Bharat Rakshak

The Nation's Right To Know
After sufficient time has passed, only those details should remain classified that could have an adverse impact on state-to-state relations with other countries. Possible domestic embarrassments should not come in the way
B. Raman

1962: India suffered a humiliating set-back in the Sino-Indian war. Many believed that the set-back was attributable to the then political, military and intelligence leadership. An enquiry was held into some of the aspects of the set-back. This enquiry report has not so far been released to the Indian public.

1965-66: India suffered two set-backs. During the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, the Indian Army unit, which was ordered to open the Lahore front, got bogged down. The Army blamed the Intelligence Bureau for poor intelligence regarding the Ichogil Canal. In 1966, the Mizo National Front under Laldenga took the Indian Security Forces by surprise and practically over-ran the entire Mizoram. The Army retrieved the ground subsequently and beat back the MNF.A senior officer of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the government of India was asked to enquire into allegations of failure by the IB in both the cases. His reports reportedly absolved the IB of any blame for these set-backs, but led to the decision of Indira Gandhi to bifurcate the IB and create the R&AW on September 21,1968, to deal with external intelligence. The Indian public and research scholars have been denied access to these enquiry reports.

1971: The R&AW, hardly three years old, played a highly-commended role in the events of 1971 preceding the Indo-Pakistan War of December 1971 that contributed to the success of the Bangladesh freedom-fighters. As it happens in the case of secret agencies, many of the decisions, operations and other actions of the R&AW were based on oral instructions from Mrs Gandhi and others who played a role in the decision-making at the higher levels. There was no written documentation in the Archives of the R&AW giving a total picture of the role of the R&AW.

In 1982, Indira Gandhi recalled R.N. Kao from retirement and appointed him as Senior Adviser in the Cabinet Secretariat. He felt that in the absence of an authentic written documentation of the role of the R&AW, future generations of R&AW officers would remain in the dark about the operations of the R&AW during 1971—particularly after all the officers who had played a role in 1971 pass away. At his suggestion, the R&AW recalled from retirement an officer of the Army information wing who had served in the R&AW in 1971 and asked him to interview all officers, senior and junior, who had played a role in 1971 and write an authentic narrative of the role of the R&AW in 1971.He did part of the work.

Kao resigned after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. The R&AW terminated the services of this officer and discontinued the project. Many of the officers, who had played a role in 1971, including Kao himself, have since passed away. About half a dozen are still alive— either in their late 70s or early 80s. A legendary officer from Kerala, of whom any intelligence agency in the world will be proud and who acted as the right hand man of Kao in 1971, is in his early 90s. When these officers also pass away in the next few years, no authentic record of the role of the R&AW in the events of 1971 will be available. Their knowledge, however feeble now, will die and be cremated with them. The government should revive this project urgently, complete it quickly and make it available to the public and scholars.

1975-77: The Intelligence agencies and the Central Bureau of Investigation played a role in enabling Indira Gandhi to proclaim and sustain the State of Emergency for three years. There were allegations of serious misuse of the agencies by her and her advisers in the government and the Congress to browbeat her critics and those opposed to the Emergency. The Morarji Desai government, which came to office in 1977, ordered two enquiries into these allegations and other connected matters relating to the Emergency. The first was a quasi-judicial enquiry by the Shah Commission. The second was an administrative enquiry into the alleged misuse of the agencies conducted by a committee headed by L.P.Singh, who was Home Secretary under Indira Gandhi in the years before the Emergency. The Shah Commission’s report was released to the public, but the L.P.Singh committee report was not released to the public by any of the governments that had held office since 1980. Hopes and expectations that the A.B.Vajpayee government would release the L.P.Singh Committee report and other documents relating to the Emergency were belied. It is high time now to release all these accounts to the public so that we have a comprehensive and authentic record of the state of Emergency in public domain.

1984: Mrs Gandhi made frantic efforts to avoid having to send the Army into the Golden Temple at Amritsar for what came to be known as Operation Bluestar. She initiated back channel talks/contacts with important Sikh leaders in the Punjab as well as in the diaspora to find a peaceful outcome. The back channel contacts with important Sikh leaders of the Punjab were handled by Rajiv Gandhi and his young associates. One back channel contact with a Sikh leader of the diaspora was handled by Kao. These back channel contacts spoke very positively of Indira Gandhi and her sincere search for a peaceful outcome to the crisis in the Golden Temple. The government should ensure that the documents relating to these back channel contacts are properly preserved for evaluation after some years whether they could be released to the public.

2002: Kao passed away in January 2002. Before his death, he had reportedly recorded a narrative of some of his experiences and had it deposited for safe custody in the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi for release to the public some years after his death. One doesn’t know what time-bar he had put on its release to the public. It is now more than 10 years after his death. The government owes it to the memory of Kao, who had served the country so brilliantly, to ensure that his narrative becomes available to the public once the time-bar is over. Any attempt to keep it permanently in darkness in the Library would be an insult to the memory of this distinguished and proud son of India.

The government should appoint a high-powered group to go into all these reports and documents, excise portions that could have an adverse impact on state-to-state relations with other countries and release the rest to the public. Possible domestic embarrassments should not be a ground for excising any portion.


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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies.

