Fresh on the heels of irrefutable evidence that the late British PM Margaret Thatcher colluded in the 1984 massacre of thousands of Sikhs at the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab (known colloquially as “Operation Bluestar”) by sending SAS advisors to draft a plan of invasion for Indian PM Indira Gandhi comes the revelation that Thatcher, at the request of the Indian High Commission in London, consulted with Hindu cult-leader Chandraswami in 1975, who prophesied to the newly-elected leader of the Conservative Party that she would become Prime Minister.
While serving as India’s Deputy High Commissioner in London, K. Natwar Singh reports in The Hindu, he assisted Chandraswami in securing two meetings with Thatcher. K. N. Singh, a close associate of Indira Gandhi (he was posted to PM Gandhi’s office in 1966 and personally accompanied her to New York City during her State visit to the U.S. in 1982), communicated Chandraswami’s initial request for a meeting to Thatcher. She showed no hesitation in agreeing, as K. N. Singh writes: “Her response was, ‘If you think I should meet him, I shall’ …. She agreed to see him in her House of Commons office early the next week.”
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In this first meeting, the swami sought to demonstrate his supposed clairvoyant powers. He demanded Thatcher supply a piece of paper, which she did, and then tore it into five strips, ordering her to write a question on each. With K. N. Singh acting as his translator, since he spoke no English at the time, Chandraswami then, one-by-one, told Thatcher what questions she had written. Singh writes: “I watched Mrs Thatcher. The irritation gave way to curiosity. Next question. Again bull’s eye. Curiosity replaced by interest. By the fourth question the future iron lady’s demeanour changed. She began to look at Chandraswamy not as a fraud, but as a holy man indeed.”
The meeting concluded, Singh writes, when “Chandraswamy regally announced that the sun had set.” He would take no more questions. Thatcher, however, “enquired if she could meet him again.” The swami told her he would be available to meet the following Tuesday at the deputy high commissioner’s house. Then, says, Singh: “Mr. Holy Man produced a talisman tied to a not so tidy piece of string. He then pronounced that Mrs Thatcher should tie it on her left arm when she came to my house on Tuesday.” He also instructed Thatcher to wear a red dress for the occasion.
Promptly at 2:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, Thatcher appeared at Singh’s house in Hampstead wearing, he writes, “a stunning red dress. The talisman too was in its proper place.” In her meeting, she pressed Chandraswami on the question of whether should would become Prime Minister. The swami’s answer was an unreserved: “Yes.” Singh writes:
“He prophesied that she would be Prime Minister for nine, eleven or thirteen years. Mrs Thatcher, no doubt believed that she would be Prime Minister one day. Nine, eleven, thirteen years was a bit much. Mrs Thatcher put one final question. When would she become a Prime Minister? Chandraswamy announced — in three or four years. He was proved right. She was PM for eleven years.” [1]
Commenting on the bizarre relationship, Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI) Founding Director Bhajan Singh had more questions than answers, saying: “Did Thatcher participate in Operation Bluestar as repayment to India in the belief their swami made her Prime Minister? The immediacy with which the Iron Lady was starstruck by a spiritual swindler raises grave concerns about the sanity of those to whom we so swiftly grant power over our lives. History proves the standard operation of India’s Central Government is to capitalize on the Hindu religion to mesmerize, beguile, and manipulate people into supporting its atrocities, but there has not yet been any comprehensive investigation into the extent to which these occult measures may still be used today to con world leaders into assisting the Indian State in shedding innocent blood. Will the world now recognize India’s claim to wear a finely-woven garb of democracy as a sham and instead speak the truth that the Emperor has no clothes?”
