Bhagat Ram Talwar
Born1908
North-West Frontier Province, British India
(Present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan)
Died1983
NationalityIndian
Known forActive role in India's freedom struggle
SpouseRam Kaur
RelativesGurdas Mal Talwar (father; died 4 July 1931), Mathura Devi Talwar (mother), Hari Kishan Talwar (elder brother)

Bhagat Ram Talwar (1908—1983), a Hindu Pathan from the Northwest Province of British India, was the only quintuple spy of World War II.[1][2]

He played an active role in India's freedom struggle. Also known by the alias Silver, he was a freedom fighter and a peasant leader from the North-West Frontier Province in present-day Pakistan.[3] While some authors believe his ancestors were of Punjabi descent,[4] it is known that he was a Hindu Khatri,[5] and identified as a Hindu Pathan.[3][6]

He was an agent and prominent figure of the Kirti Kisan Party.[7]

Early life and family

Bhagat Ram Talwar's older brother, Hari Kishan Talwar (born 2 January 1908), was sentenced and hanged on 9 June 1931 by the British for his assassination attempt on the British Governor of Punjab, Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency.[8]

Quintuple Spy

Talwar is famously known for his role as the friend of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.[9] Talwar helped Bose escape from house arrest in January, 1941. They made the dangerous journey from Calcutta to Kabul and Netaji eventually made it to Germany and unknown to Bose then Talwar was a British spy.[10][11] Ian Fleming's brother Peter Fleming was his handler.

Bhagat Ram Talwar, also known as Rahmat Khan spied for Germany, Japan, USSR, Italy and British-ruled India for 5 years. Subhas Chandra Bose nominated him to work with the Italians but months later he started working with Germany, Italy's Axis partner. He took money both from Germans and Italians but when Adolf Hitler introduced Operation Barbarossa to invade the Soviet Union, Talwar or Khan worked for Russians to fool the Nazis. Later on, Talwar worked for the British who gave him the codename Silver.

Books on Bhagat Ram Talwar

Mihir Bose wrote a book on Bhagat titled "The Indian Spy: The True Story of the Most Remarkable Secret Agent of World War II" published by Aleph.[12]

References

  1. ↑ "The Story of Bhagat Ram Talwar, The Indian Spy Who Fooled The Nazis During World War II". The Better India.
  2. ↑ "The quintuple Indian spy". Business Standard.
  3. 1 2 Bose, Mihir (4 April 2017). "Why did Winston Churchill hate the Hindus and prefer the Muslims?". Quartz India. Retrieved 29 April 2020. Bhagat Ram Talwar, later known as Silver, was the only quintuple spy in World War-II, working for the British, Russians, Germans, Italians, and the Japanese. Silver, who identified as a "Hindu Pathan," was born and raised in the northwest region of the subcontinent bordering Afghanistan.
  4. ↑ Pillai, Manu S. (27 May 2017). "Silver: The man who betrayed Subhas Chandra Bose". Mint. Archived from the original on 3 June 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2020. It was, in fact, on the edge of this landscape, near Peshawar, that our morally agnostic protagonist was born in 1908, into a family of Punjabi descent.
  5. ↑ Talwar, Bhagat Ram (1976). The Talwars Of Pathan Land And Subhas Chandras Great Escape. There was also a pucca house belonging to a Hindu Khatri family which owned some land and had taken to farming as a profession. This family of the Talwars was destined to play an unforgettable role not only in the struggle of the local peasantry against the rapacious nawab but also in the larger sphere of national struggle of the Indian people for freedom from foreign bondage.
  6. ↑ Sarna, Navtej (15 September 2017). "An unlikely Prince of Spies". TLS. Retrieved 6 August 2022. Born a Hindu Pathan in the North-West Frontier Province of undivided India, of nondescript appearance, armed with broken English but with a limitless talent for deception, Silver ranks with Garbo (Allies), Sorge (Soviet Union) and Cicero (Nazi Germany) in the pantheon of the great spies of the Second World War.
  7. ↑ Talwar, Bhagat Ram (1976). The Talwars of Pathan Land and Subhash Chandra's Great Escape. People's Publishing House.
  8. ↑ Lal, Chaman (22 March 2014). "The Lost Letter". Retrieved 28 December 2016 – via www.thehindu.com.
  9. ↑ "A footnote in history". Mid-day. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  10. ↑ "The Enigma of Subhas Chandra Bose". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  11. ↑ "This thrilling story is about the spy who helped Subhas Bose escape". India Today.
  12. ↑ "The Spy Who Came From the Cold". OPEN).


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