Nä, nu överdrev jag naturligtvis. Men så här på Boris Jeltsins begravningsdag kan det vara på sin plats att reflektera vad Sovjet Unionens upplösande betydde för omvärlden. Att han slutligen blev den man som upplöste Sovjet Unionen hade för Indien en del oförutsedda bieffekter. Positiva sådana. Vid det Sovjetiska kuppförsöket mot Michail Gorbachev 1991 så höll större delen av världens demokratiska länder andan, utom ett, Indien. De gav kuppmakarna sitt fulla stöd och önskade fortsatt gott samarbete länderna emellan. Varför kan man fråga sig?
Indien var under kallakrigets dagar Sovjet Unionens allra närmaste allierade, med Gorbachevs töväders politik gentemot USA så blev Indien allt mindre och mindre viktigt för ledarna i Moskva. Det var således inte bara fraktioner inom KGB och den ryska militären som oroades över att Gorbachev sökte samförstånd med väst, stora delar av det indiska kongresspartiet och dess allierade oroade sig för det samma.
I boken, "The World was going our way: The KGB and the battle for the third world" berättar den förre KGB-agenten Vasili Mitrokhin om hur KGB infiltrerade regeringar världen över, allra framgångsrikast var man i Indien. Mithrokhins bok är inte den enda, på ryska har det publicerats en hel del böcker om hur KGB infiltrerade Indien. Pavel Simonov skriver om tre ryska Indien böcker"one of the main goals of the KGB in India was to guarantee that Gandhi's party remains at power. It was a kind of symbiosis – the KGB sustains the Party, the Party covers its actions. Shebarshin was very accurate not to name anybody influential, but he implies many interesting details, such as that the KGB was "buying" or at least creating strong connections not only with the active politicians but with the "retired" power brokers, those who stood behind the ruling family – ex-ministers, friends of the family, sponsors. And another point, it made no difference whether the politician was taking money for himself, buying palaces, or just for his party, continuing to live from the scraps. It was still a payroll of the KGB"
KGB misstrodde sin makt över den indiska staten och stödde därför Indira Gandhis kuppförsök, den sk. "Emergency period" 1975-77, där man hjälpte till med att betala jounalister för att skriva regeringsvänliga artiklar. Men kuppförsöket blev som bekant tillslut misslyckat och Indira Gandhi satt i husarrest, pank och i praktiken uträknad från politiken efter att Congress kastat ut henne från partiet. Istället startade hon ett eget Congress parti där Gandhi lojalisterna samlades. Tre år senare var hon tillbaka igen och vann valet 1980. Hon tilldelades Lenin Peace Prize ursprungligen kallat International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among People. Vart pengarna till det nya partiet kom ifrån är inte svårt att räkna ut.
bl.a citeras ett brev av Simonov:
To: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR
The KGB is currently conducting contacts with Rajiv Gandhi, the son of the Prime Minister of India. (according to the Central Committee's approval over the KGB note num. 1413-A/OB from 14.07.80.)
Rajiv Gandhi is truly thankful for the financial support to his family, which comes owing to the commercial deals of the company controlled by him with the Soviet state foreign trade companies. In a confiding talks Gandhi noted that most of the financial means coming through this channel are used to support the Rajiv Gandhi's Party.
The head of the Committee V. Chebrikov (12.02.83)
I The World was going our way berättas inte bara om att indiska politiker stod på KGB:s lönelista utan även om indiska journalister, många av dom aktiva än idag, som betalades för att skriva om påhittade CIA-operatiner. Subrotho Roy, ledarskribent på Calcutta baserade Statesman anser att boken egentligen berättar vad som redan bör ha varit kännt för de flesta indier. Men jag är inte lika säker. Framför allt så är historien inte speciellt omtalad i västvärlden där man fortfarande gärna sväljer påståendet att det är den brittiska kolonialismen som ligger bakom Indien postkoloniala mysslyckande. Subrotho Roy skriver bl.a
Everyone in the 1970s and through the 1980s knew of the tight grip around New Delhi’s policy-making circles of top bureaucrats, academics, journalists etc who were blatantly and incorrigibly pro-Soviet, some being active communists or fellow- travellers. Some of those complaining today know fully well that a cardinal implicit reason the CPI(M) broke from its parent party had to do precisely with Moscow’s control of the CPI. Moreover, while it might have been newsworthy when the KGB honey-trapped a senior diplomat or a junior cipher clerk in the Indian Embassy now and then, there were also hundreds of public sector bureaucrats, military personnel, journalists, technology professors, writers, artists, dancers et al who were treated most hospitably by the Soviet state – getting freebies flying to Soviet cities, being greeted by singing Young Pioneers, touring L’Hermitage with Intourist, receiving dollar honoraria and splendid gifts, sitting in on “technical training”, even receiving bogus Soviet doctoral degrees to allow themselves to be called “Dr” etc. Purchasing influence in New Delhi or any other capital city has never been merely a crude matter of cash-filled suitcases sloshing around in the middle of the night. Much of what Mitrokhin’s material says about the KGB’s penetration of India should, candidly speaking, generate but a desultory yawn from us –although even this book seems not to know that Narasimha Rao’s infamous, catastrophically damaging remarks in August 1991, in favour of the abortive KGB coup led by Kryuchkov against Gorbachev and Yeltsin, had been prompted by a staunchly pro-Soviet retired Indian diplomat at his side long-associated with the CPI.
