Features

Meetings with Gandhi and Nehru;Message from Ramgarh to Ceylon

Published

2 years ago

2024/08/25

Thilina Walpola

Gandhi and Nehru

by JR Jayewardene
(Excerpted from Men and Memories)

The Ramgarh Session of the Indian National Congress, the last Session before Freedom was held in March 1940, in a small village, in Bihar Province, “sanctified by the touch of the feet of Gautama, the Buddha”, said the Reception Committee Chairman, Rajendra Prasad, later President of Free India. I attended the Session as a delegate of the Ceylon National Congress and recorded my impressions then.

The little village of Ramgarh is today famous throughout the world. For here gathered the men and women of the new India with her beauty and her chivalry, intent on freeing their motherland from foreign rule. It was a pretty countryside that we passed through on our way, for over a hundred miles to the west of Calcutta. Ramgarh itself is very similar to Diyatalawa, undulating valleys, large plains and mountain streams abounding.

It is also a countryside with a history unequaled in the world. The founders of Buddhism and Jainism both spent large portions of their lives in this province, now called Bihar. Bodh-Gaya is hardly a hundred miles away towards the north. “Every particle of dust in this province”, said the retiring President, Rajendra Prasad to the delegates, “is sanctified by the touch of the feet of Gautama, the Buddha.”

And as a tribute to India’s greatest son and to his disciple, Asoka, India’s greatest monarch, a facsimile, of one of Asoka’s pillars, over a hundred feet high, had been erected at the entrance to the Congress town. On this pillar the Congress flag was later hoisted, and as it fluttered in the breeze, the people of India paid their homage. The new India they wished to create called them to action and this flag was their symbol. And how appropriate it was that a symbol of India’s ancient greatness should bear it aloft.

Three huge pandals marked the entrances to the Khadi Exhibition, the open air arena and the Congress town or Hagar. What was scrubby jungle had been converted into a small town. The main street was over a mile long and as broad as the Galle Road at Kollupitiya. Electric lights and a water service had been installed. A railway station, radio and telephone exchange and a post office completed the township.

Policemen there were, but none from the British Government. Men and women volunteers recruited as honorary workers from the district, controlled the traffic, helped those in,trouble and guarded the leaders’ huts.

And then came the inhabitants to this township. Over a lakh of people, a population larger than that of Kandy or Galle lived here for four or five days and then disappeared. They came from the North-West Frontier; they came from Madras, over two thousand miles away. The women and children from every part of India, from every race in India, from every religion in India. Delegates and visitors from Burma, Ceylon, England and America. A Japanese monk was there beating his drum to drive away the evil spirits. The streets were packed with a mass of humanity. There was bustle but no bluster. Everyone was friendly. The mention of Ceylon brought forth a kindly smile and a word of greeting.

The leaders of India were there, living simply like the rest, sitting on the floor while they ate, and mixing with the crowds. Mahatma Gandhi alone had a hut to himself. Wherever he went he was mobbed. Crowds would suddenly break all barriers, rush up to his hut and shout: “Gandhi ji ki Jai”. His stay there was an endless series of interviews. And thus to business.

The work of the session begins with the opening of the Exhibition and the sitting of the Working Committee. The Working Committee was the “Cabinet”, and composed of about 12 members chosen by the President. After that the All-India Congress Committee consisting of about 375 delegates from all the Congress Provincial Committees held its meetings. These meetings are held in a huge covered pandal capable of seating about 10,000 people.

These were really the most interesting meetings. For here took place the moving of motions and amendments for debate. For this purpose the Committee converted itself into the Subjects Committee. No motion or amendment rejected by the Subjects Committee had any chance of being accepted by the Session.

The Burma and Ceylon delegations were permitted to witness these deliberations. The Patna Resolution on Independence was the only official motion to be discussed. M.N. Roy attempted to bring in a Communist amendment but found very little support. The motion was accepted without much trouble.

It was interesting to see these leaders of India. Perfect order was maintained. The leaders and the invited guests were on a huge platform covered with a large mattress and carpet.

The delegates sat on low benches in the body of the hall. The other visitors sat on the floor round the delegates. There were no chairs. Girl volunteers in orange sarees kept order and served water. The Congress colours and flags were used to decorate the platform and the pandal. Abdul Gaffar Khan, over six feet in height, was there almost sleeping on the platform. Mrs Sarojini Naidu found the low table on which a model charkha was kept more comfortable than the mattress.

