing his love, his benevolence, his might, his power and his economic clout with his subjects as these asre the very virtues the subjects once vested in him. In doing this, the king also shifts the focus of attention away from his and centres it on his subjects.

But when the king himself wants to be the centre of attention, and vests the identity of his subjects entirely in himself, he clings to the civil virtues of self esteem and dignity, retaining the military might and economic clout with himself. In doing this, he shifts the focus of attention of the people from themselves to himself.

That’s when the forces of the people draw on the king demanding a share of what was originally theirs, but is now the exclusive preserve of the king. In the face of such a force, the king gets defensive and transfers all the energies and resources of the state to protect his virtues for himself. He does so till that point of time when people’s power succeeds in overwhelming the might of the king. In the process, the subjects decimate the identity they once vested in the king and restore their ego unto themselves.

Excerpted from The King is dead. R.I.P. ET 26-4-06 referring to the recent developments in the Kingdom of Nepal .

II

“What happened after the December 1999 Kandahar hijacking? I had asked Vajpayee to remove Mishra forthwith. You have made such a person as NSA who allowed the plane to leave the country from Amritsar . This man did not do anything to stop the plane which could have been done by a school student. It was certainly surprising. The plane could have been stopped by placing a bench before it or by puncturing its tyres.

Asked if there was a conspiracy behind the ‘inaction’, he said, “it was incompetence crossing all limits and an incompetent advisor was actually running the entire country. At that time I was in Madurai in connection with an official function and I called Vajpayee on the mobile phone and told him to take out all the terrorists, put the pistol on their temple and tell the hijackers that they would be shot if even a single passenger is killed.” “Even if you kill all the hostages we will not succumb should have been our stand,” Jethmalani said. He did not confirm whether a huge ransom was paid for the release od hostages merely saying, “I don’t know what all happened. But this was no way to run the government.”

Excerpted from Jethmalani blames Brajesh Mishra for Kandahar fiasco, HT April 28, 06.

III

The Taliban’s actions are seen by some as proof of the Indian government’s “weak kneed” policy on terrorism and hostage takers. According to K. P. S. Gill, the issue goes back to December 1999. “IC814 could have been stopped at Amritsar itself. The lack of action shown by the government during the Kandahar crisis suggests that India has become a soft target for terrorists.” Ajai Sahni,0 executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, agrees and adds: “What we need is a hostage policy. It should spell out what is and isn’t negotiable. This will give our negotiators a clear framework to work within, so if another Kandahar happens tomorrow, the government can say it tried its best.”

Not many would disagree with this argument. What is little known is that a manual on what to do in the even of a hostage crisis has already been provided to the government in 1978. But its recommendations have not been followed up. According to strategic afairs exper K. Subrahmanyam, “Media management is of prime importance....Moreover he adds, bureaucrats dealing with national security must be trained separately. “Simulation exercises involving potential hostage scenarios must be done frequently.”

Subrahmanyam’s view are endorsed by Major General (retd) Dipankar Banerjee of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. “Hijack situations should be treated like psychological warfare and a warlike preparedness must be there to deal with it.”

Excerpted from Held Hostage by Ashwin Ahmad, TOI, Sunday May 7, 06.

IV

“The communication on Kargil,” A. K. Doval said, “was signed personally by then IB director Shyamal Dutta. This in itself was unusual as IB directors normally don’t sign such documents “unless it is something extremely important,” A. K. Doval said.

“It was sent personally by him to the defence minister, to Director General Military Intelligence and various offices,” he added. “The communication was very specific, Doval maintained.”

“It talks about Kargil, it talks about Tiger Hill and other features. Every word is well chosen,” he added, noting that even a government that probed the Kargil episode hadn’t ‘dismissed’ it.”

“All it said was, it was not marked to the Director General of Military Operations, it was marked to the Director General of Military Intelligence,” Doval pointed out.

Lamenting that there was ‘no response’ to Dutta’s note, Doval said that “if the agency provides the information, the user agency must invariably provide the feedback.”

“The point is that after this information had gone into the system, it should have been verified. Somebody should have gone to the heights and said we have seen this movement,” Doval said.

On the Indian Airlines hijack, he said the intelligence agencies should have been more alert.

“(It) was a national intelligence failure. We should have known that the planning was being done in Nepal . They came from Bangladesh , we should have known,” said Doval who went to Kandahar to negotiate the release of the passengers.

He added: “Our giving (away) Maulana Masoon Azhar was a mistake. Purely on security and intelligence considerations, any swapping was wrong. It should not have been done.

“Nobody should have been swapped, least of all Maulana Masood Azhar.”

Excerpted from ‘Army ignored intelligence on Kargil’ PTI report in HT, Patna April 22, 06.