Det sista bör åtminstone inte ha varit speciellt förvånande, Narashima Rao den dåvarande indiska premiärministern hade just tagit över efter Rajiv Gandhi som blivit mördad i ett attentat några månader tidigare. Raos regering bestod i princip fortfarande av handplockade Gandhi lojalister. Manmohan Singh, Indiens nuvarande premiärminister som var den finansminister som under Rao blev den förste att montera ner den indiska planekonomin blev en del av regeringen först efter att den Sovjetiska statskuppen misslyckats. Hur historien gång hade blivit ifall den Sovjetiska statskuppen hade lyckats kan vi naturligtvis inte veta, Sovjets kollaps var nog förestående ändå även utan Boris Jeltsins ingripande. Men hade det tagit 5 år, 10 år hade vi varit där idag? Det kan vi aldrig veta. En sak är dock säker, men Sovjet Unionens kollaps försvann Moskvas järngrepp om Indien och med den även den indiska planekonomin. Därför kan man faktiskt kalla Boris Jeltsin för en indisk frihetshjälte. Good Innings och allt det där, Boris.
2 comments:
Hello, Thanks for your comments re my work. You may be interested in the following editorial in The Statesman today April 26 2007, www.thestatesman.net on Yeltsin and India. It is also republished at IndiaSeminar, a Yahoo Group you may be interested in.
Best wishes
Subroto Roy
"Yeltsin and India
Unsubtle Siberian’s long march
When Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister, the Soviet Union still existed, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was its nominal head, and its main constituent, the Russian Federation, was headed by Boris Nicolayevich Yeltsin. Within a few weeks, on 18-19 August 1991, Gorbachev was under house-arrest and a reactionary communist coup d’etat was taking place led by KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov. On advice of an overtly communist retired IFS officer, the Rao government made an immediate statement, unique in the world and wholly unnecessary, that the coup should serve as a warning to all those “who attempted change too rapidly”. Russia’s anti-communist forces came to be symbolized by Yeltsin ~ who walked up to and stood atop a tank to the loud cheers of his people and said simply that he refused to accept the coup. Gorbachev was released and the coup collapsed within a few days. Gorbachev telephoned all world leaders but refused to telephone Rao. India’s Ambassador in Moscow was pointedly not invited to a briefing Yeltsin gave the diplomatic corps, the rupee-ruble trade ended, the cosy relationship with Moscow developed by the New Delhi establishment was over. Indeed the USSR itself was finished within a few weeks when Russia, Ukraine and Belarus renounced the treaty that was its legal basis. India’s diplomatic error symbolized how out-of-touch our rulers have been all too often with world history and economic and political realities. But Yeltsin was not a man to hold grudges especially when business was involved, and in less than a couple of years he made a rambunctious visit to India with the usual Russian list of wares to sell to New Delhi. On Jammu & Kashmir, he bluntly declared “The truth is on the side of India on this question”. In defiance of an American ban, he promised Russia would supply powerful rocket engines using supercold liquid cryogenic fuels for India’s space programme (though he later backtracked under American pressure). Yeltsin was an unsubtle Siberian who found himself in an epic role in the history of Russia and the world itself. Future generations will likely forgive him his flaws and remember only that he brought to fruition the long struggle of Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn and so many millions against the national and international catastrophe that was Bolshevism, Stalinism and Brezhnevism."
The Statesman editorial April 26 2007, www.thestatesman.net
Hello, Thanks for your comments re my work. You may be interested in the following editorial in The Statesman today April 26 2007, www.thestatesman.net on Yeltsin and India. It is also republished at IndiaSeminar, a Yahoo Group you may be interested in.
Best wishes
Subroto Roy
"Yeltsin and India
Unsubtle Siberian’s long march
When Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister, the Soviet Union still existed, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was its nominal head, and its main constituent, the Russian Federation, was headed by Boris Nicolayevich Yeltsin. Within a few weeks, on 18-19 August 1991, Gorbachev was under house-arrest and a reactionary communist coup d’etat was taking place led by KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov. On advice of an overtly communist retired IFS officer, the Rao government made an immediate statement, unique in the world and wholly unnecessary, that the coup should serve as a warning to all those “who attempted change too rapidly”. Russia’s anti-communist forces came to be symbolized by Yeltsin ~ who walked up to and stood atop a tank to the loud cheers of his people and said simply that he refused to accept the coup. Gorbachev was released and the coup collapsed within a few days. Gorbachev telephoned all world leaders but refused to telephone Rao. India’s Ambassador in Moscow was pointedly not invited to a briefing Yeltsin gave the diplomatic corps, the rupee-ruble trade ended, the cosy relationship with Moscow developed by the New Delhi establishment was over. Indeed the USSR itself was finished within a few weeks when Russia, Ukraine and Belarus renounced the treaty that was its legal basis. India’s diplomatic error symbolized how out-of-touch our rulers have been all too often with world history and economic and political realities. But Yeltsin was not a man to hold grudges especially when business was involved, and in less than a couple of years he made a rambunctious visit to India with the usual Russian list of wares to sell to New Delhi. On Jammu & Kashmir, he bluntly declared “The truth is on the side of India on this question”. In defiance of an American ban, he promised Russia would supply powerful rocket engines using supercold liquid cryogenic fuels for India’s space programme (though he later backtracked under American pressure). Yeltsin was an unsubtle Siberian who found himself in an epic role in the history of Russia and the world itself. Future generations will likely forgive him his flaws and remember only that he brought to fruition the long struggle of Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn and so many millions against the national and international catastrophe that was Bolshevism, Stalinism and Brezhnevism."
The Statesman editorial April 26 2007, www.thestatesman.net
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