Is there a lighter side to spying? On TV and in cinema, yes, there exists a glamorous edge to thrillers where spies always get the girl in the end. James Bond is particularly good at this art. But the real world, fortunately or unfortunately, is populated by casual-looking ordinary men who undertake the extraordinary work of spying for their governments. Some of them get caught.
Indians and Pakistanis are, once in a while, treated to a spy story that kicks up a political storm large enough to hover over New Delhi and Islamabad (if that really is the seat of the Pakistani government) for weeks. The latest episode concerns a fellow called Kulbhushan Jadav, who went about as Hussein Mubarak Patel. His uncle was in charge of the Bandra police station in 2002 when the hit-and-run case was registered against Salman Khan. We don’t know if this information is relevant to the story, but anything to do with Salman Khan is worth mentioning, in or out of context.
What he did on the Afghan side of the Pakistan border is unknown, because if it were known he would not be a very good spy. But on March 3, 2016 Jadav was arrested by Pakistan police on the charge of spying (this would never have happened to James Bond). Mere arrests do not make good stories, so no one really bothered about Hussein. Then, last week a Pakistani court sentenced him to death on charges of espionage and all hell broke loose in New Delhi. Cliché.
India and Pakistan are perpetually at war and peace at the same time. They have spies here and we have spies there. In Kashmir there is an ex-sleuths association which works for the welfare of ex-spies who are disowned by the government. I mean, we are having such a problem with the Seventh Pay Commission and OROP, add ex-spies to the cauldron and our finances could collapse. It would make sense to simply exchange the apprehended spies once in a while and settle the matter. But you know how it is with Pakistan. What you see is not what you get.
Real spying is closer to the novels written by John le Carre than the James Bond franchisee, which churns out more money though. While the Bond flicks have nationalism written all over them, Carre prefers to engage with the real world and his spies tend to be real people who hate their governments and politicians, but undertake the job of spying for either the extra money, the excitement or the fact that the CIA has a lot of dope on them. If you have a secret, the government will use it to manipulate you.
We don’t know why Jadav did it. But under pressure he did admit that he was spying. Here, one must remember that after Pakistani interrogators have torture you for days on end, you will confess to anything. Our cops are pretty good at achieving the same result and they are Indians.
If one had to look at this whole episode from the Pakistani side it would appear quite different. But as Indians we cannot do that because it would trigger right-wing saffronites into bashing all our teeth in. After that, beef steak will never taste the same.
Seriously, there is no lighter side to spying.
