INDIA'S INTELLIGENCE SERVICES – A
PERFORMANCE AUDIT
By
Maj Gen VK Singh
Introduction
In recent years, Indian intelligence agencies have been in the news for all the
wrong reasons. This is unfortunate, considering their unimpeachable past. During
the British Raj, the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) had a formidable
standing. In recent years, their reputation has taken a beating. Apart from
several major intelligence failures at the international level, they have not
been able to prevent a single terrorist attack in the recent past. It is
necessary to examine the reason for their dismal performance and institute
suitable remedial measures.
Brief History
There is no official record of the
creation of the intelligence department in India. Unlike the military,
intelligence services do not maintain a war diary or digest of service.
However, until the beginning of the 20th century, the primary role
of intelligence agencies was to gain information about the adversary's military
potential. In 1885, Major General Sir Charles Metcalfe MacGregor was appointed
Quartermaster General and head of the Intelligence Department for the British
Indian Army. The objective then was to monitor Russian troop deployments in
Afghanistan, fearing a Russian invasion of British India through Central
Asia. Russia had strong imperial ambitions and a special interest in
South Asia. Shortly afterwards, the "Central Special Branch' was set up by
an order of the Secretary of State for India in London, on 23 December 1887. In
1902-03, the Central Special Branch was remodeled and redesignated as the
'Central Criminal Intelligence Department', which was made responsible for all
matters pertaining to national security in addition to its role in prevention
of inter-provincial crime, and was designated as the nodal agency of the
Government of India. 1
By 1918 the word 'Criminal' was
dropped from the name of the organisation. The present name, the Intelligence
Bureau, was adopted in the year 1920. In 1921, a new state-run surveillance
and monitoring agency — Indian Political Intelligence (IPI) - was established.
The IPI was run jointly by the India Office and the Government of India and
reported jointly to the Secretary of the Public and Judicial Department of the
India Office, and the Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB) in India, and
maintained close contact with Scotland Yard and MI5. In 1947, it was
reorganized as the Central Intelligence Bureau under the Ministry of Home
Affairs.2
Soon after Independence, the IB
(Intelligence Bureau) was set up, with Sanjivi Pillai as its first Director.
After Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948, Sanjivi was replaced by BN
Mullick, who remained the head of the organisation for an unprecedented 17
years. During his tenure, the IB became an extremely powerful organization,
looking after external as well as internal intelligence, in addition to playing
a major role in deciding foreign policy. Mullick's proximity to Nehru added to
his clout, and during the 1962 conflict with China, he even decided the
location of border outposts manned by the Army, with predictable results.
During the 1962 and the 1965 conflicts the Army complained that it did not get
adequate intelligence, and demanded its own foreign intelligence agency, on the
lines of the CIA in USA and MI6 in UK. Based on directions of the Army
Chief, General JN Chaudhuri, a paper on the subject was prepared by Major
General MN Batra, the DMI (Director of Military Intelligence).
MN Batra's paper, which proposed the
establishment of a foreign intelligence agency under the Ministry of Defence,
was put up to the Prime Minister. After she came to power, Indira Gandhi had
felt the need for an independent intelligence agency to gather external
intelligence, on the lines of the CIA in USA. She approved the creation of the
agency, but decided to keep it under her own control instead of the Ministry of
Defence, as recommended in the paper. The new organization, known as the
Research & Analysis Wing of the Cabinet Secretariat, was established on 21 September
1968. Rameshwar Nath Kao was selected to be the first head of the RAW, with K.
Sankaran Nair as his deputy, both being from the IB.
In 2001, the roles of IB and RAW were formalized as a result of the
recommendations of the Group of Ministers on National Security, which was set
up after the Kargil Review Committee submitted its report in 2000. The
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) was also set up at the same time, with
control over all military assets for gathering intelligence. The roles of the
three agencies – internal, external and military - are different, but some
overlap still exists. Lack of coordination and sharing of intelligence, the
bane of intelligence agencies in India, still exists. If anything, it has
become worse. This appears to be the major lacunae in the functioning of Indian
intelligence agencies, the others being lack of accountability and
parliamentary oversight.
