The quintuple Indian spy

It throws light on World War II, Indian freedom struggle and communist movement

The Indian Spy
The True Story of the Most Remarkable Secret Agent of World War II
Mihir Bose
Aleph
350 pages; Rs 599

Those who have read Mihir Bose’s The Lost Hero, his monumental biography of Subhas Chandra Bose, will find it hard to forget Bhagat Ram Talwar, the man to whom the underground communist network had entrusted the delicate task of ferreting the Congress leader to Kabul from Peshawar.
 
In that book, the author had said that the British were fully aware of every step Bose took. The communist network had been compromised. Exploring that leak, and relying on recently declassified documents, the author has unravelled the remarkable story of Talwar. The Indian Spy is an invaluable contribution to at least three histories: World War II, the Indian freedom struggle and the communist movement in the subcontinent.

 
Talwar was short and quiet, which made it easy for him to blend into a crowd. But he was wiry and resourceful, qualities that helped him travel on foot between Peshawar and Kabul 24 times — it was unruly territory and any slip-up was sure to lead to death.
 
He was a consummate actor who managed to hoodwink spymasters from Italy, Germany and Japan for years together. Most people in Kabul knew him as Rahmat Khan. More than once his cover came close to be blown, but Talwar’s wits always saved the day for him. And he was a committed communist, which underscored his fierce and supreme loyalty to Soviet Russia. He was also a prized British agent.

 
The writer says that Talwar was the only quintuple agent of World War II, which makes him one of the most remarkable figures of the six-year war. It would be fair to put him in the same bracket as legendary spies of the time like Richard Sorge.
 
A Hindu from the North Western Frontier Province, Talwar started out as a member of the non-violent Red Shirt movement of the Frontier Gandhi. In the crackdown that followed, Talwar was thrown into prison. His older brother, Hari Kishan, was executed for attempting to murder Geoffrey de Montmorency, the governor of Punjab.

 
After he was released from prison, Talwar, disillusioned with the Congress, especially with the growing clout of its wealthy backers, became a member of the Kirti Kisan Party, a communist outfit active in Punjab. This is the network Bose tapped into in 1941 to escape to Kabul.
 
From Kabul, Bose was provided passage to Europe by the Italians. At the time of his departure, Bose nominated Talwar as his agent. The Italians decided to use him to gather intelligence on British India: Troop movements, political undercurrents et al. And they decided to share him with the other two Axis powers. This was his initiation into the world of spying.

 
But Talwar was no fascist. So he played the double game. He would come to India, put together notes from various publications, make up a few facts, and present these as highly confidential reports to his handlers. So impressed were the gullible Germans with his work that they awarded him the Iron Cross and gave him large sums of money — the equivalent of 2.5 million pounds today.
 
Talwar’s life would take a decisive turn after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa to run over Soviet Russia. As a diehard communist, Talwar was tormented. He decided to aid the Russian effort against the aggressor, and thus began to turn over all the money and communication equipment he was given by the Germans to the Russians in Kabul. It was just a matter of time before Russia decided to share Talwar with the British intelligence agencies.

 
The British found the prospects tantalising. They knew they could use Talwar to spread misinformation amongst the Axis powers. Henceforth, all the intelligence reports that Talwar carried to Kabul were all drafted in New Delhi. Later, the British also used Talwar’s services to befuddle the Japanese.
 
It was the British who gave him the code name Silver. His minder in New Delhi was none other than Peter Fleming, the older brother of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.
 
Once the war was over, Talwar once again melted away from the public eye. He would make a public appearance in January 1973. Sisir Bose (Subhash Chandra Bose’s nephew) had organised the “first international Netaji seminar” in Kolkata. One of the speakers was Talwar.

 
In June 1976, Talwar published his memoirs, a carefully worded account of his days in Kabul. According to the writer, his actual spying was confined to 80 of the book’s 267 pages. A few years later, in May 1980, he was interviewed by the Oral History Project of the Nehru Memorial Museum Library. Again, Talwar chose to disclose little, merely reiterating that he passed on information given to him by the Axis Powers to the Indian communists, notwithstanding the interviewer’s observation that this information may have reached the British since the two were in league.
 
He died in 1983, few know where and when. He lived and died unnoticed.

 
Talwar was a worthy successor to Great Game heroes like Bokhara Burnes and Mohan Lal Kashmiri, and The Indian Spy ought to rank amongst the best non-fiction thrillers on the turbulent north-west.