R N Kao

by Nitin A Gokhale

  Interestingly, like in current times, housing for all in Beijing was a challenge. And couples faced problems finding a house.

  ‘The living conditions for the young people in China were very difficult, housing in particular. From the casual enquiries which I made from my interpreters, who are young people, I discovered that many of them could not marry because they did not have a place of their own to live in. Some of these people who were married were unable to keep their families with them. The men lived in men dormitories and their wives lived in women dormitories, even if they were posted in the same city. Quite often, of course, they were posted in towns several 100 miles apart,’ RNK observed.

  ‘On the roads, there were hardly any cars since only diplomats and high Chinese officials could own or use them. Most common Chinese people either walked or cycled their way around the vast city. There were a few old buses, mostly of East European origin, meant as public transport. The top officials used comfortable limousines adorned with curtains, so that the occupants of the car could not be seen by the commoners,’ RNK noticed.

  As a personal guest of Zhou Enlai, RNK, of course, had a car and two interpreters accompanying him. The hosts, as he has noted earlier, could turn on the charm offensive, when needed. To keep him occupied and entertained, the Chinese used to take Kao for elaborate meals and even arranged for visits to the Beijing opera and, of course, the mandatory sighting of the Great Wall of China.

  At the opera, RNK had some interesting observations. ‘It was explained to me that Beijing opera had stereotypical characteristics of an opera, and the villain could be identified from his attire and the way he wore his hair. Similarly, the hero also had a characteristic dress. Then, I was told that women parts were also played by men. It would be interesting here to recall that Zhou Enlai, as a young man, used to play parts of women in some classical Beijing opera pieces. But the Chinese music left me somewhat cold because that high nasal tone did not inspire me at all. And their instrumental music, quite often, except for the real classical tunes, seem to me rather cheap copy of western music,’ he noted.

  During Kao’s first trip to Beijing, V.K. Krishna Menon, Nehru’s confidante and India’s representative at the UN, also happened to be on a visit to China. Zhou Enlai hosted a dinner in his honour. The hosts, who were aware that Menon was a vegetarian, had laid out an elaborate menu and seemed determined to go out of their way to impress Menon and others.

  Kao’s observation of the dinner is apt. ‘Here, I saw an example of what might be called the high watermark of Chinese hospitality and the incident was an object lesson indicating the extent to which the Chinese could go to please people who they, at that moment, considered their friends. In view of the fact that Mr Krishna Menon himself was a vegetarian, all the dishes were vegetarian, and the number of courses was as numerous as they are at any traditional formal Chinese banquet. The only difference was that various vegetables were produced, some dressed as chicken, some as fish, some as pork. The staple food was, of course, potatoes, cabbage and cauliflower. I must say that compared to Indian vegetarian food, I found Chinese vegetarian food somewhat unappetising. But the taste of the food at the banquet was a matter of relatively small importance. The main thing was that the Chinese had demonstrated their desire to please Mr Krishna Menon and to indicate to all the guests the high regard in which they held him, and also to indicate that the Chinese were true friends of people from the third world. It is to be remembered that at that time, China was trying to gain recognition in the international world, and they were very keen to project the desirable picture of sweet amiability,’ Kao noted.

  As an officer nominated directly by Prime Minister Nehru for a delicate task, Kao was fortunate to have gotten the exposure to different cultures, circumstances and people very early in his career. His innate intelligence, combined with appropriate training, helped him make enduring contacts and some friends in the secretive world of espionage, intelligence and police investigations. Those six months in Hong and China were indeed life-changing for RNK.

  SEVEN

  The Ghana Assignment

  By 1957, RNK was well-settled in his job as the Prime Minister’s security officer and was travelling frequently with Nehru, both nationally and internationally. It was during one of Nehru’s trips to London for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in July 1957 that an interesting conversation took place that took Kao to the newly-independent country of Ghana in Africa for an assignment.