During the British Raj, the
intelligence agencies did excellent work. In 1913, the Ghadr (Revolution) party
came into being in 1913 in San Francisco, taking its name from the newspaper
brought out by Lala Hardayal. It found support among the large number of Indian
emigrants in Canada and the USA, who had left their homelands due to famine and
unemployment, especially in the Punjab. The Ghadr party wanted to end British
rule by fomenting armed revolution. Then, just before World War I began, the
Komagata Maru incident took place, when several hundred Sikhs who wanted to
emigrate were not allowed to land at Vancouver. On their return to India,
British troops fired and killed many when they tried to enter Calcutta after
landing at Budge Budge. Subsequently, many Ghadrites were sent to India from
Canada and the USA, to carry out acts of subversion and sabotage. The CID
caught most of them as soon as they landed.
During World War II, the Indian
National Army was formed in South East Asia with the help of the Japanese.
During the Burma campaign, dozens of intelligence operatives of the INA were
sent to India to carry out acts of sabotage. Almost all were caught as soon as
they arrived, many being executed. Intelligence operations were then handled by
the CID, staffed almost completely by Indians, except for a few British
officers in senior appointments. Not surprisingly, when Lord Mountbatten took
over as Viceroy, he remarked that he had inherited one of the best intelligence
services in the World. The present IB and RAW are progeny of the same CID of
the British Raj. With such an impeccable pedigree, why can't they do half as
much?3
The
Present State of Affairs
Having
talked about the past, let us come to the present. Is the performance of Indian
intelligence agencies satisfactory? Are they worth their keep? If not, what can
be done to make sure that they do the job for which they being paid? These are
simple questions, but the answers are complex. Let us examine their failures of
and successes.
The first major intelligence
failure after independence was the intrusion of Pakistani tribesmen in Kashmir
in October 1947, known as Operation 'Gulmarg'. Though indications of the
Pakistani design were available through several sources, these were not taken
seriously. The political leadership waited until the Maharajah signed the
Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, before flying in Indian troops.
Srinagar was saved in the nick of time. Had they reached even a day later, it
is possible that Kashmir would not be part of India today.
The next major intelligence failure
occurred in Aksai Chin in 1954-57 when the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which was
then in charge of foreign intelligence, failed to find out that the Chinese had
built a strategic road through Indian territory linking western Ladakh with
Xinjiang. This was followed soon after by the Chinese intrusion in NEFA,
which resulted in the ignominious defeat of the Indian Army in 1962.
Indications of the Chinese build up were obtained from local sources, but these
were either ignored or not taken as seriously as they should have been.
During Operation 'Gibraltar' in 1965,
the IB failed to correctly interpret evidence and warn of Pakistani plans to
send thousands of infiltrators into the Kashmir Valley to spark a rebellion.
Later the same year the, Pakistan launched Operation 'Grand Slam' using the new
armoured division which she had raised. The IB, still in charge of foreign
intelligence, failed to detect the raising of the armoured division that was
launched in September 1965, with disastrous consequences.
After the creation of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in 1968, the IB was
divested of its responsibility for external intelligence. Since them, external
intelligence has been almost the exclusive preserve of RAW, whose successes in
the 40 years of its existence have been more than matched by its failures.
According to a Pakistani author, the major 'successes' of RAW were the
creation of Bangladesh (this is debatable – on page 47 of his book Surrender at Dacca, Lt Gen JFR Jacob,
who was the Chief of Staff of Eastern Command in 1971, writes “The Research and
Analysis Wing gave us next to nothing”); the assassination of General
Zia-ur-Rahman; Project Poornima (Pokharan nuclear explosion); the Kahuta
Blueprint (the Indians were on the verge of obtaining it, but Morarji Desai
refused to sanction the $ 10,000 demanded by the RAW agent, and informed
Pakistan, who caught and eliminated the RAW mole); induction of Sikkim into the
Indian Union; engineering a revolt in the Maldives (to increase India's
influence); and monitoring Pakistani telecommunications. Among RAW's 'failures'
are the promulgation of Emergency in 1975 (Kao supported it, whereas the IB had
advised against it); Operation Blue Star (RAW failed to assess the strength of
Bhindranwale's forces); Mujib-ur-Rahman's assassination (RAW had advance information
about Mujib's assassination but failed to prevent it); defeat of Sir
Seewoosagur Ramgoolam in Mauritius elections (Indira Gandhi wanted him to win);
and support to LTTE, which later turned against it.4
There are several other
failures of external intelligence which can be added to the list. One is the
blowing up of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 by Khalistani terrorists, which RAW
failed to prevent. This was followed by the Kargil war in 1999, when RAW was
severely criticised for inadequate intelligence about the Pakistani intrusion
that had been taking place for several months. One reason for this failure was
the lack of coordination between the intelligence agencies, which zealously
guard their turf and resent sharing intelligence with other agencies. This was
clearly brought out by the Kargil Review Committee chaired by K. Subrahmanyam,
which pointed out several lacunae in the existing intelligence set up in the
country, the chief being the existence of multiple agencies reporting to
different heads. It decried the virtual monopoly of RAW in respect of external
intelligence, and commented adversely on the wisdom of saddling one agency
alone with multifarious responsibilities of human, communication, imagery and
electronic intelligence.
