PN Banerjee aka Nath Babu - The Trainer of Muktibahinis of East Bengal and annexor of Sikkim to the Indian mainland
|| Phanindra Nath Banerjee aka Nath Babu - The Trainer of Muktibahinis of East Bengal and annexor of Sikkim to the Indian mainland||
The legendary Indian Police Service officer serving as Commissioner (Eastern Zone) of the Special Bureau (field formation of the Research and Analysis Wing) in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the period 1968-1974. He took big part in Bangladesh Liberation War, training the Mukti Bahini, he was the main man behind the connection between Indira Gandhi and Sk Mujib. He also took part in Sikkim's annexation to India. Sadly only this picture of him is available.
Born in a Kulin Rarhiya Bramhan family in Kolkata, PN Banerjee had his MA and BL degree from the Presidency College and University Law College, Calcutta, respectively. He got appointed into the IPS through the Emergency Recruitment Scheme on 15 August 1949.Thereafter he served as S.P. of Bankura and in Tripura. He joined central deputation on 4 February 1959 in the Intelligence Bureau.
He had co-ordinated the Indian intelligence efforts before and during the Bangladesh War, including training of the Mukti Bahini, securing intelligence for the future Army operations etc. and was R&AW's primary link with the East Pakistan leaders. He had also co-ordinated the merger of Sikkim into India, along with the then R&AW chief R. N. Kao and R&AW's successive station chiefs in Gangtok, Ajit Singh Syali and Gur Bakhshish Singh Sidhu.
On creation of R&AW in 1968, Banerjee, then Joint Director (East) in the IB, followed Kao into the new organisation, and became posted as Commissioner (equivalent to Joint Secretary) in Calcutta. He became one of Kao's core team. Operations in East Pakistan came under his purview. Banerjee based his operations in Dhaka and went under the alias "Nath Babu"; leaders including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman addressed him as such. In one of his deception schemes, he fed misinformation to the Americans, by using Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, that India was in no position to undertake a military operation in East Pakistan due to insurgency in Northeast India and the Naxalite uprising in West Bengal; and all the while, Indian army got ready to enter East Pakistan, under the guise of tracking the Naxalites. Banerjee was the overall in-charge, from the Indian side, of the provisional Bangladesh government-in-exile, established in Calcutta on 14 April 1971, and coordination of all overt and covert guerrilla operations inside East Pakistan.
Later, in December 1972, when the Chogyal (king) of Sikkim was pressuring India to revise the Indo-Sikkim Treaty, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, called Kao and asked him to do something about Sikkim. Banerjee, under whose purview the Sikkim operations came, prepared a strategy within a fortnight, which was instantly cleared by Mrs. Gandhi and ultimately culminated into merger of Sikkim into India. Banerjee and Ajit Singh Syali (then OSD in Gangtok and later, chief of R&AW) launched an operation codenamed Janamat and Twilight, by which they undermined the monarchy by strengthening the agitations of the Sikkim National Congress, led by Kazi Lhendup Dorjee. By April 8, 1973, the Chogyal was forced to sign a draft treaty with India, which stated that the administration would be
taken over by India.
He left the world on 24 July, 1974 in Dhaka. Many people believe him to be assassinated by the CIA.
PN Banerjee is usually considered as one of the greatest spymasters of India. The time he did the intelligence works is called the Kao-Nair-Banerjee era. Many people believe if he lived long enough he could've been the RAW chief later.
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