Chandraswami, a fixture of the Indian State since the 1970s, is known as a “spiritual advisor” not only to Thatcher, but to Indian PMs Indira Gandhi (1966-1977 & 1980-1984), Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989), Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991), and Narasimha Rao (1991-1996), among others. The swami’s ashram, Vishwa Dharmayatan Sanathan, was built on land donated for the purpose by Indira Gandhi, while in her book, Profiles of Indian Prime Ministers, political commentator Manisha reported: “Prime Minister’s [Rao] last appointment of the day was usually with the ‘godman’, and there were reports that Chandraswami often took industrialists and politicians to the PM’s residence in the morning, before Narasimha Rao began his day.” [2]
The swami’s influence over India’s policy is unparalleled and documented by not only such unimpeachable sources as N. K. Singh, but also by former joint director of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) Maloy Krishna Dhar. A close associate of Indira Gandhi, Dhar reports the Indian PM “often allowed me to approach her informally.” [3] Throughout his autobiography, Open Secrets, the retired intelligence officer recounts multiple encounters with Chandraswami, stating: “I must do a little plain speaking about the roles Chandraswami and Mamaji [the swami’s lifelong associate, Kailash Nath Aggarwal] played in running the affairs of the state.”
Dhar’s earliest documented exposure to the swami was in a meeting with Aggarwal, who told him: “[Chandraswami] can perform miracles. Arrange his meeting with Indira.” Dhar says he refused, but notes that the devious duo subsequently “succeeded in cultivating certain aides of Rajiv Gandhi and had played key roles in certain manipulative operations.” [4] The swami’s sway persisted as regimes rose and fell. When Chandra Shekhar became Indian PM in 1990, Dhar writes: “The Swami acted as an intermediary in almost all the deals that Chandrashekhar could manage to conclude during the chance of a lifetime offered by [then INC-president] Rajiv Gandhi.” [5] Because of Dhar’s intimate connections to the Prime Minister’s office, he was a prime target for the swami and his henchman, Aggarwal, who attempted to bribe him to facilitate an import contract.
Recounting the incident, Dhar writes: “I met Mamaji [Aggarwal] for the second and last time in the office of the minister of state for home affairs…. The Prime Minister, he said, was interested in two particular import deals. But he hesitated to clinch the issue, as he was aware of Rajiv Gandhi’s live interest in the matter. Would I be good enough to speak to an aide of Rajiv Gandhi and request him to mediate an honourable solution between the former and the present Prime Ministers? My visitor was ready to oblige me with a reward of rupees five million for the services rendered.” When Dhar hesitated, Aggarwal upped the offer to seven million rupees. Dhar, however, says, he “confirmed from a very delicate source that indeed there were nascent and sprouting tensions between Chandrashekhar and Rajiv Gandhi over some undefined financial deals. I dropped the hot potato.” [6]
After Narasimha Rao replaced Chandra Shekhar in June 1991, Chandraswami’s influence increased exponentially. Dhar reports of Rao: “He was ably aided by god man Chandraswami and NK Sharma, another astrologer-cum-soothsayer, who was dubbed as Rao’s raj jyotishi(court astrologer). In fact, Sharma was another troubleshooter like Chandraswami.” [7] In other indirect dealings with the swami, Dhar notes how a Punjabi politician seeking an Indian Mission slot approached him with a “strong recommendation from Chandraswami” and a 200,000 rupee bribe. Dhar turned him down, but the same man, he writes, “later bagged the ambassadorial assignment to an African country after liberally contributing to the funds of the Prime Minister…. The Indian PM was persuaded by the Swami and the ambassador to make an important diplomatic visit to a key African country called Burkina Faso.” [8]
One current member of India’s parliament who is known to have colluded with Chandraswami is Subodh Kant Sahay, a member of PM Chandra Shekhar’s cabinet about whom Dhar writes:
“Minister Subodh Kant was a regular visitor to the Safdarjung Enclave abode of Chandraswami. Some of his deals relating to purchases made for the police and paramilitary forces in Assam and Punjab were routed through Chandraswami. A particular jeep deal for Assam was clinched after the minister and the targeted supplier had an exclusive meeting at the abode of the Swami.” [9]
When MP Kant sought election as the representative from Ludhiana, Punjab, Dhar reports: “Chandraswami pitched in with monetary support from Mumbai’s film lobby and suppliers to the Union Home Ministry.” Having weathered decades of accusations of involvement in scandals ranging from graft to manipulation of politicians, Chandraswami remains arguably the most politically powerful living religious figure.