Pandit Nehru, quick of temper was calmed down by Jamnalal Bajaj, the Congress treasurer. He lost his temper more than once. It was to a speaker from the Punjab who said, that “country is ready to fight, we are ready, the Congress is ready, but Nehru and Gandhi are not ready.” Nehru thereupon angrily retorted: “I am ready.” A young Communist speaker angered him terribly. He rushed to the presidential table and exchanged a few words before calm was restored.

And then came Gandhiji. Vallabhai Patel was speaking when he arrived, yet, it was only necessary to whisper, “Gandhiji is coming,” for the cheering to break out. He slipped in quietly and sat on the floor.

No remarks could anger him. When one of the speakers said, “It is this little man whom I can put into my pocket who is delaying us,” he laughed loudly and beckoned him to do so.

The resolution was passed unaltered and then Gandhiji spoke. He spoke for about an hour. There was no interruption. There was no stir. Even those on the platform crowded round the speaker to hear his words. There is no doubt that Mahatma Gandhi, though not a member of the Congress, was its leader, nay, a dictator. He said so himself. Congress, he said, cannot be a democratic assembly when it is waging war. It must become a fighting unit and it must have one general. As long as they have him as general he expected unquestioned obedience. If they wished they could replace him and follow another.

But could they?

Thus concluded the meetings of the Subjects Committee. And then to the sessions. Three days had been allotted for the open sessions. The Congress Sessions were held in a huge open air amphitheatre as large as the Victoria Park. The members of the Congress Committee throughout India are entitled to vote, numbering over a thousand. At one end of the stadium was a platform and a rostrum for the President.

The first day was allotted for the Presidential Address and the other two days for discussion on motions. A crowd of over a lakh of people had assembled by 5 p.m. on the 19 March. The President was expected at 5.30. More people were coming in. And then came the rain! In half an hour the vast amphitheatre was one sheet of water and in some places the water was knee deep. The President’s speech was taken as read. Thus ended the Congress Session.

The next morning a make-shift session was held under the Asoka pillar, as the theatre was still wet and in a few hours the Patna resolution urging “Independence outside the orbit of the British Empire”, was passed. By the evening the crowds had started to leave. In a few days Ramgarh would assume its normal quiet. The jackals would wander through the empty streets and huts. The aborigines will weave into their history the legends of Ramgarh, the story of a town which sprang up in a few days, of motor cars and trains and electric lights and of an “avatar”, an incarnation of God, whom they saw–Mahatma Gandhi.

But what does Ramgarh mean to India and to the world? How were we in Ceylon to adjust ourselves to the results that flowed in from Ramgarh? Two facts were clear. First, India was united in her demand to be free and she wanted her freedom outside the British Commonwealth of Nations. Secondly, Mahatma Gandhi was still the unquestioned leader of India. There was, no doubt, opposition to his leadership.

Subhash Chandra Bose held a counter show at Ramgarh with his anti-compromise and Forward Bloc ideals. These meetings were attended by the Kisan (peasant) organizations and had the support of over a lakh of people. The opposition were not, however, to Gandhi’s leadership: it was to his refusal to begin the fight. His opponents wished to push him on to act at once. But Gandhi believed that the country was not ready and if he was the leader, he must give the signal to begin. In the Congress itself there was no opposition.

That India will begin her struggle again there was no question. That she would soon be free was also not to be doubted. In their minds and in their actions, the Indians were free. They wore clothes made in India and used articles made in India. They did not recognize the British flag nor the British connection. To the men and women who thought as the political parties did, the British Crown and British ideals and customs meant nothing. India was determined to travel on her own path to chart its own course.

We, in Ceylon, had to learn many things. First, the idealism and complete absence of racial or personal feeling which characterized the political discussions at Ramgarh was a contrast to the petty methods prevalent among us. No man or woman we met, be he/she leader or the follower, talked except in terms of ideals of social and economic construction, of a new world order based not on exploitation but according to a planned economy. In the field of politics, the masses were trained to think not in terms of race or personalities, but in terms of social equality, equal opportunity for all and anti-imperialism.

Could we in Ceylon close our eyes to these movements so close to our shores? Was it not the duty of our leaders, our men of letters and culture, or newspapers and all those who love this country, to quicken the awakening consciousness of our people and help them too to feel the impulse of that idealism which emanated from India?