  According to RNK’s own notes, the then Ghanaian Prime Minister Dr Kwame Nkrumah PC requested the Indian Prime Minister for assistance in establishing an external intelligence service for Ghana. ‘It appears that about the same time or a little earlier, Mr Daniel A. Chapman, who was then the Secretary to the Prime Minister of Ghana and also Secretary to the Ghanaian Cabinet, had discussed the matter informally with Mr B.N. Mullik, Director Intelligence Bureau (DIB), Govt of India, who had then gone to London to attend the Commonwealth Security Conference to sought his advice on the matter,’ RNK wrote.

  These two discussions were followed by a letter from Dr Nkrumah in October 1957 in which he indicated that Ghana was keen on sending two senior police officers for training in India. As suggested by the Ghanaian Prime Minister, one of these two officers would eventually head the External Intelligence Service. In the same letter, he had requested services of an experienced Indian officer to be stationed in Ghana for a year or so to help Ghana establish the new organisation. ‘The idea was that the expert should be the new head of the Service temporarily and lay down the foundation of the organisation. He should simultaneously train the senior police officers and select other staff required for establishing the service. Dr Nkrumah’s suggestion was examined at length in the Ministry of External Affairs and home as also by Mr Mullik … who was at service to service level also in contact with his colleagues in London particularly because this matter related to the establishment of a service in a Commonwealth country,’ RNK noted.

  After discussions across relevant ministries, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote back to his Ghanaian counterpart in November 1957 accepting its suggestion of India helping Ghana to establish a foreign intelligence service. Nehru’s letter included a detailed proposal prepared by Mullik for the scheme to roll-out in several stages. In the first stage, it was proposed that the DIB of India should visit Ghana for about two or three weeks to examine the position on the ground to prepare a detailed plan. Simultaneously, arrangements were to be made for two to three Ghanaian officers to be trained in external intelligence in India. In the third and final stage, a senior Indian officer would go to Ghana to join the Ghanaian officers trained in India, once they return home and set up the organisation in that country.

  ‘The suggestion was that this Indian intelligence officer would stay in Ghana for about a year, and with the help of the two Ghanaian officers who were trained in India, he would gradually set up the service, select the staff and arrange for their local training. He would also supervise the operations during the time of its implementation,’ RNK wrote this in his notes many years later.

  He also recalled that in the ‘Indian scheme of things, it was especially emphasised that it would be better if the Indian officer who would go to Ghana would be loaned in an advisory capacity and would not formally be the head of the Ghanaian Intelligence Service. It was felt that until a Ghanaian officer would be selected for this post, probably either as the Cabinet Secretary or the Ghanaian officer-in-charge, who would take up the responsibility of controlling the organisation, the Indian officer would only act as an adviser.’

  To pursue this scheme, Kao was selected by B.N. Mullik to go to Ghana and was relieved from his routine work and put on special duty from February 1958. The British Government, who had security liaison with the Ghanaians, and the director of IB had meanwhile kept themselves informed about the developments. Kao said, ‘even if in their [the British Government] heart of hearts they were perhaps unhappy that Ghana had asked India f
or foreign expert advice instead of asking the UK for one, yet they pretended to like this arrangement and tried, very suddenly, to guide the working of the scheme through personal hints and the lightest of suggestions.’

  However, for various reasons, B.N. Mullik’s departure to Ghana, which was the first stage of the scheme, got postponed and, finally, he never visited Ghana. Meanwhile, in accordance with the scheme, which had been sent to the government of Ghana on April 1958, two Ghanaian officers arrived in India. They were Paul Yankey, who held the rank of the Superintendent of Police and Ben Forje, who was the Deputy Superintendent of Police. Kao was nominated to train these two officers. H.J. Kriplani, another IB officer, who was then working as the Deputy Central Intelligence Officer, was RNK’s assistant.

