By: Group Capt S.M. HaliWhat is not possible by deployment of force is possible by the use of stratagem.The black cobra was defeated by the stratagem of the crow and the golden chain.
-- Chanakya
Introduction
(October,25,New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The first part of this article briefly traced out the history of secret services in ancient India. Its chief progenitor was Chanakya, whose classic, the Arthasastra, not only provides a fairly graphic account of the activities of spies in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan polity but lays the foundation for the 'statecraft', guile and unscrupulous practices advocated by this master strategist.
He goes on to recommend, 'In the work of espionage, all methods are admissible Ñ snooping, lying, bribing, poisoning, using women's wiles and the assassin's knife. To a weak king menaced by strong neighbours, Chanakya's advice was to rely chiefly on spies and wage what he described as a 'battle of intrigues' (mantra yuddha) and 'secret wars' (kuta yuddha). The spies, in order to achieve their objective, were to practice all kinds of fraud, artifice incendiarism and robbery. Their objective was to demoralize the enemy's troops by circulating false news, and seduce the allegiance of his minister and commanders. The underlying idea seems to have been to keep the strong neighbour preoccupied with domestic troubles thus making it impossible for him to launch a foreign expedition. From the days of Chanakya, the rules of business of espionage have not changed, at least the basic principles remain as before. The development of science and technology has only given fresh impetus and tools to the art of spying.
Evolution of RAW
Origins in the Directorate of Intelligence Bureau, created by the Raj in November 1920 Ñ during the Khilafat and Swaraj movements Ñ out of the old Criminal Intelligence Department (CID). In 1933, sensing the political turmoil in the world which eventually led to the Second World War, the bureau's responsibilities were increased to include the collection of intelligence along India's borders. In 1947, after Independence, Sanjeevi Pillai took over as the first Indian Director. Having been depleted of trained manpower by the exit of the British and Muslims, Pillai tried to run the bureau along MI 5 lines. Although in 1949, Pillai organized a small foreign intelligence set-up, the inefficacy of it was proved by the Indian debacle in the Indo-China War of 1962, and the cry of 'not enough intelligence available', was taken up by the Indian Chief of Army Staff, General Chaudhry, after the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
It was towards the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1967 that the concept of a separate foreign intelligence agency began to take concrete shape. In 1968, after Indira Gandhi had taken over, it was decided that a full-fledged second security service was needed. R. N. Kao, then a deputy director of IB, submitted a blueprint for the new agency. Kao was appointed as the chief of India's first foreign intelligence agency named as 'the Research and Analysis Wing' or RAW.
R&AW takes shape
Having started humbly as a Wing of the main Intelligence Bureau with 250 personnel and an annual budget of Rs 2 crore (by a rough estimate), in the early seventies, its annual budget had risen to Rs 30 crores while its personnel numbered several thousand. In 1971, Kao had persuaded the government to set up the Aviation Research Centre (ARC). The ARC's job was aerial reconnaissance. It replaced the Indian Air Force's old reconnaissance aircraft and by the mid-70s, R&AW, through the ARC, had high quality aerial pictures of the installations along the Chinese and Pakistani borders. By 1976, Kao had been promoted to the rank of a fullfledged Secretary responsible for Security and reporting directly to the Prime Minister. His rise had raised R&AW to become India's premier intelligence agency. R&AW agents operated in virtually every major embassy and high commission.
R&AW's objectives
The objectives of R&AW according to Asoka Raina's famous book Inside R&AW (Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1981) have been:-
* To monitor the political and military developments in all the adjoining countries, which have, direct bearing on India's national security and in the formulation of its foreign policy.
* Secondly, R&AW watched the development of international communism and the schism between the two communist giants, the Soviet Union and The Republic of China. For as in other countries both the powers had direct access to the Communist Parties in India.
* Thirdly, the supply of military hardware to Pakistan mostly from European countries, the USA and China, was of high priority.
* And last but not the least, the presence of a large ethnic Indian population in foreign countries, provided a powerful lobby. These countries could back a favourable policy in international councils, motivated by the ethnic Indian group.
Read Part 02
To Be Continued
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