To make a fresh start on military and defense affairs, Nehru hired British
scientist and Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. M. S. Blackett to advise him
on how the Indian state could leverage science for defense.5 Blackett had been
at the center of the Allied war effort. He was privy to Ultra codebreaking, the
development of nuclear weapons, and other major military technology pro-
grams. In 1946 the United States gave him the Medal of Honor for his service
during the war, and in 1948 he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his pre-
war work. Blackett’s 1948 report went beyond the role of science in military
affairs to address both India’s strategic position and its military spending.
It recommended that India limit its military ambitions and pursue a policy
of nonalignment with both superpowers to escape a potentially debilitating
arms race. He proposed that military spending should not exceed 2 percent
of Indian GDP. Blackett also argued against India’s acquisition of nuclear
and chemical weapons. Instead, he emphasized India’s need to develop an
industrial and technological base.
Blackett’s report resonated in the Indian government and especially with
Nehru, a secular modernist who believed entirely in the ability of science to
deliver not only economic progress but also social change. He called India’s
first large dam project, the Bhakra Nangal in Punjab, “a temple of moder-
nity.” The Indian government shifted spending priorities and pushed infra-
structure for technology development over military readiness. Nehru charged
a number of scientists to develop institutions to alter the defense landscape
in India. The Cambridge-educated physicist Homi Bhabha was the father
of India’s nuclear program, and a close friend of Nehru’s. Bhabha’s home
was one of the few places Nehru visited regularly. Daulat Singh Kothari, a
Blackett protégé, became the head of the Defence Science Organisation, the
precursor to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
While Indian defense research gathered momentum, India did make some
1
chapter one
Restraint
and Affluence
One of the most remarkable attributes of India as an
independent nation has been its longstanding restraint in military strategy.
Reticence in the use of force as an instrument of state policy has been the
dominant political condition for Indian thinking on the military, including
military modernization. From the initial delay in sending troops to defend
Kashmir in 1948 to the twenty-four-year hiatus in testing nuclear weapons,
India has used force mainly in response to grave provocation and as an
unwelcome last resort. The country’s greatest strategic success, the victory of
1971, occurred in response to a Pakistan Army crackdown on rebel Bengalis,
which killed tens of thousands and forced millions of refugees to flee to India.
It is notable that New Delhi did not press its military advantage in the west to
resolve the Kashmir problem. Similarly, India’s nuclear weapons program,
the military capacity that could have transformed India’s strategic position,
remained in limbo for twenty-four years after India tested its first atomic
device in 1974. There are exceptions to Indian restraint as well as questions
about whether it was driven by capacity or intention. Of course, Pakistan has
never been persuaded of Indian restraint. We discuss these issues below as
part of our investigation in this chapter into whether India’s new affluence
and access to advanced weapons technology will end the pattern of strategic
restraint, turning India into a traditional great power with clear strategic
objectives and the military means to achieve them.
The answer is not self-evident. India’s burgeoning resources will go a
long way in reducing the most apparent obstacle to India’s strategic ambi-
tion: lack of resources. Equally, India’s access to Western technology—most
importantly from the United States—could transform the Indian armed
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2 / restraint and affluence
forces in unprecedented ways, giving the country new instruments of stra-
tegic assertion. While there are good reasons to expect a breakthrough, we
do not believe it is likely. Military preparation just does not receive the kind
of political attention that is necessary to marry military modernization and
strategy. India’s military modernization suffers from weak planning, indi-
vidual service-centered doctrines, and disconnect between strategic objec-
tives and the pursuit of new technology. In comparison, other modern states,
especially India’s primary rivals, Pakistan and China, focus more steadily on
developing the military means to deal with their own security concerns.
The bar for change in India is so high that any talk of imminent military
transformation is highly premature. Since armed force has not been a cen-
tral instrument of state policy, the country has not developed the institutional
structures necessary to overhaul the mechanisms for generating military
power. Notwithstanding India’s newfound affluence or new access to military
technology, we do not see good reasons to expect dramatic change. Contrary to
conventional realist wisdom, wherein threat and affluence drive military pos-
ture, we believe that military change in India will be evolutionary, driven by the
slow pace of institutional change in the Indian military system. Consequently,
India’s strategic choices will remain limited. The Indian military system can
expand in size; create new agencies, commands, and positions; and purchase
new advanced weaponry, but it cannot address the contested demands over
retrenchment, coordination, and reconciliation of competing interests.
It is important to emphasize that strategic restraint has not served India
poorly thus far, nor will it be an ill-conceived choice for the future. In a
region characterized by many conflicts and an uneasy nuclear standoff,
restraint is a positive attribute. However, restraint is not seen as a virtue by
those who want India to be a great power, a counterbalance to a rising China,
and a provider of security in the international system rather than a passive
recipient of the order created and managed by others They strongly criti-
cize the lack of political direction, confused military doctrines, dysfunctional
civil-military relations, and lack of interest in reforming defense acquisition
and policymaking processes. Below, we examine the roots and trajectory of
Indian strategic restraint and then the challenges to restraint brought on by
the advent of affluence and new technology.
The Development of Restraint
India’s weak military policy from independence in 1947 to the war with
China in 1962 is evidence of the lower priority given to military matters
than to other national concerns. The country was unable to afford ambitious
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restraint and affluence / 3
strategic objectives and robust military rearmament. Instead, as the cold
war intensified, the national leadership sought gains in the political arena
