Yuri Andropov

Yuri Andropov headed the Soviet KGB from 1967 until 1982 and was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death on 9 February 1984. He appears in the Punjab record through an account drawn from the notes of the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, a source whose authenticity is disputed.

What the account says

• 1981. According to Christopher Andrew, who worked on Mitrokhin's notes, the KGB launched Operation Kontakt, based on a forged document that purported to detail the weapons and money the ISI was giving Sikhs seeking an independent country.
• November 1982. The same account, as summarised on Wikipedia, says Andropov approved a proposal to fabricate Pakistani intelligence documents about ISI plans to stir up religious unrest in Punjab and promote Khalistan, an independent Sikh state. It adds that Indira Gandhi's decision to send troops into Punjab rested partly on taking seriously the information the Soviets gave her about secret CIA support for the Sikhs.

Why it is disputed

• Mitrokhin's papers are notes he is said to have copied by hand, not original documents. B. Raman, writing in Outlook in September 2005, recalls that the British Home Secretary Jack Straw told the Commons in 1999 that the material was of no direct evidential value, though of huge value for intelligence purposes.
• When extracts of the second volume appeared in 2005, Congress called the report baseless, and its spokesman Abhishek Singhvi refused to comment on it.
• Wikipedia notes that many scholars remain sceptical of the context and authenticity of the notes.

His wider record. Andropov left the KGB in 1982 after about 15 years. As General Secretary he tried to revive the Soviet economy and attacked corruption and alcoholism, and relations with the United States under Reagan worsened sharply after the shooting down of a Korean airliner in September 1983.

In the Punjab story he is the Soviet leader named in an account of forged papers that fed Indian suspicion of a CIA and ISI hand in Punjab. Whether those forgeries shaped decisions in Delhi is argued by Andrew and disputed by others.