The Israeli spy network in India has built up its nests of agents in many important newspapers and TV organisations in India. They are being bribed to play down the Israeli part in the defence scams. A lucrative defence contract which the Israelis landed last year soon after the visit of Home Minister, L.K. Advani, to Israel in June, related to the purchase of Unmanned aircraft for surveillance in enemy territory and the erecting of electrically operated barbed wire fencing and eavesdropping spy equipment. The Israelis erected the surveillance fencing around the headquarters of the 15th Indian Army corps in Srinagar last winter. Who got the kickbacks from the Israelis for this deal and what was the amount involved? Some investigative Indian reporters feel scared to enter this minefield because the revengeful Home Minister L.K. Advani was possibly the author of this deal. He openly tells highcaste rich Hindus to donate gold bricks for the building of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, the site of the Babri mosque destroyed by his saffron brigade in December 1992.

The Israelis are so strongly entrenched in the corridors of power in New Delhi that a high-powered Indian Air Force delegation led by Air Marshal Vinod Patney paid a week-long visit to Israel in the first week of April and negotiated a deal for the purchase of the Phalcon airborne early warning system against approaching aircraft and missiles, and air-to-air refuelling system to give long-range flying facility to India’s Russian-made ocean surveillance planes. The Indian Air Force team also wants more Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance in enemy land. Millions of dollars are involved in these deals and the Israelis are now adept in greasing the palms of their Indian customers.

Early this year, just before the end of the Clinton Presidency, the Israelis had shipped to India important components of a sophisticated radar system, Green Pile, capable of detecting missile attacks hundreds of kilometres away. The Israelis hurried this shipment to India just before the installation of the Bush Administration lest legal hitches may arise because of US laws. The Israelis got fully paid for this shipment by the Indians. Pakistan’s missiles are worrying the Indian military and the mandarins in New Delhi, with their palms greased by the Israelis, believe they have the cure.

India’s BJP rulers give two hoots for the criticism they some times encounter from Arab rulers and dignitaries for patronising and consorting with the Palestinian-killing Israelis. India’s Foreign and Defence Minister, Major Jaswant Singh, who considers doublespeak the basis of diplomacy, Indian style, gives strange lollipops to the Arab rulers and officials to defend India’s military and economic ties with Israel. During a recent Cairo visit, he tried this strategy on Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s President. The President was perhaps more diplomatic and polite, but his principal adviser, Osama Al Baz, was courteously outspoken when he told Jaswant Singh that because of the Israeli repression over the unarmed Palestinians, Egyptians were critical of the Indo-Israeli cooperation. Well-informed Indian journalist, Manoj Joshi, referred to it in a Cairo despatch published in Bombay’s Times of India on March 21. L.K. Advani’s theory is that India’s consorting with tiny Israel helps in mobilising the pro-Israel Jewish lobby in the USA in India’s favour. India’s rulers have their eyes on the riches of the Arab states in the Gulf region and they are working on new-fangled schemes for power projection and the heist of Arab wealth in the region, if possible with US blessing. They consider Pakistan an obstacle in the way of their unholy designs to gobble up Arab wealth in the Gulf and dominate the Indian Ocean.

Despite the recent exposure of Israeli bribes to Indian officials to obtain lucrative defence contracts for Israel, Indian defence officials are going ahead with their military deals with the Israelis. In May, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Navy, Admiral Sushil Kumar, a darling of the BJP-led Government, visited Israel to place orders for naval weapons for the Indian Navy. A week after his visit, India’s Defence Secretary, Yugendra Singh, paid a four-day visit to Israel at the head of a high-level delegation of defence officials to boost Indo-Israel defence cooperation. The Indian Defence Secretary and his team conferred for four days with high-level Israeli military officials led by the director of the Israeli defence ministry, Amos Yarun. They learnt more about an Israeli missile system in which Admiral Sushil Kumar had shown a keen interest. The Indian Defence Secretary and his team visited a number of Israeli military factories from which India will be importing more military hardware and lethal weapons. The Indian officials are urging the Israeli Government to put pressure on its lobbyists in the USA to impress upon the Bush Administration to expand Indo-US military ties and accept India’s hegemonistic Ambitions in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, including the Gulf. To please Washington, India has welcomed the Bush Administration’s National Missile Defence (Plan (NMD).