Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Rajiv Gandhi has forced the Sri Lanka President Jayewardene to enter into dialogue with Hindu terrorists who are fighting for a separate independent state.

Ambassador: That’s right.

Journalist: The terrorist delegation left Delhi for Bhutan to participate in the negotiations after consultations with and proper briefing by the government of India.

Ambassador: Very correct.

Journalist: Don’t you think that the role played by the Indian Government confirms the charge that the trouble in Sri Lanka was inspired by Delhi? Will the government of India accept similar mediation by a foreign country to settle the Sikh problem in India?

Ambassador: Not in national interest to disclose.

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Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Rajiv Gandhi in his latest press interview has threatened to impose emergency if law and order situation in the country continued to deteriorate at the present rate.

Ambassador: That’s right.

Journalist: He also justified the imposition of emergency by his mother in 1975.

Ambassador: Very correct.

Journalist: What factors have prompted him to talk of emergency? Is he afraid of some legal complication that can lead to his unseating by a court as happened in the case of his mother? — Or has the responsibility of governing in a democratic way becoming too onerous and taxing?

Ambassador: Not in national interest to disclose.

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Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Government of India has dramatically discovered files in their intelligence wing that supposedly point to a KGB connection with the Sikh movement in Punjab.

Ambassador: That’s right.

Journalist: The Prime Minister feels insecure even though he swept the polls with unprecedented majority and has shifted to a more safe house on the advice of Russian experts.

Ambassador: Very correct.

Journalist: How is it that security arrangement for the P.M. have been entrusted to the KGB despite intelligence reports of its ‘connection’ with the Sikh activists?

Or is the story of KGB connection being circulated merely to alienate the western world from the just Sikh cause?

Ambassador: Not in national interest to disclose.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 12, 1985