through its policy of nonalignment. As has often been noted, India’s posi-
tion resembled America’s strategy of distancing itself from European wars,
and Nehru’s speeches of the day resembled George Washington’s Farewell
Address, which cautioned against entangling alliances.
The primary military assignment in the 1950s was international peace-
keeping, a function in which the Indian Army excelled. In Korea and later in
the Congo, the Indian Army’s performance was professional and measured.
In the peacekeeping roles of the time—as opposed to contemporary UN
Chapter 7 peace enforcement—the Indian Army found the perfect canvas for
the expression of its quiet capacity. In national defense, however, the civil-
military system, and particularly the political leadership, fell short.
The British Empire had raised a powerful Indian Army, which had fought
creditably in the world wars in Europe, North Africa, and Burma, and secured
possessions from Hong Kong to Aden; but India’s nationalists saw military
power as an instrument of oppression, imperialism, and undue financial
burden, and most were strongly critical of India’s armed forces.1 The struggle
against the British had focused in part on the Raj’s use of military power. The
success of the nonviolent independence movement buttressed the view that
India did not have to raise a strong military to develop effective means of
international influence.
Though early Indian nationalists such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal
Krishna Gokhale saw military service as a means to secure home rule;
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the two Indian leaders with the
greatest influence on the direction of independent India, saw military spend-
ing as a burden imposed by the British in defense of their empire. In 1938
Nehru wrote that India did not face any significant military challenge; the
only military role he saw for the Indian Army was in suppressing the tribes
of the North-West Frontier Province, who were, in any case, too primitive
in his view to fight a modern military outside the tribal areas.2 In general,
Nehru agreed with Gandhi that the use of force in political life was inappro-
priate. The mainstream in the Indian independence struggle was committed
to nonviolent strategies. Nehru, in particular, believed that high principles
trumped the use of force as an instrument of Indian foreign policy. This
thinking was in sharp contrast to that of Nehru’s greatest political rival, Sub-
has Chandra Bose, who had a very different view about the use of force as an
instrument of politics. Bose turned to the Germans and Japanese to support
his Indian National Army that fought the British during World War II. Had
Bose survived the war (he was killed in a 1945 plane crash), India’s history
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4 / restraint and affluence
would have been very different. There were others who remained in the Con-
gress but expressed strong interest in strategic and military matters, most
exceptionally, K. M. Panikkar, the eminent diplomat-scholar, who wrote
an important treatise on India’s new security situation, especially regarding
China and the Indian Ocean.3
Despite the ideological preference, the new government did use force
repeatedly in the early years. The Indian Army put up a rearguard action to
defend Kashmir in 1948–49. The First Kashmir War remains one of India’s
most intense conflicts; the Indian Army won more Param Vir Chakra med-
als, the highest military honor in India, in that war than in any other conflict
since. Earlier the Indian Army had contributed units to the binational Pun-
jab Boundary Force deployed along the India-Pakistan border in the Punjab.
The campaign was unable to stop the ethnic carnage that accompanied par-
tition, and it went down in history as an early example of a catastrophically
failed peacekeeping force.
The army deployed at home on three other occasions. In 1948 Nehru
ordered the Indian Army to annex the princely states of Hyderabad and Jun-
agadh. In 1955 he asked the Indian Army to conduct a counterinsurgency
campaign against the rebel Naga tribesmen in Northeast India, a campaign
that has since haunted the region. In 1961 he pushed for the military libera-
tion of Goa from continued Portuguese colonization.
Civil-Military Relations
India’s nationalist leaders preserved much of the colonial state and its insti-
tutions, including the armed forces, police, and civilian bureaucracy. They
sought to maintain continuity despite imperfections and contradictions in
how the colonial institutions served a new democracy. With respect to the
armed forces, the new government allowed continuity within the institution
but brought strong political and, in time, bureaucratic supervision. The role
of the armed forces in the new nation was limited sharply, control over the
armed forces was lodged in the civilian cabinet, and after independence the
status of the army was reduced by making the uniformed heads of the navy
and air force “commanders in chief.” Then in 1955 all three positions of
commander in chief were abolished, and the chiefs assumed leadership of
their respective staffs.
Continuity in military institutions also meant that the Indian Army
remained caste- and ethnolinguistic-based in contradiction to the egalitar-
ian principles of the Indian Constitution. It also meant that the Indian offi-
cer corps preserved the tenets of British military professionalism, which,
especially since the interwar period, emphasized technology-driven doctrinal
Page 5
restraint and affluence / 5
innovation. The British inventions of tank warfare and air power revolution-
ized war. Similarly, India’s officer corps sought the best technology avail-
able, which in the early decades of independence meant importing from
the United Kingdom. In keeping with Western traditions, Indian military
officers prioritized security objectives and, unlike Pakistan, avoided involve-
ment in domestic politics.
A three-tiered structure from the colonial period continued to be used in
higher defense policymaking. The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs
(CCPA) was the foremost national security authority. The CCPA comprised
all senior ministers of the prime minister’s cabinet and was responsible for
policymaking on a variety of subjects including foreign affairs and defense.
The next tier below the CCPA, the Defence Planning Committee (DPC)—
previously the Defence Minister Committee—consisted of the cabinet secre-
tary; the prime minister’s special secretary; the secretaries of finance, external
affairs, planning, defense, defense production, and defense research and devel-
opment; and the three service chiefs. The Chief of Staff Committee (CSC) was
the military component of the third tier. The other half was the Ministry of
Defence’s (MoD) Defence Coordination and Implementation Committee
(DCIC) chaired by the defence secretary. The DCIC coordinated defense pro-
duction, defense research and development, finances, and the requirements
