A Storm Over Old Secrets: BJP’s CIA Allegation Revives Congress’s Cold War Ghosts

Paromita Das
New Delhi, 2nd July: It is often said that history is never really past—it waits, dormant, until politics breathes new life into old files. This week, a fresh political controversy has erupted in Bharat, as BJP MP Nishikant Dubey ignited a storm by claiming that the Indian National Congress—the country’s oldest political party—once took covert financial support from the CIA during the Cold War. If true, the allegation touches a raw nerve in Bharat’s political memory: the anxiety that foreign powers meddled in its fragile democracy when it was barely finding its footing after independence.

Dubey’s claim, made on social media for the world to see, draws heavily on declassified U.S. documents, old parliamentary debates, and a letter from Indira Gandhi to Richard Nixon. On their own, these scraps of evidence may not be explosive. But together, they paint a picture that the BJP hopes will stick: that the Congress party, now the main opposition, once compromised Bharat’s sovereignty for American money and influence.

Threads Pulled from a Bygone Era

The core of Dubey’s argument rests on four points. First, a conversation between President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, supposedly reveals that the U.S. was prepared to funnel $300 million to Bharat in the early 1970s, as the Nixon administration recalibrated its South Asia policy after the creation of Bangladesh.

Second, Dubey has dusted off a moment from May 1979 when Bharat’s then Home Minister, H.M. Patel, conceded during a Rajya Sabha debate that America allegedly gave money to the Congress twice—once to weaken communists in Kerala, and again to influence a general election. Patel admitted there was no direct evidence, but the fact that a minister even acknowledged it on record gives the story legs.

Adding fuel to the fire, Dubey pointed to the mysterious escape of a RAW agent, Ravindra Singh, who fled to the U.S. in 2004. For Dubey, Singh’s case underlines a lingering question: why did the Congress-led UPA government fail to bring back a man suspected of spying for the CIA?

The fourth strand in Dubey’s narrative is a letter from Indira Gandhi to Nixon after the bitter 1971 Indo-Pak war. In it, Gandhi talks about mending ties. Dubey interprets this as evidence of her willingness to turn to the very power she once accused of backing Pakistan.

When Allegations Echo Through Time

So far, the Congress has chosen silence, perhaps hoping the story will burn itself out in the furnace of a news cycle that moves faster than facts can keep up. But the timing is awkward. Bharat’s voters are watching political funding with sharper eyes than ever, and the ghost of foreign meddling strikes at an old national insecurity: that outsiders could buy influence in the world’s largest democracy.

It is true that the Cold War era was an age of shadows and secrets. The Soviet Union and the United States both treated the developing world as a chessboard, moving money, information, and covert operatives wherever they could. Bharat, non-aligned in name but often tilting toward Moscow, was certainly courted by Washington too. But whether that courtship turned into direct cash transfers to political parties is harder to prove conclusively.

Digging Up the Past Won’t Solve the Present

One must ask—why now? Is this about genuine accountability or convenient politics? It is tempting to look back at dusty archives and demand today’s leaders atone for the choices made by leaders half a century ago. But the deeper challenge is to ask if Bharat has learned the right lessons.

If these allegations hold any water, they should spur a rigorous look at how political funding in Bharat remains vulnerable to hidden hands—foreign or domestic. Political money trails, opaque electoral bonds, and cash-heavy campaigns pose risks to democratic integrity today, just as they did back then.

Yet if this turns into just another round of blame and counter-blame, it will achieve little. The real test is whether Parliament and parties of every stripe can summon the courage to make campaign funding fully transparent. Otherwise, ghosts of old scandals will keep coming back, and real reform will remain as elusive as ever.

A Reminder and a Warning

Nishikant Dubey’s revival of the CIA funding allegation is not just a swipe at Congress. It’s a mirror, reflecting the uncomfortable truth that Bharat’s political history is not immune to foreign fingerprints. But history alone should not become a weapon to settle today’s scores. If there is wrongdoing buried in the past, investigate it fully and transparently. But let that investigation serve a bigger purpose: building a system where no party—whether Congress, BJP, or any other—can be bought by forces beyond Bharat’s borders.

In the end, the only lasting defense for a sovereign democracy is vigilance. And that must come not just from leaders on TV, but from an electorate that refuses to let its votes be auctioned—by anyone, anywhere.