The Thar Incident - 11

Continued from Part 10.

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A review was not something that Matthew had really wanted at this point, but apparently the matter had gone all the way up to the Old Man himself. Not that Matthew expected it wouldn't but a review was something he really did not want, but this meant that Matthew had the Old Man's attention, that brought with it pressure on him to perform but also pressure on the Indians.

The Professor seated next to the Old Man was the defacto head of the Special Group as it was called. Not that it needed a name, but someone had coined this name years ago for something else and it had stuck. Next to the Professor was the one they called the Invisble Man, a legend in his own time, a high ranking bureaucrat widely reputed to be the reigning Archduke of the American Intelligence underworld.

Matthew concluded his report and simply said, "It wasn't unexpected, but there are many questions as to where they will proceed from here."

The Old Man replied, "Any ideas on what exactly they might want"

The Invisible Man answered, "The same thing the others wanted."

Matthew replied "They do not know about the others."

The Professor had watched the proceedings with an air of detachement, but then he leaned forward in his chair and adjusted his weight as he turned towards the Old Man, and then he began to speak,

"The Indians are traumatized by the colonial period. Much the same way as Jews are by the Holocaust. They view each contact with suspicion and post-colonial thinking dictates that they respond to the contact with extreme circumspection. They will continue to say nothing until they are on a surer footing of where we stand."

The Invisible Man stretched back a little in his chair and yawned, "And then they will want the same thing that everyone else wanted."

The Professor eyed the Invisible Man quietly, "Perhaps, and perhaps not.."

Matthew now listened keenly, the Old Man asked the same question that had been running in his mind, "How will they be different?"

The Professor continued, "Our studies suggest that the Indians take a fundamentally different view of the universe. Their entire emphasis is on gaining a processed form of information, containing raw data and analysis, a potent all encompassing knowledge laced with predictive power. Their civilization and history predisposes them towards such acquisition. "

"How is that different from us?" replied the Old Man.

The Professor replied, "On the face of it, it isn't but we are prone to material distractions, they are not and seek knowledge in its abstract form. "

The Invisible Man cut in,"Not all of them! we have studied a large number of their expats in our lands, they do not espouse any such desire and settle quietly for material gratification. "

The Professor retorted, "That analysis is skewed, when the west first re-connected with India prior to colonization, the West was driven by a desire to Christianize India, very quickly however the early contactees realized that the Indians carried with them a highly sophisticated form of civilizational power. The missionaries were more likely to be converted to the Indian way of thinking than the other way around. Despite several strategies, attempts at psychologically dominating the Indian elite through a visible religious framework failed, and more subtle means had to be used. However these too have largely failed."

The Invisible Man disagreed,"Failed? none of our sampling shows that trend, acceptance of western lifestyles and culture in India has been constantly rising. American owned newspapers call the shots in the English language media, and people crave to learn English to seek employment in Westernized trade and economies. "

The Professor calmly replied, "I think you are missing the point, the Indians have responded to the subtle culture war in a very sophisticated fashion. They threw back at us what we threw at them. We forced English on them, now they filled our enterprises with Indian employees, our local populations now have to compete with these Indians for jobs. We bestowed industrialization on them, they returned the favor by demanding energy to run these factories. We gave them ..."

The Invisible Man now recoiled, "That's ridiculous, our needs have changed we have been able to keep their system subservient to our needs using ..."

The Professor now cut in, "Have we really? We are no closer today to shaking their age old beliefs than we were a hundred years ago"

The Old Man stepped in, "That's enough, we are losing focus!"

He softened his tone, "I still don't see how they are fundamentally different from us"

The Professor tried again, "They will continue to ask questions long after we have stopped, we cannot guarentee that we have answers, or that we will like their questions."

The Invisible Man replied, " And what will they do if we say we don't have answers?"

The Professor replied, " I don't know."

The Old Man persisted, "This is different from the others how?"

The Professor tried once more, "The others could be bought off by material wealth. In most cases they were brought in at a time when their economies were crumbling and we could use economic leverage as a way of keeping them satisfied."

The Invisible Man replied, "We have leverage now too with Indians."

The Professor responded,"Yes, but we also have to deal with a wider picture of global trade."

The Old Man was getting a little frustrated now, "So do we treat them as hostile?"

The Professor replied, "No, that may precipate unpleasantries, we proceed with caution, friends not allies, is how we must think of them."

The Old Man was worried, "That might be too difficult to implement in practice."

The Invisible Man replied, "How about giving them the benifit of malice instead?"

The Professor was adamant, "Doubt offers greater flexibility than malice."

The three looked at Matthew and stared as if inviting him to comment, Matthew was sharp enough to know this was not the time to say anything, but stupid enough to be unable to keep his mouth shut.

Matthew spoke "What if we simply reciprocate ambiguity with ambiguity?"

The Professor replied, "It could simply lead to confusion."

The Old Man seemed to consider the idea, "It might force them to be more expressive."

The Invisible Man replied, "Look lets not make it too complicated, lets keep it simple", turning towards the Old Man," What do we need to know? we need to know what they are doing at all times before they do it, that is a rule they cannot break. And any contact they have with... that should be discussed with us before and after. Tell them we are worried that they might start something no one will know how to stop."

The Old Man apparently was won over, "That sounds clear enough to me."