  Describing the two Ghanaian officers, Kao wrote: ‘Both of them belonged to the Nzema tribe to which Dr Nkrumah belonged. Their ancestral home was in southwestern Ghana. Both of them had joined the Ghana Police as foot constables and gradually worked their way up. Their formal education was somewhat limited but they could express themselves in English with a fair degree of fluency, although their vocabulary was limited. In the beginning, we had some difficulty in getting adjusted to the Ghanaian accent and also the special terms and phrases which were common in West Africa. It was also interesting for us to observe that the speeches of these officers were often punctuated with squeals and exclamations, which were quite eloquent in themselves. It was obvious right from the beginning that both these officers had won the confidence of Dr Nkrumah and were intensely loyal to him. They were also discreet and conscious of the fact that they had been selected by their leader to break ground in the field of foreign intelligence. Therefore, they were determined to do their best in India.’

  Realising the importance of the project, Kao and his assistants tried to fall in line with this approach and tried to adjust the programme to suit the convenience of the visiting officers. He noted, ‘We had, right from the beginning, recognised that it was more important for us to make a good impact on the Ghanaian officers and to make them feel that they were amongst friends. The actual theoretical knowledge which they acquired about foreign intelligence operations was regarded as a matter of secondary importance by us. In organising the scheme and implementing it, and also generally holding their hands and making them feel that they were amongst friends, I was fortunate enough to have an excellent team which was headed by a very distinguished officer of the IB named Krishnan Nair. He was very ably assisted by H.J. Kriplani.’

  RNK, who was known for his sharp observation powers and the ability to size up people, had shown those traits early in his career. While commenting on the two officers from Ghana, he noted, ‘But for the common tribal background and the fact that both of them belonged to the Ghana Police, Paul Yankey and Ben Forje were, in many ways, contrasting in nature. Yankey was a burly, smiling man, who was ready for a joke all the time but it was clear that his buff exterior concealed an alert and clever mind. He was observant and had a good memory. Ben Forje seemed less mercurial and was more of a stable, plodding type of officer, who had meticulous attention to detail and worked with extreme consciousness. I got to know both these officers not only in India but also during my stay in Ghana. They were my constant guides and companions and during the time that I spent with them, I developed not only high regard for both of these officers but also a degree of affection…’

  Even as the two officers from Ghana were undergoing training, RNK’s name was formally proposed to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) as the officer who should implement the scheme to set up the foreign intelligence service for Ghana. It got immediately approved in principle but as is common in government proceedings, a long argument, which lasted ‘over weeks and months’, followed in which the MEA tried to scale down the allowances and other facilities which Mullik had suggested should be given to RNK.

  RNK noted in detail the objections that were raised. ‘Keeping in mind my rank as the Deputy Director in the IB at that time, he [Mullik] had suggested that I should draw my basic salary at the same rate as I was drawing in India but then it should be fixed according to the foreign scale and that I should be given a foreign service allowance and other facilities as was given to regular diplomats posted for the Indian mission in Ghana. This was stubbornly resisted by B.K. Kapur who the High Commissioner of India to Ghana at that time and, later, I discovered that his greatest anxiety was to ensure that my overall emoluments and facilities should in no way work out to be higher than what he himself was getting as the High Commissioner of India to Ghana.

  ‘His approach in this matter was based on the assumption that for all practical purposes I was working in Ghana as a member of his mission and, therefore, it was only logical that my status, and consequently my pay and allowances, should be lower than those admissible to the High Commissioner. Here, he seemed to have missed the point because it was never the intention either of the Government of India or the Government of Ghana that I should work, in any way, as a part of the Indian High Commission in Ghana. My services were to be placed completely at the disposal of the Ghanaian government.’