During the Ramgarh Session, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who visited our quarters, after the torrential rains, asked us to visit him at Allahabad and stay with him for a few days. Pandit Nehru was the only leader who visited all the guests and saw to their comfort after the rains. We gladly accepted his invitation and on our way to Delhi we called on him at Allahabad.

John Ameratunge and I –J ayasekera had business in Bombay –stayed for a few days in Nehru’s house, “Anand Bhawan” on 26, 27 and 28 March. We were treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality, as if we were old friends. Mrs Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister as the hostess, used to sit down for morning breakfast with us to a typical Western breakfast with bacon and eggs, toast and the host presided and sat with us. He would generally be out for lunch and return for dinner. Indira Gandhi, his daughter, was not in India at that time, and we were the only guests.

We had long discussions with Pandit Nehru though we were far removed from his activities which covered almost 20 years of direct and indirect non-violent campaigns, to free India from foreign rule. That campaign was now in its final stages and we talked to him quite freely about his role in these movements. Like all other youths of our generation throughout the British Empire, we hero-worshipped Jawaharlal Nehru and his leader, Mahatma Gandhi.

The friendship thus formed enabled me to correspond with him. Some of our letters have now been published. They are letters that speak for themselves and unfortunately the correspondence terminated with Pandit Nehru’s incarceration. He was released just before the War ended and became Prime Minister of Free India and I became the Minster of Finance of Free Ceylon (Sri Lanka). We had many contacts but did not renew our correspondence.

“Quit India” – Indian Congress Meeting

Bombay 7, 8 August 1942

The Indian National Congress had been preparing for a final move against the British rule since the Ramgarh Session. Its leaders had been arrested, tried, jailed and released. The British Government had sent Sir Stafford Cripps on a special mission to meet the Indian leaders; his mission had ended in failure. The War in the West and in North Africa could not have followed a more disastrous course for the Allied Powers.

In the East, Japan was in command of the Indian Ocean and had bombed Ceylon twice after the fall of Indonesia, Singapore and Burma. They were knocking at the doors of India on the Assam frontier. It was at this moment that Mahatma Gandhi sought the sanction of the Congress to implement his “Quit India” program.

I could not miss this opportunity. P.D.S. Jayasekere, one of the Treasurers, C.P.G. Abeywardene and I were deputed to represent Ceylon at the Indian National Congress Committee meeting to be held in Bombay to discuss the “Quit India” Resolution. We accordingly left for Bombay through Madras by train on July 31, 1942. On arrival at Bombay, we contacted Jawaharlal Nehru on the telephone and he very kindly sent us tickets for admission to the special enclosure.

We met him, his sister Mrs Krishna Huthee Singh and his son-in-law Feroze Gandhi at Mrs Singh’s flat where he was staying. He was interested in hearing of the air-raids on Ceylon, the damage caused, and the consequences on the morale of the people. He was confident that India would be free after the War and did not favour a victory for the Axis powers. However, he said, he could not help the Allies as long as they (the Indians) were a subject people.

We met Mahatma Gandhi also at Birla House where he was staying. At our request he included Ceylon too in the Resolution demanding freedom for Asiatic nations. “Why do you think that Ceylon is not included in India’s demand for freedom?” he asked. “My love for Ceylon is even greater than my love for Burma.-

There was an amusing incident in the room. The late Mahadev Desai was seated on a cushion by the side of Gandhiji taking down his reply to a British paper. At one stage Gandhi referred to the 380 millions of Indians. Desai playfully refused to take this down saying, “No, Bapuji, it’s not 380 millions but 400 millions”. Some of the others in the room also joined in the discussion regarding the exact number of India’s population. Desai clinched the issue by saying that the latest census figure was 400 millions. Gandhi smilingly gave in, and allowed Desai to write “400 millions”.

In spite of the bitterness that had arisen as a result of this conflict between Britain and India, it was true that in the mind of India’s great leader there was no hate whatever towards his adversaries.

The meeting of the Congress Committee was held under a large pandal seating 10,000 on the Gowalia Tank Maidan on 7 and 8 August 7 and 8. The meeting was more like a mass rally.

The leaders were accommodated on a platform without chairs and we sat on the cushioned stage with them. Mahatma Gandhi outlined his non-cooperation movement and called upon the British to “Quit India”, coining the now famous phrase “Karange Ya Marenge …… Do or Die”. He was, by unanimous consent, accorded full powers to lead the movement.

