Click to play videoThiruvanthapuram: The Communist success story in Kerala is now 50 years old and now, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and his colleagues are reopening an old wound.
If the biography of former US Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker is to be believed, the CIA had performed a clandestine operation to topple the first elected Communist government in the world.
The book also says that the CIA funded political demonstrations by the Congress and other Opposition groups.
Bunker's biography quotes: “…the election results rang alarm bells in Washington. This apparently involved agency funding for political demonstrations organised by the Congress party and other opposition groups that were designed to create a law and order situation."
“It was essentially funding the anti-government agitation and create a cover so that the Central Government is forced to intervene. He (Bunker) also makes a very important revelation that S K Patil was the conduit for devolving the money,†said Minister of Finance, government of Kerala, Dr Thomas Issac.
Bunker gives a clean chit to former prime minister and Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, making it clear that it was the agriculture minister at the time, Patil, who was directly involved.
Another former US ambassador, Partick Moynihan, has earlier revealed that Indira Gandhi received funds from the CIA but the Congress refutes this.
"It is utter nonsense. This is the vibrance of democracy in a country like India that a communist government got elected. If there is failure on the law and order front then it becomes the prerogative of the government then. A similar situation is prevailing in Kerala now. Will it blame KGB and CIA or the government now?†said Congress leader Tom Vadakkan.
It is not just Bunker's biography that exposes the CIA-Congress nexus.
A few declassified documents of the CIA clearly show that toppling the 1957 EMS government was top priority for America.
The CIA head at the time, Allen Dulles, wrote, "It is very unlikely that local agitation alone will prove sufficient to oust the communist government. These developments have posed a grave issue for the entire congress party in India. Nehru obviously does not wish to do this but may ultimately be forced to take the step.''
Whatever be the intentions of the CPI-M in raking up this 50-year-old issue, this is undoubtedly a crucial piece of evidence which perhaps shows to what extent successive American governments used the CIA to shape India's political landscape.
NOTHING DIPLOMATIC |
| + Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984) was one of America’s top diplomats of the post-war era. He served under seven presidents and was Ambassador to Argentina, Italy, India (1956-1961), Nepal, Vietnam. |
| + Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk, his new biography by Howard B Schaffer, alleges that the CPI's electoral victory in Kerala in 1957 "rang alarm bells in Washington", where "preventing additional Keralas became an important argument for augmenting US assistance to India". |
| + Bunker's embassy helped in a clandestine CIA operation to dislodge the Communist government in Kerala. The CIA allegedly funded demonstrations organised by the Congress and other opposition groups, the biography claims. |
| + Bunker once claimed in an interview, "He had very good and very close relation with Indian intelligence and was able to get from them pretty good evidence as to what was going on and in what amounts." |
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