of the services.4 A version of this arrangement continues to this day.
Despite production, release, and updating of official documents to facili-
tate the acquisition process (the Defence Procurement Manual and Defence
Procurement Procedure), the system continues to be plagued by fundamen-
tal structural problems. The Ministry of Finance, which has its own defense
wing, has the authority to intervene in specific spending decisions of the
Ministry of Defence, often with an eye toward limiting costs. One of the
key unresolved problems in the acquisition process, which is almost entirely
about importing weapons from advanced industrial societies (the West and
the Soviet Union), is an unrealistic and ambiguous policy of offsets (where
foreign companies, as part of their bids, commit to source a percentage of
the contract in India). However, any leader or bureaucrat advocating lower
offsets becomes vulnerable to charges of corruption. India simply lacks civil-
ian expertise in military matters. Few politicians are interested in defense
until forced by events. The bureaucracy that functions as the secretariat for
the political leaders comprises generalists with little practical knowledge
of military matters, but this group lobbies powerfully to preserve its posi-
tion against military encroachment. Even the Ministry of External Affairs,
with the greatest institutional capacity for international relations, has very
few people with sound knowledge of military matters. Although the armed
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6 / restraint and affluence
services are highly professional and have the necessary expertise, they remain
excluded from the high table.
A Fresh Start on Strategy
In military planning, the Indian government initially retained most of the
defense plan proposed by Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck, the last Brit-
ish commander in chief of the Indian Army. The plan envisaged a regular
army of 200,000 backed by reserve and territorial forces, a twenty-squadron
air force, and a naval task force with two aircraft carriers. However, the new
strategic reality, the main threat coming overland from Pakistan, intruded
once the Kashmir War started, and the Indian government reduced its ambi-
tious plans for the air force and the navy.
To make a fresh start on military and defense affairs, Nehru hired British
scientist and Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. M. S. Blackett to advise him
on how the Indian state could leverage science for defense.5 Blackett had been
at the center of the Allied war effort. He was privy to Ultra codebreaking, the
development of nuclear weapons, and other major military technology pro-
grams. In 1946 the United States gave him the Medal of Honor for his service
during the war, and in 1948 he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his pre-
war work. Blackett’s 1948 report went beyond the role of science in military
affairs to address both India’s strategic position and its military spending.
It recommended that India limit its military ambitions and pursue a policy
of nonalignment with both superpowers to escape a potentially debilitating
arms race. He proposed that military spending should not exceed 2 percent
of Indian GDP. Blackett also argued against India’s acquisition of nuclear
and chemical weapons. Instead, he emphasized India’s need to develop an
industrial and technological base.
Blackett’s report resonated in the Indian government and especially with
Nehru, a secular modernist who believed entirely in the ability of science to
deliver not only economic progress but also social change. He called India’s
first large dam project, the Bhakra Nangal in Punjab, “a temple of moder-
nity.” The Indian government shifted spending priorities and pushed infra-
structure for technology development over military readiness. Nehru charged
a number of scientists to develop institutions to alter the defense landscape
in India. The Cambridge-educated physicist Homi Bhabha was the father
of India’s nuclear program, and a close friend of Nehru’s. Bhabha’s home
was one of the few places Nehru visited regularly. Daulat Singh Kothari, a
Blackett protégé, became the head of the Defence Science Organisation, the
precursor to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
While Indian defense research gathered momentum, India did make some
procurement decisions. In the 1950s the Indian Air Force (IAF) ordered
Canberra bombers and transport aircraft. The Indian Army’s purchase of
jeeps precipitated India’s first major defense corruption scandal in 1955.
British debt, held by the Indian government from the colonial period, paid
for the purchases. India also struck its first nuclear deal, buying a nuclear
reactor from Canada.
On the conventional front, Indian capacity declined. Through the 1950s
defense budgets fell below what they had been under the British and were
less than those of other countries such as Pakistan and China as well as those
of the United States and the Soviet Union.6 At this time, the Indian Army
was clamoring for greater preparation against the Chinese, especially as the
Indian government had adopted a dangerous forward policy of setting up
small, unsupported positions in the disputed territory to serve as a tripwire
for a general war that New Delhi believed China did not want. Nehru worked
through close confidant V. K. Krishna Menon, the defense minister, to over-
rule military objections to the forward policy. Menon’s promotion of officers
who supported the forward policy led to India’s first civil-military crisis in
1958 when army chief General K. S. Thimayya resigned in protest. Nehru
persuaded him to stay, but was severely weakened thereafter. In contrast, B.
M. Kaul, one of Nehru’s and Menon’s handpicked generals, made a spec-
tacular rise to chief of general staff in New Delhi. His relentless push for
a forward policy against the better judgment of his colleagues in the army
brought the charge by Neville Maxwell, author of the definitive book on
India’s 1962 defeat, that he had led a putsch in the army headquarters.7
The forward policy angered the Chinese; they were further upset in 1959
when the Dalai Lama was granted asylum in India after the Chinese had
crushed the Tibetan uprising. In October 1962, after three years of Sino-
Indian confrontation, the better-prepared People’s Liberation Army routed
the Indian Army. China retained all of the disputed territory it claimed in the
northwest (including a sizable chunk of Kashmir); but more shockingly, it
invaded and occupied most of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA—later
renamed Arunachal Pradesh). The Henderson Brooks Report, which was pre-
pared in the aftermath of the defeat and remains secret even today, reported
that Kaul’s general staff conducted the war from New Delhi, ordering thou-
sand-yard movements when local commanders reported their inability to
gain and hold ground.8 The official history of this war remains unpublished