The Professor looked doubtful but nodded, the committee had missed something in his line of thought but there was little to be done about it.

Matthew was convinced he had his marching orders. He rose along with them and soon after some minor pleasantries, they all left.

As Matthew drove on Independence Avenue, the Washington Monument loomed to his right, suddenly in his rear view mirror he spotted the familiar outline of a black government issue security car. The cars lights flashed repeatedly as if to suggest that the driver wanted him to move out of the way but there was plenty of room so why didn't he just overtake him. Matthew looked at the vehicle unsure. At the light for Jefferson Drive, the vehicle pulled alongside, and in the back window the Professor's face was visible, the Professor gestured him to pull over into the Monument Park. It was almost ten minutes before the men were able to get out of their cars and walk together in the park.

There was almost complete silence for the first few minutes of the walk, the Professor seemed to be searching for the right words, he broke his silence abruptly,

"The Indians are a tricky bunch to handle. They think a lot more. You don't give them a straight answer, they think you are hiding something. "

The Professor looked at Matthew and then back across the Monument.

"You are young, so they won't have the same sense of history they have with others we could send instead. I went there a long time ago, their memories are substantial. In my first meeting I said a few things, two days later we met them again and one of their officers repeated my words verbatim, this was before they had tape recorders and no one took notes, it was all from memory. "

Matthew was unsure what to say, but the Professor was in his own world, "be very careful with words"

Matthew was a little perplexed, "Why is this so important, they are a third world country, it can't be that hard to pry the thing lose from their hands..." he said.

The Professor stared at him," That is exactly the kind of thinking that will get you into trouble, get these notions of first world and third world out of your mind. They are simply words our own psyops people have invented. If the words seduce you, the Indians will read you like a book."

Matthew replied "Okay so I was inappropriate, but I still don't understand what makes them so hard to handle. We have the advantage of being the first ones on top of the hill so why do we worry that they are doing something we did a long time ago".

The Professor replied, "Misconceptions have a way of feeding on themselves, so lets clear some up here, for starters, they have been around for a long time, a very long time. There is a story that has been doing rounds repeatedly for centuries now, the story goes that they were the first ones to make contact. Every time around anyone from outside tried to confirm that story, they never gave a straight answer."

Matthew was stunned," What proof .... there is nothing in their current state of affairs to suggest.. we have all this technological run off where is their..."

The Professor replied, "Lets say for a moment that the clock has been set back. You and I have just made contact and instead of choosing to exploit things, we chose to keep all access to it closed, we took the knowledge we had and chose not to use it to change our world. Imagine what would happen if we were comfortable with our surroundings instead of constantly trying to change them?"

Matthew was completely confused "Refused to change our world? you mean reject even the benificial aspects of a contact... why would you do that? "

The Professor replied, "Forget the why ! just ask yourself can it be done?"

Matthew replied, " I suppose it can, but that would assume a time when everything was completely still. A time where the political and social structures felt no need to change or evolve, a state of complete stasis. "

The Professor suggestively replied, "Like when they were on top of the world?"

Matthew responded, " But that is not where they are now.... do they even know about this past episode? I mean if they kept it so secret."

The Professor was more conciliatory, "There is no way to know. The British took away a lot of records in the hope that someday they might be analyzed to gain some insight into the rumors, but we do not know if the Indians had other more substantive records. In general they seem to emphasize oral transmission of information, there is no way to be certain.."

Matthew was now more confused, and so being combative was easy," Does anyone know, does the committee know about this?"

The Professor replied, " No. no one knows for sure. The Old Man knows as much as I do, the others well, what they don't know won't... "

Now Matthew suddenly realized he himself had become special, very special. There was no declining the fact that knowledge was power.

The Professor went back to his more avuncular tone, "Look just be careful and don't get attached to too much of what you think you know. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open, just assume that they will watch you closely form now on. "

Matthew was a little taken aback, " you mean the Indians have a committee too?"

The Professor turned on his heel and walked into the distance, "is that really so surprising? best of luck..."

The shadow of the monument had just shifted past the spot they had been standing and Matthew was now standing in the warm sunlight watching as the Professor walked away into the distance.

A world away at a small reading desk in the Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, a young major in the ISI's India division peered up from the computer terminal he was sitting on. He tagged a newspaper article that he was staring at emailed it to his supervisor a Lt. Colonel.

A few hours later, the Lt. Col asked him to come to his office. The Lt. Col was wolfing down a beef samosa, "So what is so important about this?" he asked between munches of his samosa.

The Major worded his reply carefully, "The item says the Indians are building a biosphere."

"And" the Lt. Col. replied,

The Major responded quietly," A biosphere is a completely enclosed living space that is independently capable of growing food, running water, air etc... it does not need to communicate with the outside world."

"So?" the Lt. Col. interjected, not quite following him,

The Major replied, "Sir, you take a biosphere and put it underground, with a nuclear reactor as a power source and you get a long term survival bunker that can last atleast as long as the nuclear reactor can keep power running."

Now the Lt. Col. looked unconvinced " Don't they need sunlight to grow plants?"

The Major replied, "No sir, sunlight can be repoduced with special lighting sources."

The Lt. Col. was intrigued, "Double check everything."

The Major saluted and said "Yes Sir.." as he walked out he muttered to himself, "double check what! the madarchod sees it all in front of him, doesn't want to accept it... kya chootiya hain!"