Agencies & internal politics
Asghar Ali Shad
The tragedy of the underdeveloped countries is that the interests of the government and the state are not kept apart and generally the government and its sub-ordinate organizations see no harm in promoting the interest of the government but consider it necessary. As a result, government considers it as its prime duty to bag all possible benefits and opportunities for itself and to rundown its opponents in all possible ways.
In this perspective, currently, the Asghar Khan Case is being heard in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. According to the case, about a quarter century back, some high officials of ISI on the instructions of the then head of the state distributed certain sums of money among the political figures of that time. In this respect, Indian political situation portrays some very similar and interesting features. For instance, according to the report by one of the renowned intellectual and journalist Parveen Swami in the widely circulated Indian newspaper, ‘The Hindu’, of December 5, 2011 disclosed that the Indian secret intelligence agency, ‘Intelligence Bureau’ (IB) is utilizing all its resources to undermine the political rivals of the Congress Party. However, Indian national interest has been completely ignored. Interestingly enough, Intelligence Bureau (IB) is the oldest intelligence agency having more than 25000 members and employees.
In addition to it, in the last month, permission for induction of more than six thousand officers has been granted. The aim is to keep a vigilant eye on the activities of the political opponents of the Congress Party. Recently, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has approved the purchase of tracking equipment worth more than Rs.8 trillion, which will serve the only purpose of spying on the government rivals. This huge spending has nothing to do with the national interest of India. It would be more interesting to know that according to the December 5, 2011 report by Parveen Swami, out of six IB director general (DGs), only two are monitoring the Jammu Kashmir and North-eastern Indian movements while two out of three DGs are performing the duty to neutralize the opponents of the central government either through threats or bribes. In this way, out of twenty-five thousand officers, twenty thousand are serving for politically vested interests of the government.
It is worth mentioning here that few weeks back Gujrat Chief Minister Nirender Modi has expressed that Delhi had given clear instructions to ‘RAW’, ‘IB’ and ‘CIB’ to make use of all their resources against BJP ( Bhartya Janta Party). Nevertheless, the BJP has openly blamed the Indian government of giving instructions to the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) to use all its resources to undermine the interests of the BJP. In addition to that after the arrest of the Kamal Chauhan, an alleged accused in the Samjhota Express case, the BJP has openly claimed that the National Intelligence Bureau ( NIB) has been ordered to use its resources against the BJP in the UP election to get Muslim votes. Similarly, suspected terrorist of Maligaun Village and Samjhota Express, Major Ramesh Upadhyay also took part in the provincial elections of UP for the seat of ‘Behriya’ district ‘Balliya’ and also contested for the Meerath Cantt, district Meerath. Permission was given by the Indian Election Commission and the bench comprised of Justice V.M Kinade and Justice P.D Kudae of Maharashtra High Court.
Everyone knows that Indian government’s high officials created hue and cry over the release of Hafiz Saeed and on his speech in few public meetings. Paradoxically, on the unjust participation of Major Ramesh in the electoral process, neither Pakistani media nor international media raised voice. One can only lament over such disappointing situation. It is hard to understand why some circles in the country have chosen the one-point agenda of criticizing the Pak Army and the ISI.
