Failures, defections mar RAW’s functioning

LAHORE: Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif and other top military commanders have again expressed their serious concern over the involvement of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in Pakistan.
The matter was discussed during Tuesday’s Corps Commanders’ conference, which took serious notice of the 46-year old Indian external intelligence agency’s involvement in whipping up terrorism in Pakistan.
This is not the first time when the Pakistani military hierarchy has raised this issue.Just to cite one incident in this context, a prestigious British media outlet “BBC Urdu” had quoted General Raheel Sharif as saying on November 19, 2014 that Pakistan’s operation against terrorists in the tribal region was affected by the Indian troops, which were continuously violating the ceasefire at the Line of Control and Working Boundary.
Formed on September 21, 1968 under the guidance of its first Director Rameshwar Nath Kao, the Research and Analysis Wing was slated by the New York-based “Council of Foreign Relations” in its November 7, 2008 report.
An esteemed 94-year old American think-tank specialising in US foreign policy and international affairs, the “Council of Foreign Relations” had stated in its report: “India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, has long faced allegations of meddling in its neighbors’ affairs. Founded in 1968, primarily to counter China’s influence, over time it has shifted its focus to India’s other traditional rival, Pakistan. RAW and Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have been engaged in covert operations against one another for over three decades.”
The 4900-member “Council of Foreign Relations,” which is represented by senior American politicians, more than a dozen US Secretaries of State, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures, had gone on to view: “The ongoing dispute in Kashmir continues to fuel these clashes, but experts say Afghanistan may be emerging as the new battleground. Islamabad sees India’s growing diplomatic initiatives in Afghanistan as a cover for RAW agents working to destabilise Pakistan. It accuses RAW of training and arming separatists in Pakistan’s Balochistan province along the Afghan border. RAW denies these charges and in turn, accuses the ISI of the July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.” ISI had rejected charges against it.
RAW was also criticised at home by a mainstream political entity “Janta Party,” which had accused the agency of letting itself be used for terrorising and intimidating opposition during the 1975-1977 Indian Emergency.
The “1975-77 Emergency” refers to a 21-month period between 1975 and 1977, when the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had unilaterally proclaimed a state of emergency across the country.
Officially allowed by the then Indian President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352(1) of the Constitution for “internal disturbance,” the notorious Emergency was in effect from June 25, 1975 until its withdrawal on March 21, 1977.
In his widely-read book “The Kaoboys of RAW: Down the memory lane,” distinguished Indian spymaster and one of the founders of RAW, Bahukutumbi Raman (1936-2013), had written: “There was a widespread perception that the RAW was associated with many wrong-doings during the Emergency. This perception prevailed even in sections of the bureaucracy, including in the Foreign Service.”
Bahukutumbi Raman, who had served as an Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Secretariat of the government of India and as one-time head of the counter-terrorism division of the RAW, had also viewed: “The RAW also lost some of its shine as an intelligence collection agency because of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975 and the subsequent developments in Bangladesh, which had resulted in an erosion of the Indian influence there.”
While it is good at poking its nose in internal affairs of India’s neighbours, RAW has been attributed with some embarrassing fiascos and national security failures, especially the defections from within its ranks due to the unexplainable despair and despondency haunting its senior officials.
A few years ago, an eminent Indian scholar Dr. Prem Mahadevan, who is a senior researcher with the Global Security Team at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich, had opined in his book “The politics of counter-terrorism in India” that fearing the American CIA might use counter-terrorism meetings to recruit Indian intelligence operatives, New Delhi had opted to restrict agency-to-agency contacts with Washington DC.
Prem Mahadevan’s book reveals that since 2001, there have been at least two cases of penetration of RAW by the American Central Intelligence Agency.
The Indian scholar had further maintained that in pursuit of a more comfortable lifestyle, at least nine RAW officers have till date gone abroad without leave since the agency’s creation in 1968. Most of these agents had defected while they were posted in Western Europe or North America.
The book says that particularly damaging was the defection of Sikander Lal Malik, a personal aide to RAW chief Rameshwar Nath Kao, adding that agent Malik had defected during the 1970s, while he was posted in the United States and is alleged to have taken extremely sensitive information with him.
In its February 8, 2010 edition, famous Indian magazine “Outlook India” had reported that a former RAW Chief Ashok Chaturvedi used to take his wife along on international trips at official expense. After retirement, Chaturvedi had a diplomatic passport issued for himself and his wife.
