Award winning writer and journalist Mihir Bose has just penned a book about the only quintuple spy in the Second World War, an Indian man with the code name of Silver. The title of the book is Silver: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis – the most remarkable agent of the Second World War.
Silver was the code name given by Peter Fleming, brother of Ian, creator of James Bond, who during the war ran D (Deception) Division in Delhi. Silver’s real name was Bhagat Ram Talwar, a Hindu Pathan, who was born and grew up in the then North West Frontier Province of British India. It is now part of Pakistan.
Background
Mihir’s own background is stellar. Mihir Bose writes and broadcasts on social and historical issues as well as sport for a range of outlets including the BBC, the Financial Times and History Today.
He has written more than 30 books. His books about history and biography include the only narrative history of Bollywood, biographies of Michael Grade and the Indian revolutionary Subhas Bose (no relation), a history of the Muslim community of Memons and a study of the Aga Khans.
Other recent books include Game Changer: How the English Premier League Came to Dominate the World and The Spirit of the Game: How Sport Made the Modern World. Bose has also contributed to various books including British Greats and Histories of Nations, and he co-authored the story of William Hill.
Mihir Bose was the BBC’s first Sports Editor. There, his job involved investigating and analysing sports stories. His scoops included revealing the cost of the Olympics and the Premier League plans for the 39th game. He covered all BBC outlets including the flagship Ten O’Clock News, the Today programme, Five Live and the website. Before joining the BBC, he was the chief sports news correspondent for the Daily Telegraph for 12 years where he created an innovative weekly column, Inside Sport.
He has won several awards: business columnist of the year, sports news reporter of the year, sports story of the year and Silver Jubilee Literary award for his History of Indian Cricket.
Genesis of Silver
Mihir lives in west London, but spoke to us flying from Yangon to Kolkata where he was visiting over New Year. We wanted to know what led him to write the story of Silver.
“I had first come across his extraordinary story some years ago, and even corresponded with him, but it is only now that, after trawling through archives in the UK and various other countries that the full truth can be told. He was spying for the Germans, Italians, Japanese, the Soviets and the British. In reality he worked for the Allies and fooled the Axis so successfully that the Germans gave him the Iron Cross, Germany’s highest decoration.
Silver is my 30th book. I first knew about Silver when I did my biography of Subhas Bose called The Lost Hero. I had doubts whether his story that he did not double cross Bose was true. It did not ring true.”
How did Mihir go about proving his theory that Subhas Bose was double crossed?
“Based on research in the previously classified files of the British government and other archives including Russia, in my book I prove he double crossed Bose. He fooled the Nazis and got £2.5 million from Germany. Some of the money he gave to the Russians and the India communists. He kept some for himself. A communist, he really worked for the Russians and the British. But after Indian independence he could not admit the truth. I corresponded with him and he did not admit the truth.
I have now told the full story. What it means is that we have to revise our history of what happened in India in the Second World War. The Communist party of India who knew and encouraged Talwar’s spying has not admitted the truth of what they did during the war, working for the British and against Indian nationalists fighting for independence. We must also acknowledge that Talwar was one of the greatest spies of the Second World War. He operated in an area between India and Afghanistan during WWI about which little has been written. He was a truly remarkable spy fit to rank with the best on the world.”
Silver: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis is published by Fonthill.
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I have now told the full story. What it means is that we have to revise our history of what happened in India in the Second World War
