India Selling Secrets for a Song

What next? After the shocks of the past six months, including the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a leak in a chemical plant in Bhopal that killed more than 2,500 people, Indians were stunned last week by yet another national crisis. This time the bombshell was the exposure of an espionage network that had penetrated to the highest reaches of the government. Before clamping a tight lid on details of the investigation, India's youthful new leader, Rajiv Gandhi, whose Congress (I) Party won a sweeping majority in national elections only a month ago, gravely informed Parliament that the country's security had been compromised by a spy scandal that he characterized as "the most serious ever."

Thus far, at least 15 government officials and three businessmen have been arrested and charged with violations of the Official Secrets Act and criminal conspiracy against the government. Several of them were officials in the defense and commerce ministries, and three men held key positions in the Prime Minister's secretariat. Among them: T.N. Kher, the personal assistant to P.C. Alexander, a top aide to both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and one of the country's most respected civil servants. Alexander, who was not connected to the espionage activity, resigned after accepting "moral responsibility" for the leakage of hundreds of files from his office. At least 60 other people were under surveillance or being questioned by authorities.

The government is unlikely to disclose what secrets were compromised. But in his position close to the Prime Minister's office, Kher would have had access to all the secret files concerning defense, foreign policy, nuclear power and the entire range of official activity. The Hindustan Times, New Delhi's largest English-language daily, reported that documents handed over to foreign agents from the Defense Ministry "staggered the imagination of investigating officials." Said a senior investigator: "The security system and our vital papers have been stripped clean."

New Delhi carefully refrained from naming foreign governments that might have received classified information. But the French, who have landed Indian defense and industrial contracts worth more than $2 billion in the past few ( years, were linked to the operation. The French deputy military attache, Colonel Alain Bolley, hastily left New Delhi after the Indian government asked for his recall. Bolley was alleged to have ties to the CIA. In Paris, French Foreign Ministry officials refused to comment on the case.