R N Kao

by Nitin A Gokhale

  The National Security Action Memorandum number 209, approved on 10 December 1962 by JFK, authorised a new military aid package for India. Under the aid programme, it was decided that the US would:

  Assist in creating and equipping six new mountain divisions to work with the Indian Army to guard the Himalayas.

  To help India increase its own arms production facilities.

  Prepare for a US-UK air defence programme for India. The first two missions were to assist India develop its capabilities and the third was a joint American-British military exercise in India. Kennedy wanted the funding for the program to be split evenly with the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth partners.5

  Eventually, the Americans did provide military assistance to India, but the India-US cooperation was far better in clandestine operations with the help of SFF and ARC. According to Bruce Riedel, ‘The CIA agreed to support the SFF with a clandestine air force. The SFF conducted cross border reconnaissance operations to place sensors for detecting nuclear and missile tests and devices for intercepting Chinese military communications.’6 Arpi noted, ‘Mullik and Des FitzGerald, the CIA’s Far East division chief, agreed that the IB with CIA support would train a 5,000-strong tactical guerrilla force; the CIA’s Far East Division would create a strategic long-range resistance movement inside Tibet and the Tibetan freedom fighters in Mustang (Nepal) would remain under the CIA’s control.’7

  Riedel claims Nehru was an enthusiastic supporter of the projects. ‘He visited the main SFF training camp in the Himalayas on 14 November 1963 and the secret air base Oak Tree on 2 January 1964 to see the covert action first hand.

  The second project for which India provided support was the training of Tibetans at Camp Hale in Colorado and at other CIA facilities before they were sent to Tibet. Over 135 Tibetans were trained there to operate behind Chinese lines in their homeland. The Indians were not eager for them to be parachuted into Tibet, however, because this action would be very provocative. Instead, the resistance fighters would infiltrate across the line of actual control with help from the Intelligence Bureau. Between 1964 and 1967, 25 teams of fighters were sent into Tibet. The members of one team survived for 2 years inside Tibet but the rest of the teams were either captured, killed or came back to India almost immediately after crossing the line of actual control. The project was abandoned in 1968.’8

  Riedel said the CIA played the lead role in a third project, which was to revitalise the Tibetan force in Mustang. To coordinate all the three projects, a special centre within the IB was set up in New Delhi in November 1963. Despite much prodding by CIA, however, the Mustang force carried out almost no missions across the border into Tibet. It was gradually shut down by the CIA and the fighters helped to find new jobs in drug factories and hotels in Pokhra in Nepal. JFK was also fully briefed on them. ‘In 1964 the CIA was authorised 1,735,000 dollars for the joint projects, a significant amount for covert programs. But except for the SFF patrols, the project had little success,’ Riedel quoted Knaus.

  However, the joint IB-CIA programme had one positive fallout. Even as the ARC and SFF were getting off the ground, the Americans asked for permission to fly U-2 missions over Tibet and Xinjiang and Prime Minister Nehru approved this. While the ARC’s primary assets, the C-46 aircraft, gathered intelligence on the PLA that proved useful to the Indian Armed Forces and its intelligence agencies, those over Xinjiang gave the Americans best available information on China’s proposed nuclear test site at Lop Nur. In early 1964, a U-2 detachment was based at Charbatia at the ARC base. The U-2 plane flew several missions over western China to obtain imagery reports, confirming China’s plan to test a nuclear device. Riedel said, ‘On 26 August 1964, a special National Intelligence Estimate told President Lyndon Johnson (who had succeeded JFK), that on the basis of new overhead photography, we are now convinced that the previously suspect facility at Lop Nur in Western China is a nuclear test site which could be ready for use in about two months.’9 Sure enough, China tested its first nuclear device at Lop Nor on 16 October 1964.

  During this period, RNK, who was setting up ARC from scratch, established close contacts with American intelligence bureaucracy. For nearly two years, the ARC and American intelligence operatives and technical hands worked in tandem to make ARC one of the most effective and crucial TECHINT resources in Asia. After important overseas assignments in Ghana and Hong Kong and taking care of Prime Minister Nehru’s security between 1959 and 1962, RNK would become an institution builder as the next decade would show.

  1 http://claudearpi.blogspot.com/2012/11/consigned-to-dustbin-of-history.html

  2 Ibid.

  3 John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library, Boston, National Security Files.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Bruce Riedel, JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, The CIA and the Sino-Indian War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2015).

  6 Ibid.

  7 http://claudearpi.blogspot.com/2012/11/consigned-to-dustbin-of-history.html

  8 John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000).

  9 Bruce Riedel, JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, The CIA and the Sino-Indian War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2015).

  NINE

  The Pressing Need for a Foreign Intelligence Agency

  The 22-day war between India and Pakistan in September 1965 is a largely forgotten period of India’s politico-military-diplomatic history. It happened in less than four years after the Chinese debacle and immediately after India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had died heartbroken and defeated by what he thought was the Chinese betrayal.