Soon after the meeting rioting broke out and as we left that very night for Madras we could not witness the varied forms into which it spread. The train we travelled in was also stoned and throughout India similar occurrences were reported. Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and the other leaders were arrested. India was again set on the Gandhian path to freedom.

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Rohana Wijeweera

It is also different from all past governments as it faces new and different challenges

No one knows whether the already broken ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Israel as a reluctant adjunct, will last the full 10 days, or what will come thereafter. The world’s economic woes are not over and the markets are yo-yoing in response to Trump’s twitches and Iran’s gate keeping at the Strait of Hormuz. The gloomy expert foretelling is that full economic normalcy will not return until the year is over even if the war were to end with the ceasefire. That means continuing challenges for Sri Lanka and more of the tough learning in the art of governing for the NPP.

The NPP government has been doing what most governments in Asia have been doing to cope with the current global crisis, which is also an Asian crisis insofar as oil supplies and other supply chains are concerned. What the government can and must do additionally is to be totally candid with the people and keep them informed of everything that it is doing – from monitoring import prices to the timely arranging of supplies, all the details of tender, the tracking of arrivals, and keeping the distribution flow through the market without bottlenecks. That way the government can eliminate upstream tender rackets and downstream hoarding swindles. People do not expect miracles from their government, only honest, sincere and serious effort in difficult circumstances. Backed up by clear communication and constant public engagement.

But nothing is going to stop the flow of criticisms against the NPP government. That is a fact of Sri Lankan politics. Even though the opposition forces are weak and have little traction and even less credibility, there has not been any drought in the criticisms levelled against the still fledgling government. These criticisms can be categorized as ideological, institutional and oppositional criticisms, with each category having its own constituency and/or commentators. The three categories invariably overlap and there are instances of criticisms that excite only the pundits but have no political resonance.

April 5 anniversary nostalgia

There is also a new line of criticism that might be inspired by the April 5 anniversary nostalgia for the 1971 JVP insurrection. This new line traces the NPP government to the distant roots of the JVP – its April 1965 founding “in a working-class home in Akmeemana, Galle” by a 22-year old Rohana Wijeweera and seven others; the short lived 1971 insurrection that was easily defeated; and the much longer and more devastating second (1987 to 1989) insurrection that led to the elimination of the JVP’s frontline leaders including Wijeweera, and brought about a change in the JVP’s political direction with commitment to parliamentary democracy. So far, so good, as history goes.

But where the nostalgic narrative starts to bend is in attempting a straight line connection from the 1965 Akmeemana origins of the JVP to the national electoral victories of the NPP in 2024. And the bend gets broken in trying to bridge the gap between the “founding anti-imperialist economics” of the JVP and the practical imperatives of the NPP government in “governing a debt-laden small open economy.” Yet this line of criticism differs from the other lines of criticism that I have alluded to, but more so for its moral purpose than for its analytical clarity. The search for clarity could begin with question – why is the NPP government more than a JVP offspring? The answer is not so simple, but it is also not too complicated.

For starters, the JVP was a political response to the national and global conditions of the 1960s and 1970s, piggybacking socialism on the bandwagon of ethno-nationalism in a bi-polar world that was ideologically split between status quo capitalism and the alternative of socialism. The NPP government, on the other hand, is not only a response to, but is also a product of the conditions of the 2010s and 2020s. The twain cannot be more different. Nothing is the same between then and now, locally and globally.

A pragmatic way to look at the differences between the origins of the JVP and the circumstances of the NPP government is to look at the very range of criticisms that are levelled against the NPP government. What I categorize as ideological criticisms include criticisms of the government’s pro-IMF and allegedly neo-liberal economic policies, as well as the government’s foreign policy stances – on Israel, on the current US-Israel war against Iran, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, and the apparent closeness to the Modi government in India. These criticisms emanate from the non-JVP left and Sinhala Buddhist nationalists.

Strands of nationalism

To digress briefly, there are several strands in the overall bundle of Sri Lankan nationalism. There is the liberal inclusive strand, the left-progressive strand, the exclusive Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist (SBN) strand, and the defensive strands of minority nationalisms. Given Sri Lanka’s historical political formations and alliances, much overlapping goes on between the different strands. The overlapping gets selective on an issue by issue basis, which in itself is not unwelcome insofar as it promotes plurality in place of exclusivity.

