Five Eyes Targets Indian Intelligence for Growing Too Big and Leaking Source Intelligence to Leftist Media

By: Laimayum Bashanta Sharma
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an election rally in Himatnagar, Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district, last night that a decade ago, when the country was suffering from terrorism, the Congress government sent dossiers to Pakistan despite knowing the cause of the deadly malaise. Today, he stated, India does not send dossiers to terrorist masterminds, but rather gives them a dose and kills them on their own turf.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly stated that “Bharat Aantankwadiyon Ko Ghar Main Ghus Ke Marta Hai” during the 2024 election campaign, despite lengthy so-called investigative news articles in the leftist and even state-funded media of the Five Eyes Intelligence alliance. Recent media reports in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, all members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, have accused the Modi government of involvement in the killing of Bhindranwale Tiger Force (BTF) terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, a plot to assassinate proscribed terrorist G S Pannun in the United States, the murder of Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Avtar Singh Khanda in the United Kingdom, and the neutralization of an anti-India terrorist in Pakistan. In 2020, a state-funded Australian broadcaster accused Indian spies of attempting to steal secrets about sensitive defense projects, airport security, and classified trade information.
A news report in the West even named National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and former Secretary (RAW) Samant Goel as being directly involved in the plot to assassinate Pannun, despite the lack of evidence. Using the US Justice Department’s indictment of one Nikhil Gupta in the Pannun case as a foundation, efforts have been made to tar PM Modi, the Indian national security apparatus, and Indian intelligence of conducting black operations in the Five Eyes nations. The Ministry of External Affairs has categorically dismissed these UK and US media reports. So, what exactly is the game?
These reports clearly show that Five Eyes intelligence has decided to confront Indian intelligence for becoming too powerful, and that they are leaking source intelligence to leftist media and their own funded broadcaster in order to rein in the Modi government. The intelligence leaks to the media are also intended to pressure the Five Eyes Alliance’s political leadership to take action against India and Narendra Modi, the democratic world’s most senior leader. The timing of leaks and so-called investigative reports in these countries backs up External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s claim that the West is not only interested in, but actively interfering with the 2024 Indian general election. The naming of Ajit Doval, who former Indian Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi described as the best intelligence officer in the world, and Samant Goel, who was instrumental in removing Khalistan activists from a blacklist to facilitate their visit to Harminder Sahib, is intended to put pressure on the West to declare them persona non grata (PNG) and take criminal action against them based on shady innuendoes and fishy imputations.
While the Five Eyes Alliance is attempting to engineer PM Modi’s electoral defeat through media reports on Indian intelligence gone rogue, the same media has kept a dead silence on the CIA’s moles in RAW for the past two decades. The CIA evacuated RAW’s Rabindra Singh from India in the midst of the 2004 election and transported him to the United States via Nepal, as the former Indian Army major was spying for Langley.
Nothing was written when a retired Brigadier of the Indian Army working in RAW was compromised by the CIA using a diplomatic cover officer in the Delhi mission as a honeytrap. The same silence was maintained when another high-ranking officer was compromised by US intelligence through his spouse.
The truth is that, despite India losing thousands of innocent lives as a result of Pakistan-sponsored jihadi and Khalistani terrorism in Kashmir and Punjab over the last four decades, the Five Eyes Alliance wants Indian intelligence not to fly or they will not share any intelligence in the future. The basic idea is to weaken Indian intelligence’s counter-terror apparatus and keep it reliant on scraps of information from the so-called associates.
According to slanted media reports, the west does not want to lose the Khalistan lever to pressurize India after Article 370 is repealed in Kashmir, and it is wary of PM Modi returning to power for the third time in June 2024, as this will propel the country’s economic and national growth trajectory higher. The political angle of these intelligence leaks is to highlight the Khalistan issue and ensure that the Sikh community in Punjab votes for parties that are in contact with Western missions in Delhi and abroad rather than the BJP.
With the Modi government unwilling to reveal Indian intelligence operations, there are serious concerns about the veracity of these reports by state-funded broadcasters. The so-called nest of Indian spies that Australian intelligence claims to have discovered in 2020 had nothing to do with spying on Canberra, but rather with elucidating information about the role of Australian Khalistanis and their links to Pakistan via Punjab. The focus was on Pakistan and Punjab, rather than Australia’s so-called trade secrets.
Since the Five Eyes alliance has decided not to take any action against Khalistani and funding separatist movements outside India, the Modi government has no choice but to monitor the activities of these groups, or else India will face a terror attack because these groups are supplicants of Pakistan’s deep state. The western media is attacking Doval and Goel because they both forcefully raised the Khalistani issue with their western interlocutors, going so far as to label these terrorists, including Pannun, Khanda, and Nijjar, as Five Eyes intelligence assets. While these Anglo-Saxon powers were used to groveling and pleasing Indians in the past, Doval and Goel are completely blunt and brusque in their dealings with Indian national security concerns.
These media reports also have an internal angle, as many bureaucrats want 79 year old Doval to step down as NSA and prevent 64 Year old Goel from taking a post-retirement job in Modi 3.0. As a result, their adversaries, competitors, and unpleasant coworkers have quietly welcomed media smears against their reputation.
Although the west, China, and Pakistan believe that such media reports will harm PM Modi’s electoral prospects in the 2024 elections, the public has long desired a leader capable of taking India’s fight into enemy territory. A strong leader capable of elevating India to its rightful place in the international community. A senior CCS minister summarized the Modi government’s response to these reports, stating that he plans to thank these reporters by sending them Indian-made sweets for acting as force multipliers for PM Modi in the 2024 election. The majority of the Indian electorate supports PM Modi and wants terrorists targeting India to be exterminated because they are tired of Indian innocent blood being spilled on the streets. It is up to Five Eye intelligence and their media allies to accept this reality.
(The author is Spokesperson, BJP Manipur Pradesh)