SUPERSONIC: A THRILLER THAT REWRITES HISTORY By Murali Murti Book Reviewed by Maj Gen Dhruv C. Katoch

On 6 August 1945, Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets, the 30 year old commander of 509 Composite Group, US Army Air Force, flew a mission which was to bring World War II to a quick close and change the course of world history. Flying the B-29 Superfortress—an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, named Emola Gray by Tibbets after his mother, the mission was to release a 10,000 pound atomic bomb, dubbed “Little Boy,” over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb was dropped at 0815 local time, the blast killing about 100,000 people and injuring countless more. Japan surrendered nine days later, on 15 August, bringing World War II to an end. But a new era of atomic warfare had begun. 

The US effort to build an atomic weapon had been designated as the Manhattan Project. The Soviet Union soon followed with its first atomic test on 29 August 1949, code-named RDS-1. Britain tested its first nuclear device in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1964. The nuclear race had well and truly begun. But it was destined to be within these five powers, for none of them wanted nuclear technology to further proliferate. And thus began under the radar operations to prevent other countries from acquiring these technologies—and India was in the crosshairs of such attempts.

Towards the end of World War II, a brilliant Indian nuclear physicist, Homi Bhabha, conceived the idea of setting up a school of research in fundamental physics, with special reference to cosmic rays and nuclear physics. He hoped to set up such an institute in Bombay, with support from the Tata group through their trust funds. And thus began India’s journey in this very exotic branch of science. Unknown to him, there were forces at work which would go to any length to see that he did not succeed.

Along with India’s nuclear ambitions, was the quest to produce its own fighter jet aircraft. This became another bone of contention with the nuclear haves, who wanted to deny India not only the means to produce a nuclear weapon, but also the means to deliver such a weapon.

In this backdrop, Murali Murti has set the stage for his novel, “Supersonic - A Thriller that Rewrites History”. The plot is nothing short of a Frederick Forsyth pot-boiler, which keeps the reader glued to the book. Set as a novel, it makes the reader wonder where truth ends and fiction begins. Or is this simply truth telling, disguised as fiction? It is a fact that people who were involved in India’s nuclear programme died under mysterious circumstances. Homi Bhabha, in an interview he gave to All India Radio in October 1965, stated that if given the green signal, India could make a nuclear bomb in 18 months. Three months later, Bhabha was dead, killed when the Air India Flight 101 he was travelling in—a Boeing 707 airplane named Kanchenjunga—crashed near Mont Blanc on 24 January 1966. A few days earlier, on the night of 11 January 1966, India’s Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent, after concluding a peace deal with Pakistan, under Soviet auspices, post the 1965 India-Pakistan War. The cause of Shastri’s death remains a mystery till date. No autopsy was carried out of his body, even after it was brought back to India! Significantly, Shastri had given the green signal to manufacture the bomb. These deaths cannot be put aside as mere coincidence. Neither can the death of Vikram Sarabhai in December 1971. Sarabhai was the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission when death came to him in a quiet room in a Kovalam resort on 30 December 1971. His death too was not investigated. That India still tested its first nuclear device in Rajasthan’s Pokhran desert on 18 May 1974—an operation code named Smiling Buddha—is a testimony to the grit and determination of India’s scientific community and the support it received from every Prime Minister of India, who upheld the national interest above all else.

Along with hostile attempts to sabotage India’s nuclear programme, there were attempts to scuttle the building of India’s first fighter jet aircraft. The story of Kurt Tank who helped India make its first fighter jet, the HF 24 Marut, and the devious attempts to sabotage India’s nascent fighter jet programme cannot just be wished away. Could India have had a robust aerospace sector today, had things been done differently then? One wonders! The lessons are stark and clear. In the realms of upper end technology, other nations will be out to scuttle India’s programmes. The Nambi Narayanan case, though not part of this book, is just an example to show the extent that foreign agencies can go to, to scuttle cutting edge technology development in India. Nambi Narayanan was in charge of the cryogenics division at ISRO and he was falsely implicated on trumped up charges and imprisoned. That set back India’s quest for a cryogenic engine by a good two decades. 

The world of shady defence deals, and the death and destruction it brings in its wake makes for spine-chilling reading in this book, and starkly brings home the truth about the Indian defence public sector’s shoddy performance, which is why India has remained dependent on imports for meeting its defence requirements. Much of the development effort for a vibrant defence industry was scuttled by officials who could be bribed for a pittance or lured through other means. This is a story of corrupt politicians and government officials, shady arms dealers, of spies and killers lurking in the shadows, a story which makes one sad to see how national interest can be compromised for a handful of silver. But it is also a story of hope, of rejuvenation, of women and men with unimpeachable integrity, of those occupying high office in the political realm, and also in government and in the private sector, who could not be bought and for whom the country came above all else. Many such people remain unacknowledged, primarily due to the nature of work that they were then doing and which many continue to do in the present times. It is a mix of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, all juxtaposed in a seamless web, to come to what most certainly is a fascinating twist in the tale, in the very last chapter.