Historically as well, and certainly after 1956, the SBN strand has been the dominant strand of nationalism in Sri Lanka and has had the most influential say in every government until now. Past versions of the JVP frequently straddled the dominant SBN space. Currently, however, the dominant SBN strand is in one of its more dormant phases and the NPP government could be a reason for the current dormancy. This is an obvious difference between the old JVP and the new NPP.

A second set of criticisms, or institutional criticisms, emanate from political liberals and human rights activists and these are about the NPP government’s actions or non-actions in regard to constitutional changes, the future of the elected executive presidency, the status of provincial devolution and the timing of provincial council elections, progress on human rights issues, the resolution of unfinished postwar businesses including the amnesia over mass graves. These criticisms and the issues they represent are also in varying ways the primary concerns of the island’s Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaka (planntationn) Tamils. As with the overlapping between the left and the non-minority nationalists, there is also overlapping between the liberal activists and minority representatives.

A third category includes what might be called oppositional criticisms and they counterpose the JVP’s past against the NPP’s present, call into question the JVP’s commitment to multi-party democracy and raise alarms about a creeping constitutional dictatorship. This category also includes criticisms of the NPP government’s lack of governmental experience and competence; alleged instances of abuse of power, mismanagement and even corruption; alleged harassment of past politicians; and the failure to find the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter bombings. At a policy and implementational level, there have been criticisms of the government’s educational reforms and electricity reforms, the responses to cyclone Ditwah, and the current global oil and economic crises. The purveyors of oppositional criticisms are drawn from the general political class which includes political parties, current and past parliamentarians, as well as media pundits.

Criticisms as expectations

What is common to all three categories of criticisms is that they collectively represent what were understood to be promises by the NPP before the elections, and have become expectations of the NPP government after the elections. It is the range and nature of these criticisms and the corresponding expectations that make the NPP government a lot more than a mere JVP offspring, and significantly differentiate it from every previous government.

The deliverables that are expected of the NPP government were never a part of the vocabulary of the original JVP platform and programs. The very mode of parliamentary politics was ideologically anathema to the JVP of Akmeemana. And there was no mention of or concern for minority rights, or constitutional reforms. On foreign policy, it was all India phobia without Anglo mania – a halfway variation of Sri Lanka’s mainstream foreign policy of Anglo mania and India phobia. For a party of the rural proletariat, the JVP was virulently opposed to the plantation proletariat. The JVP’s version of anti-imperialist economics would hardly have excited the Sri Lankan electorate at any time, and certainly not at the present time.

At the same time, the NPP government is also the only government that has genealogical antecedents to a political movement or organization like the JVP. That in itself makes the NPP government unique among Sri Lanka’s other governments. The formation of the NPP is the culmination of the evolution of the JVP that began after the second insurrection with the shedding of political violence, acceptance of political plurality and commitment to electoral democracy.

But the evolution was not entirely a process of internal transformation. It was also a response to a rapidly and radically changing circumstances both within Sri Lanka and beyond. This evolution has not been a rejection of the founding socialist purposes of the JVP in 1968, but their adaptation in the endless political search, under constantly changing conditions, for a non-violent, socialist and democratic framework that would facilitate the full development of the human potential of all Sri Lankans.

The burden of expectations is unmistakable, but what is also remarkable is their comprehensiveness and the NPP’s formal commitment to all of them at the same time. No previous government shouldered such an extensive burden or showed such a willing commitment to each and every one of the expectations. In the brewing global economic crisis, the criticisms, expectations and the priorities of the government will invariably be focussed on keeping the economy alive and alleviating the day-to-day difficulties of millions of Sri Lankan families. While what the NPP government can and must do may not differ much from what other Asian governments – from Pakistan to Vietnam – are doing, it could and should do better than what any and all past Sri Lankan governments did when facing economic challenges.

by Rajan Philips

Features

A Fragile Ceasefire: Pakistan’s Glory and Israel’s Sabotage

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Smokes over Beirut: Israel’s Ceasefire Attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon

After threatening to annihilate one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, TACO* Trump chickened out again by grasping the ceasefire lifeline that Pakistan had assiduously prepared. Trump needed the ceasefire badly to stem the mounting opposition to the war in America. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted the war to continue because he needed it badly for his political survival. So, he contrived a fiction and convinced Trump that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire. Trump as usual may not have noticed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Shariff had clearly indicated Lebanon’s inclusion in his announcement of the ceasefire at 7:50 PM, Tuesday, on X. Ten minutes before Donald Trump’s fake deadline.