“We insist the British government pass a resolution condemning PM Margaret Thatcher’s involvement with Operation Bluestar,” said Bhajan Singh. “However, we also demand British PM Cameron’s government embrace full transparency by immediately releasing all documents relating to its military role in the attack and, additionally, launch a full investigation into the involvement of Chandraswami in Thatcher’s regime. The United States has taken the lead in exposing the pervasive influence of supremacist Hinduism over India’s state apparatus and we suggest the United Kingdom take note.”
Singh pointed to reports by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent body of the U.S. State Department, which identify India’s genocide of Sikhs in 1984 as the genesis of its de facto policy of impunity for anti-minority massacres. In its 2009 report, USCIRF stated:
“The failure to provide justice to religious minorities targeted in violent riots in India is not a new development, and has helped foster a climate of impunity. In 1984, anti-Sikh riots erupted in Delhi following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard. Over 4 days, nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed, allegedly with the support of Congress Party officials. Few perpetrators were ever held accountable, and only years after the fact. In April 2009, the Congress Party dropped Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from its roster of general election candidates over their suspected role in the 1984 riots. In the late 1990s, there was a marked increase in violent attacks among members of religious communities, particularly Muslims and Christians, throughout India, including incidents of killings, torture, rape, and destruction of property. Perpetrators were rarely held responsible.” [10]
Continuing to report a “climate of impunity” generated by the Indian State’s pro-Hindu bias and failure to provide justice for the 1984 genocide, USCIRF again reported in 2011:
“Justice for the victims of large-scale communal violence that took place in Orissa in 2007-2008, in Gujarat in 2002, and against Sikhs in 1984 remains slow and often ineffective. In some regions of India, law enforcement and judicial officials have proven unwilling or unable to seek redress consistently for victims of religiously-motivated violence or to challenge cultures of impunity in areas with a history of communal tensions, which in some cases has fostered a climate of impunity. In the reporting period, small-scale attacks on and harassment of Christians and Muslims and their places of worship continued. Further, several states have adopted ‘Freedom of Religion Act(s),’ commonly referred to as ‘anti-conversion laws,’ that purportedly prohibit ‘forced,’ ‘induced,’ or ‘fraudulent’ religious conversions away from Hinduism, but not towards it.” [11]
Pieter Singh, an advisor to US-based human rights group OFMI, remarked, “This is an issue of the present which has never been more urgent than in this 30th year since India’s most glaring emulation of its former occupier’s brutal colonial methods. The victims of the 1984 invasion of Harmandir Sahib are not satisfied, the perpetrators have more power rather than less, and India’s refusal to deal justice has directly resulted in an expansion of oppression against all minorities in India. Now revelations of Chandraswami’s influence over both the UK and Indian governments requires a total reevaluation of the relationship between India’s minorities and their rulers.”
Questions persist as the British government remains short on answers. Some of those questions, which Bhajan Singh continues to ask, include: “What caused Deputy High Commissioner K. N. Singh to act as a go-between for a spiritual swindler and one of the most powerful political leaders in the world? Is it common for India’s diplomats to entertain and run errands for Hindu cult leaders when they are typically supposed to be facilitating communications between secular states? Was Chandraswami a subversive agent acting on orders from the Indian State to conduct an intelligence operation on British soil? How extensive is the influence of Hindu swamis over British officials today? For instance, has PM David Cameron consulted with any swamis or other occultists?”
One conclusion is indisputable, which is that the British people deserve answers. The massacre at Amritsar is no longer a Sikh concern alone, but has become a British issue.
by Organization For Minorities of India (OFMI)
Citations:
1. Singh, K. Natwar. “Thatcher, Chandraswami and I.” The Hindu. April 9, 2013.
2. Manisha. Profiles of Indian Prime Ministers (Mittal Publications, 2004), p. 352.
3. Dhar, Maloy Krishna. Open Secrets: India’s Intelligence Unveiled (Manas Publications, 2005), p. 399.
4. Dhar, p. 261.
5. Ibid, p. 405.
6. Ibid, pp. 405-406.
7. Ibid, p. 444.
8. Ibid, p. 404.
9. Ibid, p. 406.
10. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Annual Report 2009: India Chapter, pp. 2-3.
11. USCIRF. Annual Report 2011: India Chapter, p. 243.