R&AW! India’s foreign Intelligence Agency; Foundation Day of RA&W Today

Year: August 1999

Place: Prime minister's official residence, Delhi.

The names of 18 R&AW officers were read aloud, along with details of their gallant performances on the Kargil battlefield. For the first time in the history of the R&AW, special medals were presented to these warriors in shadows. Prime Minister (PM) A B Vajpayee shook hands with top R&AW officers and expressed his deep gratitude for the supreme sacrifice made by the unsung heroes. No records of this meeting were kept. No Press note issued, no photographs published on the PM’s website. After the ceremony, officers quietly retreated to their invisible world, taking their secrets to bed.

The first successful strike against Pakistan during 1999 Kargil war was mounted by 80 battle-trained covert action operatives of R&AW. Some fell to enemy's guns. Their names did not figure on the lists of martyrs.

RA&W is India’s premier external intelligence agency, which reports directly to the PM. After 1962 war, it was clear that Indian intelligence had completely failed to predict the oncoming Chinese attack. In August 1965, another incident caught India by surprise. The IB failed to foresee Pakistan's plans to start armed insurgency in Kashmir. Around 30,000 Pakistan Army soldiers, dressed as Kashmiri locals, infiltrated Indian territory of Kashmir, in operation Gibraltar by Pakistan.

In 1966, Indira Gandhi assumed post of PM. She decided to create an agency for international intelligence which would work under her direct supervision. Ramnath Kao was entrusted with the job to create this new agency.

Kao successfully created this on the line of and detailed studies of CIA (US), MI6 (Russia), Mossad (Israel), Direction Générale de la Sécurité

Extérieure (France), and Japan's Public Security Intelligence Agency. The Research and Analysis Wing, R&AW was born on September 21, 1968.

Headquartered in New Delhi, R&AW's current chief is Samant Goel. It has zonal headquarters in Jammu, Kolkata, Mumbai, Shillong, Chennai, Lucknow, Jodhpur.

The agency's primary function is gathering foreign intelligence, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, advising Indian policymakers, and advancing India's foreign strategic interests.

R&AW has its own service cadre RAS like IAS, IFS, IPS. R&AW recruits undergo four years' rigorous training. Commando and explosives trainings are mandatory. Spies spend their days learning codes, recruiting informers and their nights in assembling and dismantling powerful explosives. Specialisation in at least one strategically important language such as Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Sinhalese, German, Polish and Urdu is necessary.

By the time Morarji Desai became the fourth PM (March 1977), R&AW had a staff of more than 5,000 on its payroll. Desai suspected R&AW of supporting Indira Gandhi during Emergency in India. In meetings with R&AW officers, he blamed agency for engineering atrocities against opposition leaders. The hapless intelligence officers argued that they had no mandate to operate inside the country but Desai was unrelenting. Kao, and second in R&AW K Sankaran Nair had to leave the organisation under pressure from Desai's government. A major clean-up followed. R&AW’s operations abroad and recruitment came to a virtual halt. Covert actions were suspended. Following the return of Indira Gandhi as PM in January 1980, R&AW's mandate was restored. It took almost four years for the agency to recuperate from the deep wounds inflicted by Desai .

Chaudhary Charan Singh, VP Singh and Chandrashekhar were not interested in foreign affairs. By the time Rajiv Gandhi became PM (October 1984), R&AW had begun supplying unhindered and actionable intelligence inputs from across the world. Indrakumar Gujaral, PV Narsimha Rao , Manmohan Singh paid serious attention to R&AW inputs. Since Ajit Doval, NSA, is ex R&AW officer, Narendra Modi has deep faith in this organisation.

Success of spies lies in the mantra of ‘Know maximum and be unknown to everyone.’ So, very little information about R&AW is in public domain.