True to form on Wednesday, Israel unleashed the heaviest assault by far on Lebanon, reportedly killing over 300 people, the highest single-day death toll in the current war. Iran responded by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz and questioning the need for talks in Islamabad over the weekend. There were other incidents as well, with an oil refinery attacked in Iran, and Iranian drones and missiles slamming oil and gas infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The US tried to insist that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, with the argumentative US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Budapest, Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban, calling the whole thing a matter of “bad faith negotiation” as well as “legitimate misunderstanding” on the part of Iran, and warning Iran that “it would be dumb to jeopardise its ceasefire with Washington over Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.”

But as the attack in Lebanon drew international condemnation – from Pope Leo to UN Secretary General António Guterres, and several world leaders, and amidst fears of Lebanon becoming another Gaza with 1,500 people including 130 children killed and more than a million people displaced, Washington got Israel to stop its “lawn mowing” in southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to “open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,”. Lebanese President Joeseph Aoun has also called for “a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, followed by direct negotiations between them.” Israel’s involvement in Lebanon remains a wild card that threatens the ceasefire and could scuttle the talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad.

Losers and Winners

After the ceasefire, both the Trump Administration and Iran have claimed total victories while the Israeli government wants the war to continue. The truth is that after more than a month into nonstop bombing of Iran, America and Israel have won nothing. Only Iran has won something it did not have when Trump and Netanyahu started their war. Iran now has not only a say over but control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire acknowledges this. Both Trump and Netanyahu are under fire in their respective countries and have no allies in the world except one another.

The real diplomatic winner is Pakistan. Salman Rushdie’s palimpsest-country has emerged as a key player in global politics and an influential mediator in a volatile region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Field Marshal Asim Munir have both been praised by President Trump and credited for achieving the current ceasefire. The Iranian regime has also been effusive in its praise of Pakistan’s efforts.

It is Pakistan that persisted with the effort after initial attempts at backdoor diplomacy by Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye started floundering. Sharing a 900 km border and deep cultural history with Iran, and having a skirmish of its own on the eastern front with Afghanistan, Pakistan has all the reason to contain and potentially resolve the current conflict in Iran. Although a majority Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is home to the second largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, and is the easterly terminus of the Shia Arc that stretches from Lebanon. The country also has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that includes Pakistan’s nuclear cover for the Kingdom. An open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have put Pakistan in a dangerously awkward position.

It is now known and Trump has acknowledged that China had a hand in helping Iran get to the diplomatic table. Pakistan used its connections well to get Chinese diplomatic reinforcement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Beijing to brief his Chinese counterpart and secured China’s public support for the diplomatic efforts. The visit produced a Five-Point Plan that became a sequel to America’s 15-point proposal and the eventual ten-point offer by Iran.

There is no consensus between parties as to which points are where and who is agreeing to what. The chaos is par for the course the way Donald Trumps conducts global affairs. So, all kudos to Pakistan for quietly persisting with old school toing and froing and producing a semblance of an agreement on a tweet without a parchment.

It is also noteworthy that Israel has been excluded from all the diplomatic efforts so far. And it is remarkable, but should not be surprising, the way Trump has sidelined Isreal from the talks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been enjoying overwhelming support of Israelis for starting the war of his life against Iran and getting the US to spearhead it. But now the country is getting confused and is exposed to Iranian missiles and drones far more than ever before. The Israeli opposition is finally coming alive realizing what little has Netanyahu’s wars have achieved and at what cost. Israel has alienated a majority of Americans and has no ally anywhere else.

It will be a busy Saturday in Islamabad, where the US and Iranian delegations are set to meet. Iran would seem to have insisted and secured the assurance that the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance, while including Trump’s personal diplomats – Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran has not announced its team but it is expected to be led, for protocol parity, by Iran’s Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and will likely include its suave Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Vice President Vance’s attendance will be the most senior US engagement with Iran since Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal under President Obama.

