India's silent guardian: The role of the R&AW in national power and intelligence.

CGO Complex, New Delhi.

Widely believed to be the headquarters of the

Research and Analysis Wing.

Zzaamm / Commons CC-BY 3.0

Entebbe. Cyclone. Rubicon. Jungle. Condor. 

What do these names have in common? These are the codenames of highly sensitive and clandestine operations of the Mossad, CIA, and MI6. Highly trained, highly adept and highly efficient world-class intelligence agencies, capable of carrying out unprecedented operations across the seven seas. 

What do they also have in common? Their home countries are known to be great powers known to dramatically influence and shape global perspectives and outlooks, with copious amounts of soft and hard power to boot.

Through such organisations, select polities around the world are able to exert an unprecedented amount of power and influence in the global soft power war, and through the power of perceptions and public opinions alone, are able to change opinions, spark rebellion, and topple regimes thousands of kilometres away.

The role and lives of the operatives of such agencies may not be fully and/or accurately represented in mainstream pop culture, with movies like Skyfall, Casino Royale, and Bridge of Spies doing the heavy lifting, but the importance and vitality of such intricate operations cannot be overestimated in the pursuit of a nation's interest on the world stage.

This may lead an Indian to wonder - what is India's equivalent to these organisations?

The answer: The Research and Analysis Wing that reports directly to the Prime Minister, and is responsible for much of the foreign intelligence operations sanctioned by the Union Government. An organisation established in 1968 founded by the then Security Advisor, Rameshwar Nath "R. N." Kao who also served as its first Secretary, the R&AW played a critical role in operations such as the accession of Sikkim to the Republic of India.

Despite the pedigree that this agency has, it is generally considered to fairly rudimentary as an intelligence agency (at least in the public perception), in its ability and fidelity to carry out sensitive and intricate field operations in far-flung nations around the world, due to many problems plaguing its inner organisation, including but not limited to, fund shortages, personnel shortages and resource shortages resulting in loyalty shortages.

The R&AW as an organisation, with its stated goals and objectives are proving, and will, in the future prove to much further be, vital to safeguard and secure India's national interests, especially with the rise of India as a great power in the modern era, creating many more challenges to the national interest, such as external threats to India's global reputation, and threats to the very sovereignty and national integrity of the culturally and ethnically diverse Indian republic.

And as such, the R&AW deserves to be funded and handled in a much more dynamic and hands-on manner, with greater and minute considerations towards its operational requirements, in order to minimize any compromises made on the operational front leading to intelligence mishaps such as the situation in the US that has recently come to light.

More such operations will be inevitably required in the not too distant future, which will immensely increment the level of complexity of such vital and consequential operations of national importance, and add further paradigms, in an already difficult prevailing situation with regards to covert operations of significance to national security.

In light of the various operational considerations, and the nature of India's pursuit and approach to achieving and maintaining its national interests as an emerging great power, the R&AW will prove to be a critical trailblazer in the world of narrative building, soft power conflicts, and intelligence aggregation for the Indian republic, and unless the current establishment realises its inordinate importance in achieving said objectives, the seemingly inevitable rise of India to great power status may not seem so inevitable after all.