The recommendations of
the Kargil Review Committee were examined by the Group of Ministers (GoM)
established in April 2000. Home Minister LK Advani chaired the GoM, the other
key members being Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The GoM constituted four
task forces, which studied intelligence, internal security, border management
and defence. The GoM completed its task in February 2001 and submitted its
report to the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS)
considered the Report on 11 May 2001 and accepted all its recommendations,
except the one dealing with the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff
(CDS).5
The GoM report was formally made public with much fanfare at a ceremony on 23
May 2001 when it was discovered that the entire chapter on intelligence had
been deleted. The Home Minister admitted that the deletions were carried
on the advice of the intelligence agencies, though the ministers had accepted it
with some reservations. The intelligence agencies felt that the deleted parts
pointed to specific shortcomings that people inimical to the country's security
could have exploited. A few omissions pertained to observations that could have
had adverse diplomatic implications.6
Apparently,
the decision to delete the chapter on intelligence was taken at the last
moment, leaving not enough time even to inform the Press Information Bureau
(PIB), which issued an official release on the same day, containing the gist of
the deleted chapter dealing with intelligence. In fact, the salient
features of the deleted portion of the report were the subject of several
articles even before the formal release, most notably the article titled
"for a paradigm shift" by Praveen Swami in the Frontline issue of 13
April 2001. Writing in the same journal two months later, Swami found the
deletions mystifying, since the contents had already been made public by the
Frontline issue of 13 April. The Hindustan Times of 16 August 2001 gave out a
verbatim reproduction of the recommended charter of RAW, claiming it had a copy
of the 'order1.7
The
Government claims that most of the recommendations of the GoM Report have been
implemented, such as the setting up of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)
and the National Technical Resources Organisation (NTRO). However, insiders
feel that little has changed on the ground. If anything, the situation has
become worse. The NTRO was the brain child of former President Abdul Kalam, who
was at that time heading the DRDO. It was intended to bring the technical
resources of all agencies under one roof, to avoid duplication and improve
coordination. However, RAW refused to part with the Aviation Research Centre
(ARC), while all military SIGINT, TECHINT and IMINT resources went to the DIA.
The NTRO naturally had to create its own assets, resulting in considerable
expense and aggravating the duplication. Significantly, the most important
recommendation of the GOM – the creation of a Chief of Defence staff (CDS) –
has still not been implemented. In true bureaucratic tradition, it has been
shelved until a consensus is achieved between all political parties.
The
most recent instance of failure of our intelligence agencies was the terror
strikes in Mumbai on 26 November 2008, which have now entered our lexicon as
‘26/11’, just as the strikes that brought down the twin tower in New York are
universally known as ‘9/11’. A terror strike of the magnitude of 26/11 cannot
be executed without months of meticulous planning. The actual perpetrators may
have been foreigners, but surely there must have been locals who were responsible for providing intelligence,
guidance, weapons, ammunition, explosives, transport and other logistics. At a
rough estimate, the numbers involved in such support services are five to ten
times the number of those who carry out the actual strike. In other words,
there may be between 50 to 100 persons who worked behind the scenes, the back
room boys, as it were. How is it that IB and RAW failed to detect a single one?
What happens to the hundreds of crores that the tax payer gives them to pay
agents and informers?
