The Indian Spy,Mihir Bose, Aleph Book Company;Rs.599,Pages 350 This is a remarkable tale of a remarkable man who went by several names, was trained in espionage by the brother of the celebrated writer Ian Fleming and who undertook, among other things, the safekeeping and travels of Subhas Chandra Bose as a fugitive. The life of Bhagat Ram Talwar, alias Silver was formed and sculpted by extraordinary macro-political events that the second Great War and the new balance of power accompanying the rise of the Axis powers and of the Soviet Union came to embody. The Indian Spy: The True Story of the Most Remarkable Secret Agent of World War II is as much the wondrous tale of an unlikely master spy as it is of the turbulent events of the 1940s associated with wartime diplomacy, socialist and nationalist aspirations that made possible a convoluted network of espionage, gun running and information gathering. It is to the authors credit that he has mined a rich volume of archival material to tell a compelling story that isnt simply gripping, but presents aspects of the history of the war that have remained obscure. Its only drawback is that it is overwritten and dense, a quality that occasionally makes it impossible for the reader to quite tether Silver the spy in his/her impressions. It would be unfair to give away the results of Silvers espionage — how he double and triple crossed everyone who came his way, or how he was able to extract substantial sums of money from the Germans whose espionage seems to have been strangely incompetent and inefficient. What this review will do therefore is to highlight the extraordinary milieu that unfolded in the period when a phenomenon like Silver became possible, to reflect on the various points that connected Afghanistan with India and how wartime diplomacy of the European powers intersected with the aspirations of Indian socialist revolutionary groups, thus setting the stage for figures like Silver to offer a range of services. The exploits of Bhagat Ram Talwar, spy extraordinaire, are set in the backdrop of the 1940s, when European powers Italy, Germany, England and Russia competed to extract strategic information and relied on a network of spies and transport contractors in Afghanistan. Silver (aka Talwar) and Rahmat Khan arrived on the scene escorting Bose, the fugitive revolutionary whom he accompanied on a perilous march across Afghanistan wanting to make his way to Berlin. This book charts the early life of Talwar, his family background, the story of his siblings and his extraordinary skills and confidence that enabled him to excel in what was an unconventional career choice. What stands out in the early sections of the book is the story of Hindu Pathan landlords, the influence and appeal of organisations such as the Kirti party, the adroitness of Talwar in working as small-time informer and then as a confident spy, and his first major operation of escorting Bose after the latters clandestine exit from Calcutta. Thereafter, he became…
