Some years ago, the Indian Embassy in Beijing was convulsed by a spy scandal which spread across critical departments of the mission: the intelligence set up at the centre of which was the station chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external spy agency, the political section which is the nerve centre of China analysis by diplomats, private secretaries whose nimble fingers handle all classified papers in our babu culture where it is infra dig for officers to file sensitive papers away themselves unlike in missions of many other countries.
The scandal nearly destroyed promising careers. Turf battles broke out in the most secretive corridors of power in New Delhi where some agencies involved closed ranks to protect their own in Beijing while fratricidal fights erupted in others where the instincts for collective survival are not strong. Honey traps, wads of greenbacks, backstabbing: the episode had all the ingredients that made for several days, if not weeks, of screaming, sensational tabloid headlines. But the government managed to keep the lurid story out of the media when it was happening. Months later, there were passing references to the subject when the whole matter had died down and it was no longer a story.
Jaswant Singh, who was then Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, came to know about the scandal. As a former External Affairs and Defence Minister, as someone who cares deeply about the nation’s security, he was naturally disturbed by what he heard and decided to ask a Parliament question in about what was happening in one of India’s most important diplomatic outposts. Anand Sharma, who was then Minister of State for External Affairs, skillfully dismissed Singh’s question in less than a minute. End of matter.