Of
course, after the event, intelligence agencies tried to cover their backs,
giving details of information that they had given to the Coast Guard, Navy,
Police and everyone else under the sun. Some even committed gross impropriety
by leaking to the media photocopies of ‘Secret’ and ‘Top Secret’ letters exchanged between them
and the Police. Examples are the letter (marked Secret) sent by IB Joint
Director Ashok Prasad to the Maharashtra Police on 24 September 2008 and one
(graded Top Secret) from IB Director PC Haldar to Dr. PS Pasricha, DGP
Maharashtra on 20 November 2007. Both have been published in the Indian Express
newspaper on 26 December 2008. Apparently, nobody has tried to find out how
these classified letters reached the media.
As
the Naval Chief bluntly put it, none of the inputs given by the intelligence
agencies was ‘actionable’ intelligence. To
be actionable, the intelligence must give two basic bits of information - time
and place. Saying that an attack is imminent means nothing – it can be after a
few hours, days or months. Similarly, saying that attacks will target half a
dozen well known landmarks is of come they t
alce - ere e
The Future of
India's External Intelligence
The future does not look very bright. If Indian intelligence agencies continue
to muddle along as they are doing now, things can only grow worse. The
ineptitude of our intelligence has been proved beyond doubt by their failure to
prevent the large number of terrorist attacks that have occurred in recent
times. Most of these were serial blasts, involving dozens of saboteurs. There
must have been many more who provided the funds and the logistics. How is it
that not one of these groups was infiltrated and information obtained? It is
understandably difficult to develop moles in groups based abroad. But what
about those based in India? There is no dearth of funds with the agencies. What
then is the problem?
The
excessive dependence of intelligence agencies on technical sources has bred a
sense of complacency. If one can get information sitting in his office why
should he risk his life outdoors. At present, almost 90% of the
intelligence comes from SIGINT, with HUMINT accounting for just 10%. One reason
for the excellent performance of intelligence agencies during the British Raj
was the almost total dependence on HUMINT. The only way to gain intelligence
was through spies, agents and moles. While it is true that the richest sources
of intelligence today are the Internet, satellite links, mobile phones and
radio, human sources can never be discounted. Spying is a dying art and is
visible today only in James Bond movies. Unless the art is revived, the
intelligence agencies will not be able to deliver the goods.
Everyone knows that intelligence agencies spend large amounts of money to 'buy'
or cultivate agents. Where does the money go? One only has to read The
Kaoboys of RAW written by B. Raman, a retired additional secretary of RAW,
for the answer. He writes that most RAW officers posted abroad had a fancy for
Mercedes cars. PV Narasimha Rao, who was then the Foreign Minister, once
remarked that he had noticed that officers of RAW and IB posted in foreign
embassies had the largest and most expensive cars. "How do they manage to
find the money," he asked. He also pointed out that the CIA and other
foreign intelligence agencies could easily identify Indian intelligence
officers from the expensive cars maintained by them, since no other officer
could afford such cars.8
The
main reason for the misuse of so called 'secret' funds is lack of
accountability and financial audit. India is perhaps the only democracy in the
World where the intelligence agencies are not subject to parliamentary
oversight. In USA, the CIA has not one but four levels of oversight – the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; the House of Representatives Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence; the Inspector General (IG, CIA); and the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which comprises trustworthy
and eminent citizens with experience whose job is to see that intelligence
agencies do not violate laws of the land or indulge in unethical practices. In
UK, oversight is exercised by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security
Committee (ISC) that is appointed by and reports to the Prime Minister. Canada
has a Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) that oversees the
functioning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and reports to
the Canadian House of Commons. In addition, there is an IG, CSIS who carries
out functions similar those of the IG, CIA in the USA.9
The
demand for parliamentary oversight has been made several times in the past,
even by officers who have served in intelligence agencies. The need for
accountability and parliamentary oversight is accepted by several officers who
were once part of RAW, including B. Raman. According to him, "India is
amongst the countries. …which continue to follow the dictum that the
intelligence agencies are the most patriotic, can do wrong and hence don't need
external checks and balances. There is no desire on the part of the political
leadership to make the agencies accountable for their performance." The
only attempt to introduce an oversight mechanism was made during the tenure of
Prime Minister VP Singh. The suggestion had reportedly come from Jaswant Singh,
who was then Chairman of the Estimates Committee of the Lok Sabha. When the RAW
chief convened a meeting of senior officers to seek their views on the proposed
measure, he was surprised to find that most of them favoured such a measure as
it would make them less vulnerable to undesirable pressures from the executive.