Do read this book. It is a thriller. More importantly, it gives an insight into what India is up against, both from external agencies and from fifth columnists within. The book could have done with better editing at a few places and the language used is prosaic, akin to a Chetan Bhagat novel, but that is a minor inconvenience. So go out, get yourself a copy, sit on the cockpit and enjoy a Supersonic Ride. You will not regret it. 

 

The Killings in Kashmir: A Shift in Terrorist Strategy

The recent killings of non-muslims in Kashmir bespeaks of a new strategy being adopted by Pakistan’s ISI to foment fear and discontent in the Union Territory and to unhinge the return of normalcy in the Valley.

Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s sinister strategy to “bleed India through a thousand cuts” gave form to Bhutto’s promise of a thousand-year war. At that time, provocative statements made by both Bhutto and Zia were not mere rhetoric, but formed the core of a war fighting strategy which sought to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Today, this facet of Pakistan’s foreign policy remains a key component of its ideology and the very raison d’être for its existence. Thus began the era of cross-border terrorism in the late 1980s, with Pakistan pushing in armed and well-trained groups of terrorists into India. Pakistan referred to these terrorists as “freedom fighters,” and claimed that they were only providing moral support to such groups, but the truth tumbled out when a Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) told the Pakistan National Assembly that the ISI had been sponsoring such support in Kashmir.

But even before the onset of terrorism in J&K, a more insidious process to radicalise the people had started in the 1960s, with the introduction of Salafi Islam, which gradually displaced the earlier Sufi school of thought. The Jamaat-e-Islami came onto the Kashmir scene in the late 1960s, and intoxicated the young minds about establishing a Caliphate. The Indian state, in a false sense of secularism, allowed the Jamaat to have its own schools, which over the years indoctrinated the young minds to a toxic jihadist ideology. In a comedy of errors, in 1992, the state government banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and its Falha-e-Aam trust (educational wing), for indulging in anti-social activity, but at the same time, issued an order for absorption of teachers of the Falah-e-Aam Trust in government schools. In one fell swoop, the Jamaat onslaught on government schools began.

It took great effort on the part of the Indian Army to bring Pakistan sponsored terrorism to manageable levels. By 1996 the situation had been brought sufficiently under control to permit the holding of state elections. For the next 22 years, elections were held regularly with political parties holding sway, except for a brief interregnum of six months in 2008 when Governor’s rule was imposed. In June 2018, Governor’s rule was once again imposed as no party could form a government.

A fence along the LoC, built in 2003-2004, under the directions of General NC Vij when he was the Army Chief curtailed the movement of terrorist groups. This, in conjunction with effective anti-terrorism hinterland operations, contributed to bringing down terrorist-related violence. This prompted a shift in strategy by the ISI. From 2008 onwards, stone pelting by the youth became the norm to bolster unrest in the state. Dealing with unarmed stone-pelting mobs became a new threat to the security forces, and even the use of non-lethal means raised a hue and cry by human rights activists. Stone pelting mobs were also used to extricate terrorists entrapped in encounters with the security forces, with hundreds of mobsters collecting at the site. The situation was not helped by the fact that the regional political parties often took a soft separatist stand, which further emboldened the terrorists as well as their Pakistani handlers.

The abrogation of the provisions of Article 370 and the splitting of the state into two union territories on 5 August 2019 created a new dynamic. The stone pelting mobs practically disappeared from the streets, the number of such recorded incidents in 2020 reducing by over 90 percent. A combination of security forces operations against terrorist groups, actions to curb terrorist fundings and a focus on the developmental agenda, helped bring about normalcy. This clearly was not to the liking of the Pakistan military, which has thriven on creating disturbance in the state. And so, a new strategy to promote violence in the state has now been formulated by the Pakistan military establishment. 

The new strategy aims to target the non-muslim civilian population in the UT. Killing non-muslim civilians at random throws up huge security challenges for the state. While the targets may be chosen at random, the killings of innocent civilians is not a random act but is part of a well designed strategy to promote fear through the use of violence.

The killing of Makhan Lal Bindroo, owner of a prominent Srinagar pharmacy on 5 October was hence carried out to instil fear in the minority Hindu population. Two other civilians were killed that day, one of whom was a labourer from Bihar. The killing of two people on 7 October, Ms Supinder Kaur, the principal of a local government school and Mr Deepak Chand, a school teacher, was part of the same nefarious design. The former belonged to the Sikh faith and the latter was a Hindu. Such targeted killings will now form part of the larger strategy being used by Pakistan to prevent the return of normalcy to the UT.

Obviously, the new methodology to stoke violence in the state will not be easy to address. A terrorist can simply walk up to a non-muslim, identified earlier, shoot the individual at point-blank range and disappear into the crowds. As mentioned earlier, the targets may be random but the act of killing is planned. This now opens up a totally new security paradigm for the state, which if not effectively handled, will have severe repercussions. At the tactical level, the need of the hour is effective policing and ground intelligence, to eliminate the terrorists. But at the strategic level, it is necessary to make the Pakistan military pay a heavy price for its support to terrorism. The coming winter will be a long, cold and dangerous one, with exceptionally high levels of violence, not seen since August 2019.