The Research and Analysis Wing is India’s premier external intelligence body.The RAW have around 12,000 agents in neighboring countries. Countries that have had past hostilities with India are also watched. It also provides assistance to interest groups that are able to promote India’s national interests overseas. The RAW does not determine foreign policy - that is the job of the elected government.
Initially, Pakistan was a primary focus of RAW’s activities, though this is reportedly diluting in recent years, as India seeks an enlarged role in world affairs. This, together with India’s attempts to “decouple” itself from Pakistan among world leaders, is said to have given RAW increased tasks beyond Pakistan. Pakistan, however claims that as many as 35,000 RAW agents were in Pakistan at point of time. Naturally, specific focus areas can at best be speculated by studying India’s foreign policy pronouncements. An important outcome of the Gujral government in 1997 was the decision not to significantly increment and rather stop all support for separatists groups in Pakistan. Subsequently, a large number of intelligence assets in these groups that had been cultivated during the earlier part of the decade decayed.
An important element in India’s external intelligence activities has been industrial espionage in support of the largely state-owned Indian defence industry. The depth of RAW’s support in these activities, however, are not known and is under speculation.
As per convention, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) under the Cabinet Secretariat is responsible for co-ordinating and analyzing intelligence activities between RAW, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). In pratice, however, the effectiveness of the JIC has been varied.
Particularly active in Pakistan, the RAW is known to have gathered massive amounts of data on the Pakistani establishment and its military. It is often chastised by the Pakistani establishment for many of the country’s ills.
The RAW was instrumental in seperating Bangladesh from Pakistan. Covert operations against the ruling East Pakistan government were carried out by aiding recalcitrant groups such as the Mukti Bahini. This culminated in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, resulting in Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan.
Since 1981, the RAW have actively played a role in Sri Lanka supporting Tamil separatist groups like the LTTE. This backfired as the LTTE became more engaged with separatist groups in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. After 1986, following a policy change by the Indian government, this assistance was withdrawn and the RAW put the LTTE and similar groups under surveillance.
The RAW has provided significant amounts of intelligence on Osama bin Laden and the Taliban to its American counterpart, the CIA, after the September 11 incident in 2001.
In 2004, the RAW uncovered a senior officer allegedly working for the CIA, but failed to prevent his defection to the US. This caused a minor media uproar in India, focussing on RAW’s sluggishness in responding to signals and evidence of infiltration. There has also been criticism for its failure to detect the coup of General Musharaf in Pakistan (Oct 1999) and King Gyanendera in Nepal.