Interaction with Members of Parliament would also give them a chance to
acquaint the public with the work being done by them, removing from their minds
many wrong impressions about intelligence agencies. Unfortunately, before the
exercise could be completed the VP Singh government fell due to withdrawal of
support by the BJP.
Another
major drawback of Indian intelligence agencies is the obsession with secrecy
that is totally misplaced. The fixation is carried to such ridiculous
extents that the agencies are reluctant to use even their names. RAW prefers
the all embracing euphemism Cabinet Secretariat which fools no one. A search
for the list of intelligence agencies worldwide reveals no less than 13
agencies in USA, including CIA, while MI5 and MI6 are clearly listed under UK
and Mossad in Israel. The intelligence agencies of almost all nations in
Europe, including erstwhile soviet states of Eastern Europe are also listed, as
are those of South America and many African nations. But under India, one will
find Cabinet Secretariat and Ministry of Home Affairs. 10
The irrelevance of the obsessive
secrecy that envelopes RAW and its activities was brought about by Shashi
Tharoor, the present Minister of State for External Affairs, during the first
RN Kao memorial lecture on 20 January 2007. Tharoor, then Under Secretary
General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations,
stressed that the facelessness of RAW may be working to its disadvantage, since
its personnel were not getting the recognition they deserved for their valuable
contribution to India's foreign policy. Noting that the agency was not
accountable to Parliament and its funds were subject to only a limited
scrutiny, Tharoor felt said that RAW was being distrusted and criticised by the
media and the public, without it having any chance to defend its actions.
"RAW's exact locus within the Indian strategic establishment has remained
a puzzle", he said. He went on to add: "I think it is a great pity if
it true that, as I am told, secrecy has gone to the point where many who serve
in RAW themselves do not have a sense of their own history."11
The cloak of secrecy that an external intelligence agency such as RAW covers
itself with hides little else than its faults, which remain uncorrected.
Strangely enough, the so called 'secret' agency possesses very little that can
be called secret. Whatever secrets it has concerns foreign countries, whose
disclosure can harm them, not India. Unlike the defence forces or the DRDO, it
has little that can be of interest to a foreign country. Yet it treats all
information it gathers as highly secret. The only reason for keeping such
information under wraps is to protect the source. In case such information is
made public, accidentally or otherwise, it is only the source which is
compromised, with little effect on national security. An example was the tape
of the famous Musharraf – Aziz conversation during the Kargil war, which was
made public to show Pakistan's complicity. It did result in the drying up of
the source of the intercept, but there was certainly no effect on our national
security.
There
are glaring anomalies between the functioning of our intelligence agencies,
even at the grass roots level. In the armed forces, information about the enemy
is always sent in clear. It is not encoded since that would weaken the code, as
the information is already known to the enemy. However, information about own
troops and plans is always sent in code. This basic rule of security is
violated everyday by RAW, which insists that all information in its possession
is secret. At many places along our borders, where Army and RAW stations are
located next to each other, the same information is being sent in clear by one
agency and in code by the other. Can there be a more obvious example of lack of
coordination between our intelligence agencies?
Conclusion
The
future of India's external intelligence does not appear to be very bright. The
intelligence services have become somnolent and lazy. They need to be shaken
out of their slumber, and asked to pull up their socks. This is only possible
by making them accountable and subjecting them to performance and financial
audit. If this is not done soon, the country is likely to face serious threats
to its security and social fabric, which once torn, will be difficult to mend.
Endnotes
1. Maloy
Krishna Dhar The Intelligence Bureau: India's Prime Intelligence Agency,
http://frontierindia.net/the-intelligence-bureau-india
3. V.K.
Singh, Terror lessons from the Raj, New Indian Express, 04 Nov 2008.
4. Group
Captain SM Hali,. 'RAW at War-Genesis of Secret Agencies in Ancient
India', Pakistan Defence Journal, March 1999.
5.
"GROUP OF
MINISTERS' REPORT ON "REFORMING THE NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM", PIB release,
May 23, 2001
6. Editorial 'Security
Counsel', Times of India, 24 May 2001.
7. Swati
Chaturvedi, IB and RAW roles defined, Hindustan Times, 26 August 2001.
8. B. Raman, The
Kaoboys of RAW – down memory lane, New Delhi, 2007, p.119.
9.
B. Raman, Intelligence:
Past, Present and Future, p. 364-377
11. The Indian Express, New Delhi, 21 January 2007
2 Nov 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment