Deciphering Pakistan’s ISI

Political scientist & historian Dr. Hein G. Kiessling speaks to Sapna Sarfare in an interview about his book Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan on the world’s most unknown yet heard secret service

Some books just catch your fancy. One recently did that for me. It was a book called Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan by Dr. Hein G. Kiessling and published by HarperCollins Publishers India. It happens to be the first comprehensive account of the ISI, Pakistan’s secret service organisation. The book delves into an organisation established during Indo-Pak independence and came into flowering with its involvement with the CIA during & after 1979. Political scientist & historian Dr. Kiessling has made an attempt to reveal things about Pakistan’s secret service. The book is a vital one to understand intelligence agencies especially the one which has kept India, South Asia and the world thinking. Dr. Kiessling gives us an insight into the book, ISI and more.

What aspects of ISI made it a worthy subject of your book?

Over the last 40 years in reports about developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan & India, ISI was mentioned often as one of the main players. From these reports, it became clear to me that deeper knowledge & information about the agency were, most of the time, not available. Until recently, there was also no English book on it existing. These were the motives for me to write my book.

It may not have been an easy subject to research, considering the nature of the organisation and that it is quite unlike other such agency. What were the highs & lows and frustrations?

Access to intelligence agencies to insiders, informed people & valuable information is naturally not easy. I worked hard on it and think I was successful to some extent. I got what I expected to get! For me, there were no real disappointments (lows) over the years in doing research. In contrast, I felt sometimes ‘high’ after successful meetings with big shots, both in Pakistan and India.

Looking back, frustration came up end of 2015 & spring 2016. It would have been a perfect publishing time. The book should have been at the same time in the markets in GB, USA and India. For some reasons, this did not happen - water under the bridge now.

The name intrigues me: Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan. How did that come about?

On airport road from Islamabad to Pindi, you find “Faith-Unity-Discipline” in big letters on a hill. You can see or read it even at night time. As the motto for Pakistan, it was created by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and later on, changed in sequence by Zia-Ul-Haq. Pakistan’s Military & Intelligence people feel strongly committed to this motto. My publisher in London, Michael Dwyer at Hurst, discussed the title question with me and we agreed it would be a good title for the book.

Reading the kind of news we do about Pakistan, it must have been interesting staying there for around 13 years.

I lived 4 years in Balochistan (Quetta/Loralai) and 9 years in Islamabad. Having a permit for the tribal areas, I traveled a lot. It was fascinating to meet people with different ethnic, religious & cultural background. By the way, over the years I was also at least 20 times in India. All together, the years in South Asia were a highlight in my working life.

"The man (Pakistani) on the street does not feel a direct ISI hold, but is often confused by reports & statements about the agency."

How much hold does ISI have over Pakistani politics & life?

There is no doubt that ISI has a strong hold on Pakistan’s, Afghanistan & India/Kashmir politics and also in the country’s security and fight against terrorism. Politicians, academics, journalists, columnists & mullahs knew this and must keep it in mind. The man on the street does not feel a direct ISI hold, but is often confused by reports & statements about the agency.

On a global level, how would you rate & place ISI as an agency?

The ISI is strongly organized, works effective and is probably the best intelligence agency in Asia.

Politics is ever changing. What keeps the political scientist & historian in you still excited about?

Seeing China working on a “New Silk Road”, on China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) and on getting control over the Indian Ocean. Seeing India’s efforts to counter it. Seeing the developments in Afghanistan and Iran. A fascinating region for a political observer. Though being already in retirement, in 2015, I was still once in India and three times in Pakistan.

What is the one factor about the book to describe the book and make a reader pick it up?

The book is based on open sources, many talks/meetings with real key players & my personal observations over the years. Special on the book are the fully included answers the ISI has given to me in writing in August 2015 on special questions like ‘First Nuke Use’, ‘Situation in Balochistan’, ‘R&AW in Afghanistan’, ‘Missing Persons’, ‘Memogate’, etc. In my mind, this makes the book interesting.

TITLE: Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan

AUTHOR: Dr. Hein G. Kiessling

PUBLISHER: HarperCollins Publishers India

PAGES: 320

PRICE: Rs. 599

Interview of Author Vikram Balagopal

For author Vikram Balagopal, his book Savage Blue is an escapist fantasy adventure meant to be read for fun, but still addresses many world issues. He speaks to Sapna Sarfare about the book & more

Vikram Balagopal

Literature always welcomes newer pens with open hand and readers always look forward to something new. Adding to this list, HarperCollins Publishers India is presenting Vikram Balagopal’s Savage Blue, a book exploring environmental issues with feminism in an interesting manner. Balagopal is an award winning author, illustrator, a cartoonist, a film-maker and a published poet who previous attempt at writing is an award-winning graphic novel Simian.

One is really intrigued by Savage Blue, which is depicted as an escapist fantasy adventure with romance in the present era. Vikram adds, “Savage Blue is an escapist fantasy adventure meant to be read for fun, but within its story I still wanted to address many of the issues in our world. The relationship between the two main characters, Akila and Shyam, and keeping that real was what mattered most to me. There is love and sex but it is far from a fairytale romance.”

With Savage Blue, Vikram feels readers will connect with the lead in their own way and he wants to know the connection is more on which side. “Every day of our lives we all know what it is to be trapped in something, be it tradition or debt or social norms or our own insecurities and that desire to break free is universal.” 

The idea for the novel came from Vikram’s need to write a present-day fantasy, which took time to develop & be written. One sense Savage Blue is Vikram’s efforts to showcase himself as a multi-faceted writer. “I’ve worked as a screenwriter and filmmaker before I did my graphic novel Simian. I’ve never chosen to do something one way or another simply for the sake of doing it differently. In the case of Simian, I felt that the story suited a graphic novel best in the way I wanted to tell it, and now with Savage Blue, it came to me as a novel. That doesn’t mean I can’t adapt it later to another medium. It is just that this is its original form.”

Ramayan was the base of his graphic novel Simian, but from Hanuman’s point of view. Vikram divulges, “The story in Simian, where Bhima and Hanuman meet, has existed as a part of the Mahabharata and I’ve seen it performed in Kathakali as well, where it is called Kalyana Sougandhikam. It is a famous episode in the epic and when my grandmother used to tell me bedtime stories it was the one I requested most often, along with other stories of Hanuman. In it, Hanuman and Bhima have a chance meeting in the jungle. They have a connection because they are both sons of the wind god Vayu, and when Hanuman learns of the troubles the Pandavas have had to endure in their escalating conflict with the Kauravas, and he sees Bhima’s lust for vengeance, he tries to persuade him that violence and war is not the answer. He has personal experience of it from the Great War between Ram and Ravan and he shares his wisdom with Bhima that war is unpredictable, leading to the participants compromising on their morals, and then spending the rest of their lives living with the consequences of their decisions. And the best way for him to illustrate this is to tell Bhima what really happened the only way he can, through his eyes. Simian was not done with the purpose of being another point of view, but it is instead a quest to understand and dig deeper into this thing called war that touches and shapes our world every single day.” 

Good writers are avid readers, of course. One thinks that the writer might have different topics to read through as a reader. Vikram responds, “That’s a difficult question to answer because my selections as a reader are so eclectic and this is only my second book, so it’s too soon to tell.” He does think there are a lot of new Indian writers who can be described as wonderful. This makes his reading queue quite long. His only remorse is, “I only wish I could read faster and that I had more time for it.”

As a trained filmmaker, he is constantly working on film projects. As for his next from his pen, he reveals that he is waiting to see.

Book Photo Credit: https://booksandstrips.wordpress.com/tag/savage-blue/ 

BOOK: Savage Blue 

AUTHOR: Vikram Balagopal

PUBLISHER: HarperCollins Publishers India 

PAGES: 416

PRICE: Rs. 399

RELEASE DATE: September, 2016

An idol re-revealed!

Mekhala Sengupta reintroduces actress-cum-filmmaker-cum-social game changer Kanan Devi via her book Kanan Devi: The First Superstar of Indian Cinema, published by HarperCollins Publisher India.

I confess I had heard about Kanan Devi, but not got to the point to truly knowing her or understanding her position in the Indian film industry. This Bengali beauty was one of the early successful singing actors of her generation, filmmaker, social game changer and first lady of Indian cinema. However, there is a more to Kanan Devi. Kanan Devi: The First Superstar of Indian Cinema penned by debut author Mekhala Sengupta & published by HarperCollins Publisher India sets the ball rolling to truly knowing Kanan Devi. 

Kanan Devi is an interesting but rather offbeat topic to write about. Mekhala preferred to reply to this question in a slightly indirect manner. “In the early to mid-eighties, I was a young officer in Mumbai in development banking. I learnt & sang many of Kanan’s hit songs in Hindi at public performances. A group loved pre-playback singing music. I knew absolutely nothing of her extraordinary life. It was only when I mentioned this almost 27 years later to someone in Delhi that the rags to riches story was mentioned. I read a little bit about her and decided her story had to be told. Therefore, the book took shape.” Once Kanan’s actual hardships at that time was revealed, Mekhala just marveled that despite issues, Kanan held onto her beliefs of a better world. “She viewed adversity as a challenge that had to be dealt with. She did not just accept, compromise or crumble. She worked hard & succeeded in her lifetime without a godfather, lineage or resources. This had to be showcased to a new generation.”

Mekhala Sengupta

The term powerhouse equals to Kanan Devi. The book covers that element and features how she influenced others & her image back then. Mekhala reveals, “She was a huge box-office star who appealed to both the intelligentsia & front benchers. Much loved & admired, she symbolized glamour & hope and her voice touched hearts of those who heard her. She started fashion trends and changed fashion. She handled many different characters – first coming across as a feisty girl woman, then a society girl torn between her love for her artist husband and the aspirations of her affluent but non-artistic father, a singer who continued working after her marriage and so many others.” The book helps us appreciate how Kanan brought her own USP to each role, in both the character’s spirit & form it took on screen. 

