When Indian government, British intelligence and the CIA joined hands to spy on communists in Kerala

Indian Express

20 hours ago

Written by Paul McGarr
In June, a British F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter arrived unexpectedly in Kerala. The aircraft was forced into an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport after being surprised by adverse weather while taking part in joint training exercises with the Indian Navy. The fighter, which operated from the British carrier HMS Prince of Wales, became an overnight media sensation. After engineering issues kept the aircraft grounded for several weeks, it came to represent a publicity opportunity that was simply too good to miss. Kerala Tourism took delight in referencing the stranded fighter in its social media posts. 'Kerala, the destination you never want to leave,' the Tourism Office's X account quipped.
The prolonged presence of a state-of-the-art $115 million foreign stealth fighter on Indian soil generated plenty of public interest. In response, Britain's High Commission in New Delhi and India's Ministry of Defence maintained a firm, 'no comment'. The episode was not, in fact, the first time that the governments of India and Britain had worked together in the shadows to obscure a UK covert presence in Kerala.
Back in 1957, administrations in Britain and the United States reacted with dismay when the Communist Party of India (CPI) claimed victory in Kerala's Legislative Assembly election. Coming at the height of the Cold War, the advent of the world's first democratically elected communist government in southern India sent shockwaves through Washington and Whitehall.
Historians have previously documented the secret activity undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in conjunction with India's Congress government, to subvert the CPI's grip on Kerala. As the Indian Embassy in Washington reported back to South Block, the US State Department was stunned that India's communists had broken new ground by seizing power via the ballot box rather than the bullet. America simply was not prepared to let the CPI's victory stand.
Having concluded that neither the Congress in Kerala nor the central Congress government back in New Delhi had a clear or workable plan to remove the CPI from office, the Eisenhower administration in Washington instructed the CIA to initiate a covert operation to end communist rule in Kerala.
Between 1957 and 1959, by secretly channelling funds through Congress Party officials and anti-communist labour leaders, including S K Patil in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra, the CIA whipped up industrial unrest and political turmoil in Kerala. In July 1959, amidst scenes of mounting violence and disorder, the CPI government was dismissed from office under an executive order issued by India's President. The US Ambassador in India, Ellsworth Bunker, justified the CIA covert operation on the basis that his embassy had been in possession of hard evidence that the Soviets were funding local communist groups in Kerala. Presenting the CIA's actions as measured and defensive, Bunker confirmed that in India, as he claimed America had done elsewhere in the world since 1945, Washington had merely come to the assistance of friends when it became apparent communists were seeking to subvert democracy.
Given the widespread public suspicion and concern that surrounded the CIA's own activities in India, the Congress Party's willingness to work covertly with the CIA was reflective of its anxiety that the CPI in Kerala would function as a Soviet puppet. In April 1957, B N Mullik, the chief of the Intelligence Bureau, presented India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, with an intelligence report indicating that senior members of the CPI Politburo were planning to visit Moscow to consult with the Soviets on how a communist government in Kerala should be run. Alarmed by the prospect of such blatant external interference in India's domestic affairs, Nehru summoned the Soviet ambassador, Mikhail Menshikov, to the Ministry of External Affairs and warned Moscow against meddling in Kerala.
Until now, much less has been known about Britain's secret involvement in Kerala. London's man-on-the-spot, the British High Commissioner, Malcolm MacDonald, shared his American colleague's anxieties about the CPI. With Kerala being openly referred to as, 'The Indian Yenan', the veteran British diplomat insisted that, if left unchallenged, the CPI would exploit the state as a global shop window to showcase the benefits of communism and generate a political momentum that the Congress Party might find impossible to stop.
Persuaded by MacDonald's analysis, Whitehall launched a parallel British Special Political Action, or clandestine operation, that ran alongside American covert activity and was similarly designed to undercut the CPI. Recently released records at the United Kingdom National Archives in London, part of a British Cabinet Office series covering 'Communism in India', have revealed how the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan actively and surreptitiously interfered in Indian domestic politics. Encompassing collaboration between the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the UK Security Service (MI5), and India's Intelligence Bureau (IB), the British plan centred on bringing senior Congress Party officials and Indian Trade Union leaders to the United Kingdom. Once in the UK, the Indians were to be schooled in the dangers of communism and trained in covert methods of fighting elections and running unions against Communist opposition.
In 1958, the British received a green light for the joint operation from B N Mullik. Winning Indian political approval, and that of India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was another matter. A direct approach to Nehru through his private secretary, M O Mathai, was considered by the British too risky. Instead, the Commonwealth Secretary, Lord Home, was dispatched to New Delhi on a secret mission to secure Indian government support for a collaborative covert operation targeting the CPI in Kerala. Having met Govind Ballabh Pant, India's Minister for Home Affairs, Morarji Desai, the Union Finance Minister, and Nehru himself, Lord Home reported back to London that Pant and Desai were firmly in favour. Nehru proved less enthusiastic. The Indian premier did, however, concede that it would be useful for the Indian government to be able to call on UK intelligence assistance in certain circumstances. Britain's Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, reacted with delight. Lord Home's hush-hush mission to India was deemed a success. In Brook's judgment, Macmillan's government could not have hoped for a better outcome.
B N Mullik later confirmed to Roger Hollis, Director-General of MI5, that Pant had imparted new drive into anti-Communist intelligence operations following the British intervention. The Home Minister had, Hollis was informed, authorised the infiltration of security personnel into the Indian National Trade Union Congress. In the wake of Pant's activism, Hollis and Mullik put in place an arrangement that saw Indian security officers and political organisers dispatched to London for anti-communist indoctrination and operational training under MI5's supervision, as originally planned. Indian graduates of the MI5 anti-subversion course were subsequently sent back into southern India where they put their new skills to use.
Newly declassified British government documents have revealed significant details about Whitehall's shadowy involvement in covert action in India at a pivotal moment in the nation's political history. They cast important light on the complex system of cooperation and competition that characterised Western intelligence interactions with India during the Cold War. As more recent intelligence revelations involving India, the United States, and Canada have demonstrated, pragmatic security considerations can collide with domestic political imperatives in interesting and unexpected ways.
The writer is a lecturer in intelligence studies at King's College London. He is the author of two monographs, The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945-1965 (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States and India's Secret Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2024)