  Most popular accounts about the 1965 war have spoken about it being a stalemate, but a more detailed reading and subsequent assessment shows that India not only turned the tables on Pakistan which, at that point in history, had superior military hardware and was backed by major powers. India, on the other hand, was economically weak and was passing through an uncertain political phase following the death of Pandit Nehru and was yet to fully recover from the politico-military-diplomatic humiliation of 1962.

  Under the circumstances, Lal Bahadur Shastri’s steely resolve, Y.B. Chavan’s pragmatic leadership in the defence ministry and the courage and fortitude of the Indian military not only withstood Pakistan’s aggression but, in the end, forced Pakistan on the defensive. In pure statistical terms too, Pakistan lost more territory, more tanks and more men in the war.

  In 1965: Turning the Tide: How India Won the War, I wrote the following on the 1965 war—‘Looking back, India could have done better by being bolder in the field and by better appreciating the operational and strategic context. It could have, for instance, deployed its navy in an offensive mode but it did not… But this is a judgement in retrospect, 50 years later. At that time, it was the best India as a nation could have done. More importantly, if the Indian military had not gone through the baptism of 1965, it could not have done as spectacularly as it did in 1971 in breaking up Pakistan and help create Bangladesh, a new nation.’1

  Fifty years after, it is clear that India not only thwarted the Pakistani designs but also inflicted unacceptable losses on the Pakistani military triggering many changes within that country’s politico-military structure. Even Ayub’s own son, Gauhar Ayub Khan, has admitted that the war should not have taken place. In an interview to Outlook, he said, ‘It was a war which should not have taken place. It set Pakistan back and was also costly for India. It led from events in Kashmir which Pakistan considered would be contained there and not turn into an open conflict between the two countries. But when India attacked Lahore and other fronts, it led to a general war between India and Pakistan. Ayub Khan was not looking for a war with India.’2

  An unintended consequence of the 1965 war was the boost that the opposition leaders in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) received to their demand for more autonomy to the eastern wing. When asked what the security guarantees for the eastern
part of undivided Pakistan against an Indian military campaign were, Ayub or his military commanders had no convincing reply. This encouraged Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, to intensify his agitation for greater autonomy for the Bengali-majority East Pakistan that eventually led to the fragmentation of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh, aided in large measure, no doubt, by India’s military might and diplomatic offensive in 1971. The defeat in 1965 also eventually led to Ayub’s downfall in 1969.

  But if Pakistan suffered internal turmoil in the wake of the 1965 experience, the Indian military and intelligence agencies too experienced many embarrassing moments. There were lasting lessons too, but first the gaffes.

  What India Gained and Lost

  Although militarily India clearly had an upper hand at the end of the war, the Indian Army could have done better with a little more dash and imagination on the part of its leaders. Field Commanders lacked a clear objective. They did not know during or before the conflict if the aim of the campaign was for an all-out war, a war for conquest of territory or simply an effort to whittle down Pakistan’s war-waging capability. It was only after the conclusion of the war that the top brass is supposed to have mentioned that the 22-day military campaign was intended to be a war of attrition!

  Moreover, except for a couple of instances, the performance of India’s field commanders left a lot to be desired. For most part, the leadership was too defensive—timid even—in its thinking.

  The biggest failure, however, was deemed to be on the intelligence front.

  Despite the on-going tension in Kashmir and the Kutch region in which the Pakistani Army caught the Indian defence by surprise in the spring of 1965, Indian intelligence failed to anticipate the massive infiltration planned by Pakistan under Operation Gibraltar. There was also a lack of assessment on how Pakistan may respond to the failure of the operation. Had the intelligence apparatus been effective, India would have anticipated the thrust in Chhamb-Jaurian (Operation Grand Slam). However, by all accounts, everyone was caught by surprise at the magnitude of the Pakistani offensive launched on 1 September. P.V.R. Rao, the then Defence Secretary, observed later, ‘The attack by Pakistan at Chhamb on the morning of 1 September came as a surprise in its exact location and intensity of the attack. From 26 August, there were heavy Pakistani troop movement in the area under our continuous observation but the Army had concluded that the attack would come further north.’3

  The bigger failure, and, perhaps, of a larger strategic import, was India’s lack of ability to assess the limits of ammunition available with Pakistan. Despite knowing that the Americans—who were the principal weapons supplier to Pakistan during that time—always gave less than a month’s ammunition to its clients. India lacked the intelligence on the shortage of ammunition in the Pakistani arsenal. As it turned out, by 22 September—when ceasefire was declared—Pakistan had practically run out of its stock of ammunition without any replenishment in sight since the Americans had already imposed an arms embargo. Had the war continued for some more time, Pakistan would have collapsed and who knows, the subcontinental history would have taken a different turn.

  But that did not happen. But something good came out of the failure of intelligence. India bifurcated the task of collecting external and internal intelligence and created the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).

  Kao Gets Another Crucial Task

  This is where Ramji Kao was assigned a role that would allow him to leave a lasting impact on many aspects of Indian security and intelligence. He was destined to play a greater role in the making of India’s history.