NEW DELHI: After the arrest of 26/11 handler Abu Jundal, India is on the verge of another success in Saudi Arabia having convinced the authorities there to deport Bihar engineer Fasih Mahmood, accused of carrying out terror strikes in India and recruiting youths for terror-related activities.

Highly placed sources in the government said India issued an identity certificate to the Saudi authorities for Fasih last week after Pakistani agencies too laid claim by stating that Fasih had a valid Pakistani passport. Pakistani agencies had made a similar claim for Jundal.

Sources said US pressure helped in swinging the case in India's favour.

Another suspect to be deported with Fasih

Saudi authorities said they had the option of ignoring the identity certificate issued by India through the ministry of external affairs for terror suspect Fasih Mahmood to counter Pakistan's claim that he was a Pakistani national. Sources said that US pressure helped swing the case in India's favour. In fact, it was Washington that had worked on the Saudis to get Fasih detained in the first place.

It is also learnt that the Saudis have agreed to deport another Indian terror suspect along with Fasih, but his identity has not been confirmed yet. Indian authorities suspect Fasih is linked with Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, leaders of LeT proxy Indian Mujahideen (IM).

Sources say the two absconding terrorists won Fasih over when he was studying engineering in Karnataka. The engineer from Bihar's Darbhanga district has since tried to find new recruits for LeT plots. A CBI team is likely to be sent to Riyadh to bring him back.

Sources said they had to face stiff opposition from Pakistani agencies bent on proving that Fasih was a Pakistani national. He was even said to have a passport issued from Lahore. "Fasih was obviously in regular touch with agencies in Pakistan which tried to protect him," said a source. Pakistani agencies apparently wanted Fasih to be either released or sent to Pakistan.

Indian agencies said his interrogation will be crucial because as a prime recruiter for terrorist activities in India he has knowledge of several sleeper modules operating across the country. "Keeping that in mind he is no less a catch than Jundal," added the official.

According to the Interpol Red Corner Notice issued for Fasih, his name surfaced in the Pune's German Bakery blast case followed by the Chinnaswamy Stadium blast in Bangalore. The notice says that he has been a member of Indian Mujahideen since 2003. He is alleged to have been involved in the 2010 Jama Masjid blast and shootout cases.

Syed Zabiuddin Jundal is now being questioned by Indian investigating agencies. He is one of the key people who planned and executed the 26/11 attack. But his is a story that starts from rural Maharashtra where people still remember him as a hard-working, soft-spoken boy. NDTV travels to Beed to know Jundal's story.

NEW DELHI: Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal has told his interrogators that Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives are trained in 'internet activities' and the outfit has a dedicated band of "trained and educated" boys who look after the entire gamut of online activities like sending emails, maintaining websites and using different servers in a way to show the IP addresses in the US and other western countries.

Indian agencies were aware of these facts through intelligence sources and interrogation of small-time operatives but this has been corroborated now.

Jundal also told investigators that all Lashkar recruits had to undergo a 10-12 hour exercise daily which included religious training, IED making, handling small and heavy weapons and use of communication devices.

LeT, intelligence sources said, had professionals who took classes in the use of software and internet, besides people from ISI and Pakistan army who taught use of weapons like AK series rifles, hand grenades, rockets, pistols, mortars, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, anti-aircraft guns, remote control devices, explosive devices and sophisticated communication systems.

"The new recruits, several of them well educated, join these training programmes for several days. Their day starts early in the morning with religious prayers, listening to lectures, exercising, studying about weapons and how to make IEDs and later they are asked to use them. If the trainers find that a particular recruit is not concentrating, he is removed from the training programme," a source said.

Jundal has also given information about Lashkar training camps running all over Pakistan. Sources said Jundal had given names of some trainers as well.

Jundal was questioned by new Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar at the Special Cell office on Sunday afternoon. Delhi Police and IB have extracted information from Jundal about operatives in India, which officials refused to share saying 'operations were going on'.

If sources are to be believed, Jundal has also given some helpful inputs to agencies about the IISC attack in 2005 and Rampur attack in January 2008. The cops are also planning to confront him with Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin, who are in jail for the Rampur attack.

Jundal has already provided information about several ISI officers and their numbers to the agencies, apart from change of operational command base of Lashkar from Muzzafarabad to Dulai in Pakistan. In the 26/11 case, Jundal has reportedly given some new inputs about the control room, planning and execution, through which Indian agencies would be able to file a new charge sheet on Pakistan's role in the attack.

New Delhi: Abu Jundal has reportedly told interrogators that after 26/11, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had shortlisted the Nashik Police Academy in Maharashtra as a terror target. The plan was to emulate the attack on the police training academy in Lahore in 2009 - terrorists entered the school with grenades and rockets; at least 10 people were killed over nearly eight hours as Pakistani officials fought back.
...

The Secret Plot to Blame India
Jundal's arrest exposes Pak's agenda of turning 26/11 into an Indian conspiracy

I think Samjauta blasts was the turning point where ISI saw how some Indians who are powerful can blame other Indians whom they hate and go to any extent.

It was the height of the Indian armed forces' mobilisation against Pakistan during Operation Parakram after the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament. With military on both sides in confrontation mode, Indian satellites picked up a concentration of Pakistani armour across the
Barmer border in Rajasthan.

Since the land across Barmer is marshy and not ideal for tanks, New Delhi was perturbed - Pakistan's armour thrust was expected across the Jaisalmer sector, not Barmer. Rather than take chances, the Indian intelligence agencies were asked to confirm whether there was a tank formation across the Barmer sector.