Celebs have two images – one that we hear from media and the other that we see for ourselves. An author has the privilege to know the real celeb. While researching, Mekhala got some insights of the extraordinary woman. “The first impression was that given Kanan’s origins, how she dealt with adversity & extracted herself out of her grim origins, she showed sheer determination in skilling & tooling herself, never wasting time or giving up hope to make the best of any situation she found herself in. She kept working on herself. There was hard work and sacrifice. She has stated that hers was a childhood without playtime. The fact that she was a powerhouse emerged later on finishing the book, when I looked at her as a modern person would.”

A well-done research work throws in extraordinary facets. Mekhala calls this research ‘a process of discovery’, as it meant countless reading between the lines on what she wrote or said and what she left unsaid (and the reasons behind it). “As a start, we all identify with our parents in a way and we carry their names. Kanan knew nothing of who her biological parents were. There were just foster parents. When do these things happen? I have tried to be a true biographer to bring the facts to light and the sheer scale of accomplishments that Kanan achieved in her lifetime, that she could be introduced just as herself, as Kanan,” Mekhala confesses.

“She viewed adversity as a challenge that had to be dealt with. She did not just accept, compromise or crumble. She worked hard & succeeded in her lifetime without a godfather, lineage or resources. This had to be showcased to a new generation.”

The one aspect, which stuck Mekhala the most as a woman, has to be Kanan’s steely resolution, decisiveness & determination. “These are the phrases that come to mind about Kanan. Typically, women dither or get self-sabotaged with emotions hijacking mental states, disempowering them, while men successfully can compartmentalize their emotions away to address the tasks. Kanan maintained very high standards of excellence and kept working towards improving her knowledge and skills base.” 

Indians, I feel, do not give due credit to most who probably are not on the constant popularity wave. Mekhala wants to share unlike opinion on this. “Due credit? Popularity wave? What are these terms speaking? If we define look at a condition where people relate to another and want to emulate them, the popularity wave terms becomes clear. In an analogy, good food comes from good ingredients, which is put together in a way so that it appeals. The fact is that a good story is a good story. An inspiring story or a charismatic person always remains so because of the particular energy & passion they bring in their situation. It is a question of putting their quest in life in their generation in the context of the current generation. In generic terms, a struggle is a struggle in whichever period you put this in.”

Mekhala’s own journey is something extraordinary. The former banker & financier studied at studied at Lady Shri Ram College (Economics Honours), Moore School of Business, Columbia (Finance & International Trade) and London Business School (Investment Management). Her musical foray includes studying Dhrupad under Dagar Brothers. Mekhala prefers calling herself straightforward rather than unusual. “I am not publicity shy but do not crave it either. About my life journey, I have made some serious money in past avatars and have taken some serious knocks as well. Life’s canvas has also taught me that it is vital to have passion and energy in life as also some detachment. Your life is yours alone. It is important to know yourself and to understand what motivates you and then follow your dreams and not live life as dreamt by another for you. And humility & compassion are needed to stop being a self-centred megalomaniac.” Clear-cut she definitely is!

"Typically, women dither or get self-sabotaged with emotions hijacking mental states, disempowering them, while men successfully can compartmentalize their emotions away to address the tasks. Kanan maintained very high standards of excellence and kept working towards improving her knowledge and skills base."

A true author worth his pen has his or her list of favourite books or literature. Mekhala confesses to admiring imagery & humour in literature. “I have read George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell, Alastair Mclean, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Tagore, Mustafa Ali, Premchand, Sarat Chandra, a good deal of science fiction and vast accounts of mythology & folklore from different parts of the world. I have also read a lot of non–fiction, in terms of books on management books and brain entrainment.”

Kanan Devi admirers will surely pick up Kanan Devi: The First Superstar of Indian Cinema. But it is a mission for reintroducing Kanan Devi to an even younger audience. Mekhala feels the readers will discover a woman whose life was filled with hard work & struggle that she achieved success without any godfather, lineage, resources or affirmative action. “She had to be ruthless as a street fighter as the situation needed, but retained her compassion & humility where it was needed. Kanan rewrote her life story and was a true self-made woman. This story & message had to be showcased to a new generation and what I plan to achieve.” It is time we get acquainted with a true heroine of reel & real life.

       KANAN DEVI: THE FIRST SUPERSTAR OF INDIAN CINEMA

AUTHOR: Mekhala Sengupta

PUBLISHER: HarperCollins Publishers India

PUBLISHED: October, 2015

      GENRE: Cinema                                 

      LANGUAGE: English 

      PRICE: Rs 350  

P    AGES: 228