RAW TRUTHS A startling glimpse into Working of India’s External Intelligence Agency.
A
Kaoboy, a loyal
spy that is what B Raman was. He was handpicked by the mentor Mr. R. N. Kao in 1968 to serve in R&
amp;
aw. R. N. Kao was the founder of R&AW, a separate wing from the intelligence branch. R. N. Kao’s men are referred as ‘Kaoboy’.
After serving 26 years, B. Raman, Additional secretary, in-charge of Counter Terrorism in R&AW retired in 1994. In his book, "
The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down the Memory Lane ", he has given some glimpse of his secret service years with brief introduction of R.N.Kao’s personality. Any body who has visited R&AW’s Head Quarter in Delhi, will find a life-size statue of a cowboy, which is the replica of much smaller image presented to R. N. Kao by elder George W. Bush in mid 70’s, as a friendly gesture.
Raman in his book has mentioned some successes of RAW and some short fall. It tipped the Indian government in 1971, that Pakistan Air force is going to make a preemptive strike in the forward air base of Indian Air Force in the western sector . IAF was alerted and PM was informed by Kao. Because of earlier warning IAF had, the strike was a failure.
During
Rajiv’s assassination case, they failed to monitor the intelligence report from Germany that some Lankan Tamil living un Germany would be visiting Chennai and he was supposed to be expert in explosive. No proper investigation was done before assassination.
R&AW detected the
LTTE’s Pakistan connection. LTTE wanted to smuggle some arms and ammunition through Karachi by ship (M V Ahat). Raw had detected it and intercepted. Prabhakaran’s man Kittu was there in the ship and the ship sank due to fire by crew and Kittu preferred to commit suicide.
In 1989, R&AW was asked to organize clandestine
arm’s training for RSS, when V. P. Singh was the PM. Though secret meeting was held with the Jammu cadre of RSS, the project was abandoned because some differences cropped up between PM and L K Advani,BJP.
He also mentioned that Indian leaders at the helm of office decided to follow a
policy towards Pakistan. When they decided that India’s preoccupation should not be with any Pakistani leader but with the mindset of Pakistani. Leaders are a passing phenomena. At any point of time any Pakistani leader’s policy making is to keep India weak, bleeding and to destabilize. Both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi decided to adopt a mix of incentives and disincentives in its operational policies towards Pakistan. This policy was making some improvement and subsequent PMs after Rajiv continue the similar policy may be further strengthening it. But when Gujral became PM in 1997, he discontined it. He ordered the R&AW to wind up this division of triangular strategy and followed an act of unilateral gesture towards Pakistan, His gesture was not reciprocated by Pakistan and it became one of unilateral incentives with no disincentives.
R&AW has done some
agency work also. When Morarji Desai government came to power, they scrutinize all the records of R&AW to find if Indira Gandhi or Sanjoy Gandhi had misused this organization. Ultimately they found some case in the files of ministry of finance and RBI. One of the raw officer Mr. Nair was sent to deposit a cheque of 6 Million dollar in a bank in GENEVA.. Desai suspected it to be the account of Sanjoy Gandhi. Later enquiry reveal that this deposit was in the name of a Bigman of Shah of IRAN’s sister . This money was given as a commission to Shah’s sister who helped to get a soft loan of 250 million dollar from SHAH of Iran for Government of India for Kudermukh Iron ore project..
Raman, in his book gives a feeling to its readers that he is hiding more than what he is revealing, and still remains a kaoboy.
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