Nawab, an opium smuggler, was sent by the intelligence services across the border from Chotan near Barmer to confirm the satellite report. While New Delhi desperately needed information, Nawab was eyeing a shipment of opium from nearby Umerkot - a town in Sindh - as a reward for confirming the satellite imagery.

Within a day, Nawab came back to Barmer and proudly told his handler that he had touched the tank formation with his own hands and found them to be fakes made out of cardboard. The message was relayed back to Raisina Hill that 'all was quiet on the western front'.

Call them Nawab, Ramzana, Kirpal or Surjeet Singh - the man who crossed Wagah on June 29 after spending 30 years and six months in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail on charges of spying for India - the world of trans-border couriers is integral to espionage in the subcontinent.

After coming back, Surjeet Singh claimed that he was indeed spying for India's premier intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). He now intends to move the courts in India to be compensated by the government for the 30 years he lost in, what he calls, the service of the nation. Without any existing official record, there is no way to verify Surjeet's claims.

Ajit Doval, former director, Intelligence Bureau, said: "There is nothing against Surjeet that indicates that the man was indulging in espionage as alleged by Pakistan's agencies."

A life of danger
However, cross-border couriers traditionally play a crucial role in collection of information in the subcontinent.

Such couriers, quite like Surjeet's claims, are part of the human intelligence network who add value to the information collected through either electronic or satellite means.

With the India-Pak border from Gujarat to Jammu and Kashmir almost completely fenced and huge leaps made in various surveillance technologies, cross-border couriers, though they still exist, are a dying breed.

When border fencing is in place, the life of a trans-border courier is more dangerous than playing Russian roulette. Guards on both the sides of the border know when the gate is opened and who goes through it.

Thus, the courier has to be a double agent who supplies information on India across border to the Pakistan Rangers and then links up with another courier who in turn introduces him to a source for further information.

These couriers act only as agents of intelligence agencies and are not paid employees. The information collected by them is low-grade and is often of low value.

For instance, they might pick up movement of tank trailers or aircraft, or a sharp dip in purchase of vegetables or meat by a particular enemy formation near the border to indicate troop movement. For this service, couriers either get cash rewards or are quietly allowed free passage of smuggled goods.

Evolving the game
With the advent of technology, those days are long gone when Indian agents or moles would be injected across the border after circumcising them and giving them false identities.

These agents would later write letters conveying personal welfare on one side of the page and information with secret ink on the other. These would be posted to a pre-determined address in Dubai or other parts of the Gulf for pick-ups.

Today, the spying game has become far more sophisticated and even sending intelligence reports from missions through the diplomatic bags has become outdated with TV news channels beaming live information from other countries round the clock.

Indian spy tradecraft is actually quite evolved since it has been practiced assiduously from times of Chanakya during the Mauryan empire. The R&AW, for instance, recruits around 600-700 personnel each year with executive cadre being picked up from some 36 Group A government services.

There are some 13 cadres within the R&AW like technical, telecommunications and language, which are tasked to defend India's national security and collect denied information for policy formulation against an adversary.

Besides, the executive cadre is hired from identified group A services on the basis of examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and inducted into R&AW Allied Services (RAS).

The on-campus recruitment has been done away with this year as this route was often used by officers in the past to promote their own kith and kin.

The R&AW officers and personnel are posted in Indian missions abroad under official cover like other countries and are tasked to collect information and build contacts by their parent organisations.

The information collected is then sent through secure networks and analysed by experts before being passed on to the consumers.

RAW's elder sister Intelligence Bureau, which is in charge of India's internal security with personnel posted abroad, is largely officered by civil servants from Indian Police Services even though it has an in-house cadre and training.

The IB cadre is recruited through ministry of home affairs with personnel going up the ladder from constables, assistant central intelligence officer to deputy CIO to assistant director and thereon.

Trained in in-house institute in Lutyen's Delhi, the IB personnel are spread all over India through subsidiary IB units and also man posts on the border collecting intelligence that has a bearing on internal security.

Both R&AW and IB have operational wings which are mandated for special missions or objectives in pursuit of national policies.

Apart from the big two, the Military Intelligence has a mandate within 25 kilometer across the Indian borders and even Border Security Force operates on the borders.

Sometimes in fact, all the Indian agencies on the border depend on one Nawab or Ramzana or Kirpal to do the work on the basis of high deniability and the adversary also does the same. But the Indian spy world is much bigger than just running trans-border couriers.

It has a history of stellar operations and operators from the days of legendary IB director BN Mullick and R&AW chiefs like RN Kao and K Shankaran Nair.

Then there are likes of Ajit Doval, who is said to have walked into Pakistani nuclear establishment at Kahuta during his six-year long posting in Islamabad in the 1980s and was inside the Golden Temple during Operation Black Thunder in 1988 at the height of the Sikh-separatist movement in Punjab.

Awarded the Kirti Chakra, a military decoration, for a still-classified operation, Doval was later instrumental in blunting the edge of Kashmiri separatists during his posting in London.

His able comrade in IB operations wing and during Punjab militancy days was exceptional Nehchal Sandhu.

He at present heads the IB and is a counter-terror expert, planner and executor par excellence and a walking encyclopedia on Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Islamist terrorist groups.

The R&AW has had its own share of successes like the Bangladesh War, accession of Sikkim and keeping a watch on the enemies of friendly leaders in the subcontinent.