“Outlook India” had revealed that only grade ‘A’ ambassadors-usually Indian Foreign Service officers posted in key countries like the UK and US-were allowed to hold diplomatic passports after retirement.
The magazine claimed it had spoken to all former RAW chiefs, who confirmed they had surrendered their diplomatic passports the day they retired, and their spouses weren’t entitled to diplomatic passports even while they were in service.
Then in June 2004, a key RAW official Rabinder Singh had defected to America. He was serving as a Joint Secretary and the head of RAW’s South East Asia Department.Despite being under surveillance for a very long time, Rabinder had managed to defect with some sensitive files he had allegedly removed from the RAW headquarters in New Delhi.
In his book “Mission Raw,” one of the Indian spy agency’s former officials RK Yadav had unveiled the fact that although the American CIA was found directly involved in compromising Rabinder Singh and other top office-bearers of this intelligence outfit, at least eight other RAW officers had managed to clandestinely migrate and settle in foreign countries like the US and Canada with the help of their spy agencies.
The November 2, 2006 edition of the “Indian Express” had also shed enough light on defection of Rabinder Singh’s settling down in the United States.The September 28, 2009 edition of another top Indian newspaper “The Hindustan Times” had also broken a story about a Bangladeshi working for RAW for six long years, without being noticed!
In the early 1980s, KV Unnikrishnan was posted at RAW’s Colombo station. He was allegedly honey-trapped by the CIA.
RAW and Indian media houses allege that between 1985 and 1987, when Unnikrishnan was deputed as the station chief at Chennai and was co-coordinating the Sri Lankan operations, he had leaked a lot of information about the Indian government’s negotiating positions on the peace accord with Sri Lanka to his handler, the training and arming of some warring Tamil groups, including the most-dreaded Tamil Tigers.
He was caught in 1987, jailed and dismissed from service.
Research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows that RAW had started as a wing of the Indian Intelligence Bureau with 250 employees and an annual budget of Indian Rupees 20 million only. In the early seventies, its annual budget had risen to Indian Rupees 300 million and the number of its employees was running in thousands.
According to a report prepared by an American think-tank “Global Security” a few years ago, RAW’s budget was speculated to be resting between US $100 million and $450 million.
The Research and Analysis Wing of India has not only committed monumental blunders over the years, but at times, its slip-ups have proved extremely costly to India.
Tracking a few huge mistakes committed by RAW, one finds that despite having played a pivotal role in the creation of Bangladesh, the Indian secret agency has never had a plan to annex it with India.
It also could not prevent the Bangladeshi leader Shaikh Mujib-ur-Rahman from being killed, even though (it claims) it had prior knowledge of the plot.
As stated in earlier paragraphs, RAW’s support to Indira Gandhi’s 1975-77 Emergency had proved a historic blooper, as it had been giving wrong estimates to the then Indian premier about her public support and popularity.
During the “Operation Blue Star” against the Sikhs in June 1984, RAW had failed again as it could not assess the strength of Sikh commander Bhindranwale’s forces at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. What was thought to be a five-hour operation was later stretched to five days and tanks had to be brought in by the Indian Army to crush the rebellion.
This offensive had resulted in heavy casualties for the Army, courtesy incorrect RAW estimates.
Premier Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this operation later and was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards in 1983.
Then, despite having invested heavily to ensure that Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam continued as the Prime Minister of Mauritius in 1982, the Indian government had to face a lot of embarrassment as RAW had failed to deliver yet again.
Known to have trained and funded the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, RAW could not prevent former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi from becoming a victim of the Tamil Tigers in a village near Chennai in May 1991. Rajiv was killed in a suicide attack during a public rally and his female assassin had reached him without having to cross any security check or hurdle.
We all know that the December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament, the October 2005 Delhi explosions, the 2011 Delhi bombing and innumerable terrorist attacks in Mumbai during 1993, 2002, four incidents during 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2011 are glaring examples of RAW’s intelligence failures.
City of Pune was attacked twice in 2010 and 2012 and the armed insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir has killed tens of thousands to date.
The October 27, 2013 bomb explosions in Bihar during an election rally, the July 2013 blasts in this state, the March 2006 and December 2010 Varanasi blasts, the continuous unrest in various Indian states and separatist movements flourishing across the world’s second most populous country—-bear ample testimony to the fact that instead of putting its own house in order first, RAW continues to intrude, interfere and intervene in the affairs of its neighbours!