  Having set up ARC and headed it until 1966, RNK was also the head of external intelligence in the IB. B.N. Mullik, the longest serving Chief of an Indian intelligence organisation, had retired as the director of IB in October 1964, but continued to remain Director General (security), established an office in 1963 to coordinate the national security system and intelligence apparatus. Mullik’s successor was S.P. Verma.

  But the bigger change had happened at the prime ministerial level. Shastri had died in January 1966 and Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter, became India’s third Prime Minister.

  At that point in time, she was considered a political lightweight and the Congress Party stalwarts, who helped her ascend to the top post, had hoped to control her from the shadows. Within a couple of years, however, she outwitted most of her seniors in the party to rule India for over a decade. She had the ability to pick the right team and then leave implementation of her policies to them. One key appointment she made in 1967 was P.N. Haksar. A Kashmiri Pandit, who had never lived in Kashmir, Haksar, along with RNK, was to play a seminal role in most of Indira Gandhi’s momentous decisions between 1967 and 1975. Haksar, in his capacity as secretary to the prime minister, in fact helped RNK to create R&AW.

  There are many reasons cited in public domain why R&AW was created. However, in absence of any official document in public domain on the subject, we will never know the exact reasoning given by RNK in a detailed note to Mrs Gandhi in late 1967 or early 1968. That background note is still classified. K. Sankaran Nair, RNK’s closest friend and colleague, has, however, written a longish passage in his book as to why and how R&AW came into being.

  Nair’s contention in his book is based on his personal knowledge and memory. He wrote, ‘As often happens with bureaucracy, the right hand does not know what the left hand does. Sometimes it cuts its nose to spite the rivals’ face, in the course of turf wars.’4

  Nair was referring to what he calls a minor conflict that had erupted in 1965 between the army and the Bureau over intelligence turf immediately after the war with Pakistan. Apparently, Army Chief General J.N. Choudhry sent a strong paper to the minister of defence, Y.B. Chavan. His main point was that the Army could not land a decisive blow on Pakistan because precise intelligence was not available since collection of intelligence was entrusted to ‘flat-footed Çlouseaus of the IB’.5

  The paper argued that military intelligence should be the preserve of military men who should be posted abroad in Indian missions abroad to collect information, replacing the IB representatives. Defence Minister Chavan agreed with these views but the cabinet did not pursue the matter at that time.

  When Mrs Gandhi took over as the prime minister, there were many seniors in her cabinet who had longer administrative and political experience. To stamp her authority, Mrs Gandhi had to take many steps to rein in many Congress stalwarts. Nair said that one of those leaders who was cut to size by Mrs Gandhi was Chavan, the strongman from Bombay. Chavan had moved from defence to the home ministry in Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) was the controlling authority of the IB then, as it is now.

  Nair wrote that Indira Gandhi strongly suspected him (Chavan) of conspiring against her and in 1968, she ordered the Department of Personnel, which was in charge of the administration of the superior civil services like the IAS, the IPS, along with its junior minister of state, should be removed from the home ministry and placed under the prime minister. She then moved the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a powerful police organisation for the investigation of corruption, which could and has been also misused to his political opponents, from the home minister to the Prime Minister. She moved on to weaken the IB by stripping it of its foreign posts, which, among other things, collected important military information abroad. Nair added, ‘The defence ministry’s 1965 paper on the need to separate foreign intelligence which included military intelligence, from the IB which Chavan had supported, was effectively used to strip the IB of this duty. The prospect of posting abroad was an attraction which had brought good IPS officers from the states to the IB. So this separation of foreign intelligence was meant to impair the efficiency of the IB and therefore its utility to Chavan as home minister.’

  Incidentally, nearly 20 years later, during Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s tenure, the army once again raised the issue of allowing it to run clandestine operations from the Indian diplomatic
missions abroad, says B. Raman, a senior R&AW officer. ‘After carefully examining the matter, he reiterated the original decision of Indira Gandhi that the army should collect only tactical military intelligence through trans-border sources and should not run any clandestine operation outside the country. However, V.P. Singh removed the restrictions imposed by his predecessors on the depth up to which it could run the trans-border source operations from the Indian territory.’6

  Nair remembers that Mrs Gandhi commissioned RNK to produce a paper delineating the structure of the new foreign intelligence agency. He added, ‘Kao, now a Joint Director in the IB, was rated as a top-notch officer. Having worked as the personal security officer to Pandit Nehru, he was known to the family. Being a Kashmiri Pandit was no disqualification either.’

  Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had given him a free hand except for two conditions. Firstly, the new organisation should be a multidisciplinary one and should not draw its higher personnel exclusively from the IPS. Secondly, the top two posts would be filled at the discretion of the prime minister from within the organisation or from outside.

  Nair, who many old timers of R&AW describe as RNK’s alter ego, wrote, ‘Within a few months, Ramji produced his magnum opus, defining the proposed structure of India’s CIA. The designation of the personnel was to be in secretariat terms. The Chief was to be a Secretary and the junior ranks were to run down the line to the rank of Under Secretary.’7 Nair claimed that the then Cabinet Secretary, D.S. Joshi, suggested that the organisation be called R&AW in order to camouflage it and be attached as a wing of the Cabinet Secretariat.