The present R&AW chief Sanjiv Tripathi has had his own share of success in help forging the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Agreement between Bangladesh and Hill Tracts tribals.

Then there are likes of Ajit Doval, who is said to have walked into Pakistani nuclear establishment at Kahuta during his six-year long posting in Islamabad in the 1980s

Awarded the Kirti Chakra, a military decoration, for a still-classified operation, Doval was later instrumental in blunting the edge of Kashmiri separatists during his posting in London.

How close is the life of a real spy to that portrayed in popular fiction or films?
The interaction between fact and fiction has been more interesting than has been realised.

For instance, about half the reason for setting up MI5 and MI6 before World War I was that spy novelists were so successful that they persuaded the public and the media that Britain was being overrun by German spies!

Besides, intelligence is the only profession in the world where a fictional character is at least 100 times better known than anybody who works or has worked in the field: a great majority of the world’s population has seen James Bond films.

In my book, there is a picture of MI5’s first double agent, Christopher Draper, flying under a London bridge — even James Bond never did that. This man, by working as a double agent in Germany during WW II — that is, by working for German intelligence while actually working for MI5 — achieved something crucial: he discovered the addresses which were being used by German intelligence in their dealings with their foreign agents. It was with that information that MI5 began to construct the most successful system of deception in the history of warfare: the double cross system.

Yes.

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There has been a particular growing fear of a "China Threat" within Indian government and strategist circles over the past decade, with many feeling Beijing is engaging in encirclement and containment strategies in a persistent attempt to tie India down to the Indian subcontinent. Responding to this perceived threat, New Delhi has gradually been undertaking a combination of internal balancing, by means of increasing its military capabilities on both land and at sea, and external balancing, via military cooperation with states in East and Southeast Asia.

Indian internal balancing has taken various forms and has been reflected in the increasing defense budget which was announced as US$41 billion for 2012-13, a 17% increase on the previous year.

Firstly, this has helped to fund an ongoing military modernization program with the recent deal for 126 French Rafale fighters to be supplied by Dassault over the coming decade in conjunction with over 200 fifth-generation fighter aircraft to be developed in cooperation with Russia by 2017.

Secondly, India has been strengthening its defenses along its disputed border regions with China; 100,000 additional troops were stationed along the Line of Actual Control in 2011, along with the deployment of the 300-kilometer range BrahMos cruise missile along the eastern border region. These deployments have been complemented by increasing infrastructural developments including new roads and the construction and upgrading of assorted air bases across the regions.

Finally, and most significantly, India has been bolstering its nuclear capabilities with its "flawless" test of the Agni-V missile, which is able to carry a nuclear warhead and with a 5,000-kilometer range can strike a majority of major Chinese cities along its eastern seaboard.

In addition to military modernization on land, New Delhi has been developing its naval capabilities with naval commanders taking a visible turn in the direction of the teachings of Alfred T Mahan and his sea-based geopolitical philosophy, with ambitious future plans for a fully fledged and highly capable blue water navy able to protect coastal waters, vital sea lanes of communication and project power deep into the Indian and surrounding oceans.

Naval modernization has included the establishment of two new deep-sea naval port facilities at Kawar on the southwest coast and near Viskhapatnam as part of the Eastern Naval Command. In tandem with the establishment of the Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC) at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, the Indian Navy is able to project power across the Bay of Bengal and into the Strait of Malacca, intensifying China's "Malacca Dilemma".

These developments have been complemented by the increasing purchases and indigenous development of naval hardware, including the nuclear submarine INS Chakra on a 10-year lease form Russia and the locally developed INS Airhant. Additionally, the former Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya, is to be commissioned into service of the Indian Navy by December 2012. These recent enlargements will make up part of a planned 160-vessel fleet including three aircraft carrier groups by the mid 2020s, outlined by Indian Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

Internal balancing is taking considerable shape with increasing hardware purchases and consistent upgrading of military capabilities along the border with China and also in the naval realm, where China is undergoing rapid expansion, increasing competition in and around the Indian Ocean. This balancing has also taken considerable shape in terms of external balancing and cooperation with other states in the region.

Military cooperation with other states extends across the realms of both land and sea. On land, New Delhi has become increasingly invested in its relations with Afghanistan, establishing a Strategic Partnership in October 2011, eyeing a greater role following the planned 2014 withdrawal of coalition forces.

With Tajikistan, India has increased its interaction with Tajik security forces and has provided funding for the upgrading of the Farkhor and Ayni air bases succeeding construction of a military hospital and logistics depot. Ayni air base is of particular significance with reports that Tajikistan, India and Russia are in talks over the joint use of the base and that an Indian air force currently has Mi-17 helicopters and has leased Russian fighter jets stationed at the base.

New Delhi has also increased cooperation with Mongolia, signing an agreement on Defense Cooperation in 2001, positioning radar systems able to monitor Chinese missile tests, holding bilateral military exercises since 2004 and having a quiet discussion over basing rights.

Indian relations with Tajikistan and Afghanistan in particular also have the potential to undermine China's use of Pakistan as a proxy state against India in an attempt to split its focus along two fronts. With greater influence in Afghanistan, New Delhi can potentially undercut Pakistani influence in a country which Islamabad has traditionally considered as within its strategic sphere of influence.

