The busting of a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence ring in the United States fronted by Ghulam Nabi Fai, a Kashmiri of Indian extraction and now an American citizen, will no doubt surprise those well-meaning individuals — prominent Indians and Americans — who unknowingly lent themselves to be used by the
propaganda outfit that Fai, a doctorate in public relations from an American university, ran and succeeded in giving a high profile to. However, the methods used by the unscrupulous propagandist were pretty much standard tools of the trade employed by both sides in the Cold War across the world. For that reason it is interesting that the Americans latched on to the ISI plot so late in the day.
Since the mid-1990s, Fai is accused by America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation of receiving around $4 million from the ISI to donate to or pay individuals and parties in the US, and to hold international conferences on Kashmir that projected the Pakistani viewpoint. The amount is not significant insofar as secret operations go, but the role performed by the ISI’s Kashmiri operative is. Opinion-makers such as journalists, politicians and other public figures were sought to be brainwashed. They were the usual targets for the so-called international conferences and seminars of the Kashmir American Council (KAC) — all expenses paid, including international travel — and Fai’s email list for sending propaganda material was indeed long and impressive. In truth, the outfit should have been called the Pakistan American Council for Kashmir, except that then nobody would have walked into the parlour as Pakistan has an odour about it these days in the eyes of ordinary people on all continents. A foreign organisation in America can register itself and engage in propaganda. That’s legal. The KAC did not do that. It pretended to be an American organisation. It collected small donations from individuals in the Pakistani community in the US (who may not always have known about the illegality), who also filed for tax exemption! Such donors were reimbursed through the use of funds supplied by the ISI. This is standard “hawala” practice and is widely used by terrorists and extremists, including in Kashmir. Fai communicated with his ISI handlers using code words.
Now that he is under arrest, he will have enough opportunity to reflect on his situation. His antecedents make him a “sleeper” ISI mole at the very least. As yet we do not know what else he was up to. Was he also in touch with the ISI’s Afghan bureau, for instance, or with the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, which has strong links with the Afghan and Kashmir jihad, courtesy the ISI? Fai was in touch with many Indians, including Kashmiri politicians and activists, for some of whom he played the role of their international front. It is not clear if some of the ISI money he received was intended for operatives in Kashmir. Indian journalists and politicians have rightly claimed they didn’t know about Fai’s ISI links when they accepted his invitations. Even if they went there and took a strong Indian nationalist line (as a senior politician said he did) on Kashmir, such well-known personalities have raised the stock of the KAC in America by making it appear an even-handed organisation, interested solely in the merits of the case, and helped it to launder the ISI stain. This, in turn, would make it easier for KAC to establish contacts with US senators and congressmen in the hope that they will put their weight behind America’s Kashmir policy. Prominent Indian journalists and public figures don’t normally attend functions if they don’t know the host well enough. Using the same logic, they should also turn down international invitations.