Bharat Karnad
It is said of highly professional intelligence agencies that what they consistently do well is focus on the leaders of countries their government deals with, to try and find some weakness, some sore spot, a well hidden secret in the present or from the past, perhaps, marital discord, or sexual peccadilloes, or evidence of sexual deviance, of a lover squirrelled away in some safe house somewhere, or a woman scorned who can be turned to provide the dirty on the leader, something, anything, that the leader would rather keep away from the public eye, and to use this or that piece of information to get that leader of that government of that country to do as he is told, to take this decision, make that policy, announce such and such friendly step, or sign a specific deal. Information is a foreign state’s leverage and it is the stuff of external intelligence gathering.
The biggest intelligence coup of recent years is Putin’s KGB — the Russian Federal Security Service reportedly videographing, among other things, Trump during one of his business tours, pre-presidency, to Russia enjoying the company of blondes and a “golden shower”. Do you wonder why, where Moscow is concerned, Trump is a mewing pussycat?
Indian leaders have always had their weaknesses. There were obvious giveaways. Nehru had this thing for Edwina Mountbatten, and Whitehall used it without compunction to scuplt many of India’s policies during the Interim government when Lord Mountbatten was Viceroy and, a short time later, as the first Governor General of free India got Nehru to do many things London asked for. It is as if nothing had changed.
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