Communications from Moscow after Shastri's death confidential

Abhishek Shukla

New Delhi, Oct 11 (PTI) Indian External Affairs Ministry
has refused to disclose the 45-year-old correspondence the
Indian Mission in Moscow had with it over the death of former
prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, saying it will
"prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity" of the
country and its international relations.

Three months after saying it does not have any document
with regard to the death of Shastri in Tashkent in 1966 but
the medical report of the attending doctor, the MEA has also
adopted silence over whether any correspondence between India
and erstwhile USSR on the issue exists.

Anuj Dhar, moderator of transparency website
'www.endthesecrecy.com', in his RTI application has sought
correspondence between the MEA and Indian Embassy in Moscow
and between foreign ministries of both the countries after the
death of Shastri, if there was any, and asked to specify if
there was no such correspondence.

Dhar also sought the medical report filed by Dr R N
Chugh, Doctor-in-attendance to the Prime Minister, which is
public domain as claimed by Shastri's grandson and Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Siddarth Nath Singh.

The Ministry did not say whether such correspondence
exists and replied that all the information sought could not
be "disclosed under Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act."

The section exempts disclosure of information which would
prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of the
country, the security, strategic, scientific or economic
interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to
incitement of an offence.

The Ministry did not explain the reasons for seeking
exemption which is mandatory as per the directives of Central
Information Commission.

After the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, Shastri had gone to
Tashkent in erstwhile USSR in January 1966 for a summit
meeting with the then Pakistan President Ayub Khan. He died
under mysterious circumstances, hours after signing the joint
declaration.

"The doctor's report is in public domain. I have a copy.
A doctor concluding it (death) 'may be' considered that he
died due to... some word is used which means heart attack. You
cannot be 'considering' the death of a prime minister, you
need to be 100 per cent sure," Singh told PTI.

Dhar says death of a sitting Prime Minister abroad would
have created a lot of flutter and the Indian Embassy in Moscow
would have been into a lot of activity.

"There would have been a number of telephone calls and
telegrams over the incident but MEA is not ready to disclose
anything about it.

"They had earlier said that only document with the
Embassy of Moscow is Dr R N Chug's report. Now they are saying
they cannot part with these calls and telegram details which
indicates that these records exist but were denied earlier,"
says Dhar.

Singh says disclosure could "shake some political
organisation" if the country comes to know the truth as
Shastri was even "more popular" than Nehru. He plans to take
up the issue again with President Pratibha Patil.

"I do not understand how it will affect relationship with
a country that does not exist. The era of cold war is over so
why should one worry about it. I think the government is
hiding the truth behind Shastri's death as they had done in
many other cases," he said.

RTI applicant Dhar, who is running a campaign for
declassification, feels that the disclosure of doctors' report
would have sparked discussion about its veracity.

"The two-page report cannot fully answer the questions
that have been raised since 1966 when Shastriji's family
demanded a post mortem to rule out the suspicions of
poisoning," he said. PTI ABS
ANU