On September 21 a dozen men from the CBI barged into my home and began searching for ‘incriminating’ material connected with my book India’s

External Intelligence: Secrets of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) which is supposed to have revealed ‘secrets’ that can harm national security. After rummaging around for three hours, they took away my computer, passport, personal diaries and some notebooks. They also confiscated two files, both containing photocopies of certain documents.

The first had certain papers connected with the court case of Brigadier Ujjal Dasgupta, which had been given to me by his wife and sister, who had sought my advice in the matter. The second file, or envelope, had photocopies of some letters given to me — fortunately it was in a public place and I was not alone — about two months earlier by a person who claimed that some people in the RAW were trying to capture his brain using the medulla technique. He said that he had read my book, and thought that having served in the technical wing of the RAW, I would be able to help him. After going through the papers, both Brigadier Anand and I agreed that he appeared to be mentally unsound. I kept the papers so that I could return them to him when he contacted me again, as he had indicated. It was only after the CBI search that it dawned on me that they were probably ‘planted’ soon after the book was published and the RAW’s efforts to get it banned did not succeed.

Apart from the sense of outrage at this wanton attack on my privacy and reputation, I was filled with shame and helplessness. In the 40 years that I had worn the colours of my country, not once had I been so disgraced. And what was my crime?

That I wrote a book about an intelligence agency that is funded by the Indian tax payer but feels it has no obligation or responsibility towards him or people who represent him. That I pointed out aberrations that were more funny than serious, such as government officials sulking like school children when denied a promotion or refusing to vacate offices when transferred. That I pointed out the misdeeds of some crooks who masqueraded as spooks, keeping their own interests above that of the country or organisation they were serving in. That I exposed before the public some men who walked tall but had feet of clay, making up with bluster what they lacked in leadership. Surely, these were not crimes, least of all in a nation that takes pride in its democratic ideals, one of the most important being the right to free expression. Of course, the right to free expression does not give one the right to sully someone’s reputation or make unwarranted allegations. The laws in our country have adequate safeguards against libel, and I wish those who were cut to the quick by the contents of the book had the courage to sue me for defamation, rather than take recourse to the Official Secrets Act.

The Official Secrets Act was enacted in 1923. Those who fought for India’s freedom were well aware of its draconian provisions. These were used by British rulers to silence dissent and keep troublemakers behind bars. Most of these freedom fighters controlled the destiny of India in the years following independence from British rule. Many of them were legal luminaries with years of experience of fighting against such statutes. On August 15 1947, when the Tricolour was hoisted and the Union Jack brought down, the Official Secrets Act should have been consigned to the waste bin of history. Why this was not done will remain one of the greatest mysteries of that era. Perhaps some historian will find time to investigate this conundrum in the near future. By then hundreds of innocent Indian citizens would have spent years in jail for imaginary crimes, thanks to a British statute that has been amended even in Britain. For them, the British Raj will probably never end.

Cases of misuse of the Act are too numerous to recount. The infamous Samba spy case in which dozens of army officers spent years in jail on trumped up charges is a blot on India’s judicial system. A brilliant scientist, Captain B.K. Subbarao, was arrested in 1988 for being found in possession of his own doctoral thesis. The case dragged on for five years and he spent 20 months behind bars, being finally exonerated by the Supreme Court. His crime was that he had exposed technical errors in the nuclear submarine project on which BARC had spent crores of rupees.

It is strange that the exact meanings of the words ‘secret’ and ‘spy’ have not been given in the Official Secrets Act. As a result, almost anything can be graded secret. Intelligence agencies are particularly prone to this malaise. In RAW, even the circulars for tea parties are graded ‘secret’.

According to a recent news report in the Indian Express, RAW officials justified the crackdown on me, saying that the book referred to some projects that were either ongoing or delayed due to some technical or operational reasons. “Anybody in the business of intelligence will be able to figure out what these projects mentioned in the book refer to”. This is a strange argument. After all, the equipment was procured from foreign sources. Tender enquiries were sent to dozens of foreign vendors, informing them of the technical parameters of the equipment required by the RAW. Representatives of these companies visited the RAW offices to give presentations. If foreign vendors already know the technical details of the project, one can assume that the respective intelligence agencies of those countries also know about it. If the details are known to foreigners, how can their disclosure to the Indian public be considered harmful to national security?

From the same news item I learned that the RAW has decided to hold an ‘internal inquiry’ into the allegations of corruption cited in my book. This is unlikely to achieve anything. All cases of corruption detailed in the book were reported by me to higher authorities in writing. If action had been taken then, there would have been no need to bring them out in the book. If an ‘internal inquiry’ did not find anything wrong then, how will it help now? Does the RAW really expect the public to believe that those involved will find themselves guilty? If the government is serious about bringing the guilty men to book, it should hand over the investigation to the CBI. Given the past record of the RAW, this is probably wishful thinking. Even in a major incident such as the escape of Rabinder Singh, no FIR was lodged against him or any of the other officers involved.

The main points brought out in the book are lack of accountability, leadership and transparency. I have made a case for parliamentary oversight for intelligence agencies such as the RAW and IB, on the pattern of other democracies such as the US and UK. This view is supported by almost everyone, including people in the intelligence community. The measure will actually help the agencies, since it will give them an avenue to put forth their views and counter false allegations that today go challenged. The reluctance of the government to introduce legislation towards this end is baffling.

Other than the RAW, not one person in government or out of it, has found anything in the book that has damaged India’s national security. If the government did not find reason enough to ban the book, is it justified in invoking the Official Secrets Act against me? In any case, this is not the first book about an Indian intelligence agency. Books have been written about the IB as well as the RAW, which are, if anything, more explicit than mine. Am I paying the price for being an ‘outsider’, or is it because of personal animus? Is this not a mockery of the Whistleblowers Act? Without even a shadow of accountability, our intelligence agencies have become a law unto themselves.