THE Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has received a good deal of flak lately over raids conducted as part of an investigation. A retired middle-level officer of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) published a book critical of the intelligence agency’s functioning. The CBI, after receiving a complaint from the government, registered a case against him under the Official Secrets Act and conducted raids at his residence and the publisher’s premises. Now, conducting raids is standard procedure in investigations – to recover any possible incriminating material or evidence. But the CBI has become the fall guy.
As long as the Official Secrets Act, 1923 remains in the statute books, whenever a complaint is received some agency has to take action. The existence of this law is a different issue, especially in view of the Right To Information Act. It is true that information and its availability is the sine qua non of a democracy. But governments, irrespective of party, have tended to pay lip service to transparency. India’s intelligence set-up, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and RAW, are not subjected to any scrutiny except by departmental bosses – which amounts to no scrutiny.
Intelligence agencies all over the world are obsessed with secrecy. Their retired officials are discouraged from writing memoirs or speaking to the media.
The RAW officer’s book has been in the market for five months and has sold over 3000 copies. As a middle-level officer, he may not have complete knowledge about the agency as all intelligence agencies function on the “need to know” basis. He talks about lack of leadership and accountability in RAW, misuse of funds, and cases of doubtful procurement. The trouble with such books is that they contain few facts but lots of innuendos and gossip. He talks about RAW’s decision to release the transcript between Pervez Musharraf and Mohammed Aziz at the height of the Kargil war. He calls it wrong from the intelligence point of view.
Releasing the transcript might have served a diplomatic purpose but Pakistan discovered the Islamabad–Beijing satellite link that was being tapped and that source was lost forever. But such decisions are taken at government and political level, not agency level. This highlights his lack of knowledge of the workings of government.
Instead of invoking
the Official Secrets
Act, honest criti
cism must be
accepted and made
good use of in the
interest of the
nation. The RTI Act
overrides the OSA
However, the book should goad the government into having a mechanism whereby the sacred cows of our intelligence agencies become subject to some kind of accountability. The CIA is accountable to the US legislature’s intelligence oversight committees. Moreover, it cannot hold on to its secret files forever: CIA files are declassified after 40 years. But it is not so in our country. This deprives the public, and also the media, of an opportunity to comment on the intelligence agencies’ past performance, blunders and achievements. According to a report, there are more RAW operatives posted in Western countries than in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, Afghanistan, Myanmar or Thailand. The report also says that in Afghanistan, it does not have even one Dari-speaking operative. It is time that, instead of invoking the Official Secrets Act, honest criticism is accepted and made good use of in the overall interest of the nation.
The RTI Act clearly affirms that it overrides the OSA. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission also wants the OSA scrapped. The country’s vital secrets must be guarded. At the same time, the citizen’s right to information about the functioning of the government and its departments must not be diluted. People working for secret organizations have certain obligations. Their output is for the use of the government. This is unlike the case of the CBI, where the output goes to the courts – which is in the public domain. Some jobs involve an unwritten obligation and commitment that the secrets of the country must go with the man to his grave.