The physical arrangements for the talks are still not public although Islamabad has been turned into a security fortress given the stakes and risks involved. The talks are expected to be ‘indirect’, with the two delegations in separate rooms and Pakistani officials shuttling between them. The status of Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be the major points of contention. After Netanyahu’s overreach on Wednesday, Lebanon is also on the short list

The 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) took months of negotiations and involved multiple parties besides the US and Iran, including China, France, Germany, UK, Russia and the EU. That served the cause of regional and world peace well until Trump tore up the deal to spite Obama. It would be too much to expect anything similar after a weekend encounter in Islamabad. But if the talks could lead to at least a permanent ceasefire and the return to diplomacy that would be a huge achievement.

(*As of 2025–2026, Donald Trump is nicknamed “TACO Trump” by Wall Street traders and investors as an acronym for “”. This term highlights a perceived pattern of him making strong tariff threats that cause market panic, only to later retreat or weaken them, causing a rebound.)

by Rajan Philips

Features

CIA’s hidden weapon in Iran

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

We are passing through the ten-day interregnum called a ceasefire over the War on Iran. The world may breathe briefly, but this pause is not reassurance—it is a deliberate interlude, a vacuum in which every actor positions for the next escalation. Iran is far from secure. Behind the veneer of calm, external powers and local forces are preparing, arming, and coordinating. The United States is unlikely to deploy conventional ground troops; the next moves will be executed through proxies whose behaviour will defy expectation. These insurgents are shaped, guided, and amplified by intelligence and technology, capable of moving silently, striking precisely, and vanishing before retaliation. The ceasefire is not peace—it is the prelude to disruption.

The Kurds, historically instruments of Tehran against Baghdad, are now vectors for the next insurgency inside Iran. This movement is neither organic nor local. It is externally orchestrated, with the CIA as the principal architect. History provides the blueprint: under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kurdish uprisings were manipulated, never supported out of sympathy. They were instruments of leverage against Iraq, a way to weaken a rival while projecting influence beyond Iran’s borders. Colonel Isa Pejman, Iranian military intelligence officer who played a role in Kurdish affairs, recalled proposing support for a military insurgency in Iraq, only for the Shah to respond coldly: “[Mustafa] Barzani killed my Army soldiers… please forget it. The zeitgeist and regional context have been completely transformed.” The Kurds were pawns, but pawns with strategic weight. Pejman later noted: “When the Shah wrote on the back of the letter ‘Accepted’ to General Pakravan, I felt I was the true leader of the Kurdish movement.” The seeds planted then are now being activated under new, technologically empowered auspices.

Iran’s geographic vulnerabilities make this possible. The Shah understood the trap: a vast territory with porous borders, squeezed by Soviet pressure from the north and radical Arab states from the west. “We are in a really terrible situation since Moscow’s twin pincers coming down through Kabul and Baghdad surround us,” he warned Asadollah Alam. From Soviet support for the Mahabad Republic to Barzani’s dream of a unified Kurdistan, Tehran knew an autonomous Kurdish bloc could destabilize both Iraq and Iran. “Since the formation of the Soviet-backed Mahabad Republic, the Shah had been considerably worried about the Kurdish threat,” a US assessment concluded.

Today, the Kurds’ significance is operational, not symbolic. The CIA’s recent rescue of a downed F-15 airman using Ghost Murmur, a quantum magnetometry system, demonstrated the reach of technology in intelligence operations. The airman survived two days on Iranian soil before extraction. This was not a simple rescue; it was proof that highly mobile, technologically augmented operations can penetrate Iranian territory with surgical precision. The same logic applies to insurgency preparation: when individuals can be tracked through electromagnetic signatures, AI-enhanced surveillance, and drones, proxy forces can be armed, guided, and coordinated with unprecedented efficiency. The Kurds are no longer pawns—they are a living network capable of fracturing Iranian cohesion while providing deniability to foreign powers.

Iran’s engagement with Iraqi Kurds was always containment, not empowerment. The Shah’s goal was never Kurdish independence. “We do not approve an independent [Iraqi] Kurdistan,” he stated explicitly. Yet their utility as instruments of regional strategy was undeniable. The CIA’s revival of these networks continues a long-standing pattern: insurgent groups integrated into the wider calculus of international power. Israel, Iran, and the Kurds formed a triangular strategic relationship that terrified Baghdad. “For Baghdad, an Iranian-Israeli-Kurdish triangular alliance was an existential threat,” contemporary reports noted. This is the template for modern manipulation: a networked insurgency, externally supported, capable of destabilizing regimes from within while giving foreign powers plausible deniability.