Extending into the maritime realm, further cooperation and encirclement can be observed as India has developed ties with some historically contentious neighbors of the Chinese. First of all, Indo-Singapore relations have flourished in recent years with their Defense Cooperation agreement of 2003 upgrading ties and extending bilateral military exercises into all three wings of the armed forces, and most significantly the SIMBEX naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea.

Relations with Singapore have particular geopolitical importance as Singapore is at the western approaches to the South China Sea and eastern approaches to the Strait of Malacca, both vital sea lanes of communication for India and China. Close security relations between New Delhi and Singapore allow for strong power projection by the Indian navy into the South China Sea, an area of particular sensitivity to China with its claims of sovereignty over the sea; they also allow for India to threaten the closure of the Strait of Malacca, exacerbating Beijing's "Malacca Dilemma".

Next stop along India's maritime encirclement of China is Vietnam, with New Delhi and Hanoi sharing a history of conflict with China. Strong ties exist dating back to their 1994 defense agreement and include military training and bilateral naval exercises carried out in the South China Sea which have drawn much criticism from Beijing, not helped by the talk of India providing BrahMos missiles to Vietnam, presenting an undeniable deterrent to Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

Hanoi has also recently granted the Indian Navy basing rights at the Nha Trang port, providing a foothold in the South China Sea and intensifying Chinese fears, demonstrated by the July 22, 2011, confrontation of INS Airavat when operating off the Vietnamese coast.

Indo-Japanese security relations provide a real security dilemma for China, as close ties between these two historically contentious neighbors pose the possibility of a pincer movement by two great powers and complete the encirclement of China by land and sea.

Ties between India and Japan are continuously growing and expanding further into the security field with the MALABAR naval exercises. These relations and encirclement of China is further complemented by expanding ties with Japan's old ally and China's greatest threat, the United States. While ties between New Delhi and Washington remain fairly low key, partially due to India's non-alignment strategy, they hold the greatest potential for containment of China. Both sides hold their relations in high esteem, with President Barack Obama proclaiming that their relationship "will be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century".

Despite the constant rhetoric emanating from India proclaiming it has no intention of encirclement or containment of its communist neighbor, its actions, as so often found in international relations, speak much louder volumes about its intentions and reveal a great concern over China's rise to Great Power status.

However, these concerns may be well placed as China has been undertaking many actions which can easily be interpreted as an effort to encircle India and contain its rise, tying it down to the Indian subcontinent. So depending on which angle one observes the situation from, either side can be construed to be the aggressor or just acting in a defensive manner.

If they knew he was photo copying secret stuff that he shouldnt have in first place then he should have been suspended pending investigation , he was extensively trailed and finally they let him go.

... daily internecine turf wars that are being fought between India’s multiple intelligence agencies in New Delhi and abroad. Part of the problem is the proliferation of intelligence agencies with overlapping charters. While RAW was created out of the IB in 1968 to gather external intelligence, the internal intelligence agency has managed to claw its way into creating stations abroad.

The simplest benefit is.. it lets you identify many more hidding under the rag. In older times it also helped in breaking ciphered communication.

Its never about catching one man. as soon as a spy is identified his/her every action is a piece of vital information for the vitim nation.

The simplest benefit is.. it lets you identify many more hidding under the rag. In older times it also helped in breaking ciphered communication.

The government came close to sacking top intelligence officials soon after 26/11 because of serious lapses that led to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, senior officials have told HT. Disclosures made by 26/11 handler Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, have only confirmed the assessment that IB
and R&AW both failed in analysing, disseminating and acting upon intelligence that was fairly specific.

The unprecedented step of fixing bureaucratic accountability wasn’t taken only because the chiefs of the internal and the external agencies were retiring soon after, an official revealed. The Intelligence Bureau chief was to retire December-end, a month after the attacks. The Research and Analysis Wing chief’s tenure was to end January 2009.

“The government wanted to send a similar message through the intelligence community as it did in political circles by removing home minister Shivraj Patil and Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh,” the official said.

Confirming intelligence failure, Jundal has told his interrogators that the SIM cards used by the 10 terrorists in Mumbai were sent to Pakistan in advance. The SIMs were sent to PoK through Laskhar-e-Taiba operatives by the Jammu and Kashmir Police as part of a covert operation aimed at infiltrating the terror outfit’s ranks.

In a costly slip-up, the IB didn't monitor the numbers though it received the details, including a list of numbers, five days before the attacks.

If Jundal and the others present in a 'control room' in Karachi were able to coordinate the finer details of the 26/11 strike, it was because the 10 terrorists were armed with Indian mobile numbers well before they set sail for Mumbai.

The details of the SIM cards were shared with the IB through a note marked 'secret'. Thirty-five SIM cards were given to Lashkar operatives, the note said.

It underscored the need for the numbers to be monitored, saying, "These numbers are likely to emerge in other parts of the country. These numbers need to be monitored…."

The numbers, however, were not put under surveillance by the intelligence agencies. According to the dossier shared with Pakistan by the ministry of external affairs, Ajmal Kasab — the lone terrorist taken alive during the attacks — and his nine accomplices were four nautical miles (7.4km) from Mumbai on 26/11 at 4pm and got off a dingy in Colaba's Badhwar Park, a little after 8pm.

It was only after midnight - when the carnage was well underway -- that the security and intelligence apparatus realised that some of the numbers being used by the terrorists were on the list shared by the J&K Police.

Similarly, while R&AW had specific inputs that Mumbai hotels would be targeted and sea route used, the information was not disseminated to the officials concerned. The task of plugging the holes was begun by P Chidambaram when he took over as the home minister from Patil.