  Even as this bureaucratic tussle was on, there was a small development which was noticed by the IB. The Tribune, now headquartered in Chandigarh but was based out of Ambala, carried a news item originating from Accra (it is not clear from Kao’s notes if it was The Tribune’s own report or was sourced from an international news agency) that reported the Government of Ghana had decided to set up a committee to review national security with the help of Britain, Canada and Pakistan. RNK noted, ‘This intrigued us immensely because we felt that if we were advising Dr Nkrumah regarding foreign intelligence, then there could hardly be any scope for Pakistan to be a member of the committee set up to deal with security matters pertaining to Ghana. Discreet enquiries were made about the matter and, later, it was concluded that there was no truth to the report. As far as I know, no action was taken for that and it was not followed up.’ But the IB was wrong in its conclusion as RNK himself later wrote. ‘In May 1958, the office of the Prime Minister of Ghana did issue a press release in which they confirmed that it has been decided to establish a committee of this type to deal with the national security and that they received cooperation from the government of UK, Canada and Pakistan in this regard. The note said that the committee will be composed of Sir Robert Hutchins, Chairman, Brig Fazil Mukin Khan of the Pakistan army and Mr L Bingham, a senior officer of the Royal Canadian mounted police. Some Ghanaians were to be associated with this too. Though I spent over a year in Ghana, I never got to know what precisely this committee did. So for all practical purposes in connection with the scheme with which I was involved, this matter could be completely ignored.’

  Meanwhile, the bureaucracy continued to bicker over the perks and allowances for Kao’s assignment in Ghana. Kao recalled that there were several occasions when he ‘was on the point of losing interest in the proposal altogether’. Kao, in fact, requested the DIB to drop his name at least on two occasions. However, Mullik continued to press for an early resolution. Finally, a compromise was worked out. It was not something that the IB and RNK were happy about. Kao said that Mullik, however, advised him to accept whatever was offered to avoid ‘all-round embarrassment’. RNK accepted Mullik’s advice—when he could have declined to go—which portayed Kao’s ability to put national interest above self-interest early in his career. As he himself noted, ‘Though my enthusiasm had considerably subsided and my interest dulled, I felt that as it was in the nation’s interest that India should help Ghana to establish a foreign intelligence service, I told Mr Mullik that I would go.’

  There was another complication to be taken care of before Kao departed for Accra. The Ghana government wanted RNK to be on deputation for two years, but Mullik said he could not let Kao go for more than a year. Additionally, Kao did not want to give up the house he was then staying but the according to the rules of the government rule, no h
ouse could be kept for anyone for more than six months, if not posted in Delhi! So the IB and Kao worked out a neat arrangement. ‘Since I did not wish to lose the government accommodation which I had in Delhi at 93, Lodhi Estate, where I was staying at that time, it was agreed that I would serve my period in Ghana in instalments of six months and at the end of first six months, I would return to India on leave at the Ghana government’s expense. During this period, the Ghana government would go through the motion of trying to obtain my services again and I would go back on fresh deputation,’ Kao wrote candidly.

  Hence, after completing the formalities back home, the Kao couple embarked on their foray to Africa on an Air India flight to Rome from where they were to take a connecting BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) flight to Accra. As luck would have it, they had to stay in Rome for more than ten days because the crew of the British airliner went on a strike. Recalling their adventure in Rome, Kao wrote, ‘In the beginning, my wife and I were rather dismayed at the sudden breakdown of our travel arrangements, more so because we feared that we would run short of money but the Indian embassy in Rome were kind enough to come to our rescue and made arrangements for our daily allowances, while the BOAC, who are responsible for our detention in Rome, paid the hotel bill. Ultimately, this turned out to be an enforced holiday in Rome, which, I must confess, was not entirely unenjoyable.’

  After the little break in Rome, RNK and Malini Kao arrived in Accra on 25 October 1958. They were received by one Mr Grant, who was the acting Foreign Secretary in the absence of the Foreign Secretary Yaw Idu, who was on leave at that time. The others who came to the airport to receive the couple included a protocol officer from the Foreign Ministry, along with Yankey and Forjoe, the two Ghanaians who had undergone a four-month training in India earlier that year, and the second secretary of the Indian High Commission in Accra.