Iran today faces fragility. Years of sanctions, repression, and targeted strikes have weakened educational and scientific hubs; Sharif University in Tehran, one of the country’s leading scientific centres, was bombed. Leaders, scholars, and innovators have been eliminated. Military readiness is compromised. Generations-long setbacks leave Iran exposed. Against this backdrop, a Kurdish insurgency armed with drones, AI-supported surveillance, and precision munitions could do more than disrupt—it could fracture the state internally. The current ten-day ceasefire is a mirage; the next wave of revolt is already being orchestrated.

CIA involvement is deliberate. Operations are coordinated with allied intelligence agencies, leveraging Kurdish grievances, mobility, and ethnolinguistic networks. The Kurds’ spread across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria provides operational depth—allowing insurgents to strike, vanish, and regroup with impunity. Barzani understood leverage decades ago: “We could be useful to the United States… Look at our strategic location on the flank of any possible Soviet advance into the Middle East.” Today, the calculation is inverted: Kurds are no longer instruments against Baghdad; they are potential disruptors inside Tehran itself.

Technology is central. Ghost Murmur’s ability to detect a single heartbeat remotely exemplifies how intelligence can underpin insurgent networks. Drones, satellite communications, AI predictive modeling, and battlefield sensors create an infrastructure that can transform a dispersed Kurdish insurgency into a high-precision operation. Iran can no longer rely on fortifications or loyalty alone; the external environment has been recalibrated by technology.

History provides the roadmap. The Shah’s betrayal of Barzani after the 1975 Algiers Agreement demonstrated that external actors can manipulate both Iranian ambitions and Kurdish loyalties. “The Shah sold out the Kurds,” Yitzhak Rabin told Kissinger. “We could not station our troops there and keep fighting forever,” the Shah explained to Alam. The Kurds are a pivot, not a cause. Networks once acting under Tehran’s influence are now being repurposed against it.

The insurgency exploits societal fissures. Kurdish discontent in Iran, suppressed for decades, provides fertile ground. Historical betrayal fuels modern narratives: “Barzani claimed that ‘Isa Pejman sold us out to the Shah and the Shah sold us out to the US.’” Intelligence agencies weaponize these grievances, pairing them with training, technological augmentation, and covert support.

Geopolitically, the stakes are immense. The Shah’s defensive-offensive doctrine projected Iranian influence outward to neutralize threats. Today, the logic is inverted: the same networks used to contain Iraq are being readied to contain Iran. A technologically augmented Kurdish insurgency, covertly backed, could achieve in months what decades of sanctions, diplomacy, or repression have failed to accomplish.

The operation will be asymmetric, high-tech, and dispersed. UAVs, quantum-enhanced surveillance, encrypted communications, and AI-directed logistics will dominate. Conventional Iranian forces are vulnerable to this type of warfare. As Pejman reflected decades ago, “Our Army was fighting there, rather than the Kurds who were harshly defeated… How could we keep such a place?” Today, the challenge is magnified by intelligence superiority on the insurgents’ side.

This is not a temporary flare-up. The CIA and its allies are constructing a generational network of influence. Experience from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon proves these networks endure once operationalised. The Shah recognized this: “Iran’s non-state foreign policy under the Shah’s reign left a lasting legacy for the post-Revolution era.” Today, those instruments are being remade as vectors of foreign influence inside Iran.

The future is stark. Iran faces not simply external threats, but a carefully engineered insurgency exploiting historical grievances, technological superiority, and precise intelligence. The Kurds are central. History, technology, and geopolitical calculation converge to create a transformative threat. Tehran’s miscalculations, betrayals, and suppressed grievances now form the lattice for this insurgency. The Kurds are positioned not just as an ethnic minority, but as a vector of international strategy—Tehran may be powerless to stop it.

Iran’s containment strategies have been weaponized, fused with technology, and inverted against it. The ghosts of Barzani’s Peshmerga, the shadows of Algiers, and the Shah’s strategic vision now converge with Ghost Murmur, drones, and AI. Tehran faces a paradox: the instruments it once controlled are now calibrated to undermine its authority. The next Kurdish revolt will not only fight in the mountains but in the electromagnetic shadows where intelligence operates, consequences are lethal, and visibility is scarce.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa