INDIA’S INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ‘R.A.W’

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What is RAW and how it was started?

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) responsible for India’s internal intelligence used to handle
external intelligence as well but that was only till 1968. After the 1962 border war with China, Indian officials realized that there is a need for a separate external intelligence agency (this is because of the failure of IB in the border war with China). The failure of IB resulted in the establishment of a new external intelligence agency in the year 1968 named Research and Analysis Wing (RAW/R& AW). The main objective of RAW when
founded was to focus on China and Pakistan.

When founded, RAW was led by Rameshwar Nath Kao until his retirement which was in the year 1977. The experts and officers worked with Kao say that the credit goes to Kao for the initial success of RAW during 1971 India’s war with Pakistan and India’s secret assistance to the African National Congress’s anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.

How RAW functions?

The organization started with 250 people with a budget of US$400,000. As of now the personnel of RAW is in thousands but the budget allocated to RAW remains confidential.
RAW reports directly to the Prime Minister whereas the United States’ CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Britain’s MI6 (Military Intelligence 6) report to the Ministry of Defense. The chief of RAW is designated secretary (research) in the Cabinet Secretariat, which is part of the prime minister’s office. Some officers of RAW are members of a specialized service which is called Research and Analysis service. Few officers of RAW also work in the Indian Police Services.

10 Secret operations of RAW

1. Khalistan Movement
2. Operation Meghdoot
3. Operation Cactus
4. Operation Leech
5. Operation Chanakya
6. Snatch Operations with the Intelligence Bureau
7. Operation Smiling Buddha
8. Operation Kahuta
9. Liberation of Bangladesh
10. Black Tiger

Top undercover RAW agents
1. Ravinder Kaushik

2. Rabinder Singh
3. Amar Bhushan
4. Sarabjit Singh
5. R. N. Kao
6. General VK Singh
7. Ajit Doval

How to join RAW?

Generally RAW does not recruit candidates directly, they select candidates from other
departments such as Armed Forces, Intelligence Agencies, Police Services, Administrative
Services and the majority of the personnel are from the Intelligence Bureau. If anyone has an interest or thinking of joining RAW should keep in mind that it is secret service and you may not get any public credit which means no fame (there is a chance of getting fame once you are retired and been successful in your missions, but it’s not guaranteed).

Working for RAW doesn’t mean that you have to be a spy, there are other jobs too.

1. Recruitment of Director in RAW: Most of the personnel in this department are from
Indian Police Services (IPS), and other first grade services being armed forces,
intelligence agencies, etc.
2. Field Officer jobs: Real heroes of RAW recruited from police services, military
services work in real situations. Jobs under this category comprise Senior Field
Officer, Field Officer, Deputy Field Officer, Assistant Field Officer.
3. Analyst Level: Desk job, posts include Central Intelligence Officer, Junior Intelligence
Officer.
4. Experts in Various fields: Handwriting analyst, Computer hacker or any other expert
in a field which contributes to RAW
Anyone who wants to work for RAW, they must be a graduate (for respected posts).


To know more about RAW, you can refer the following books;
 India’s External Intelligence: Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing, written by
General VK Singh in the year 2007.
 The Kaoboys of R& AW: Down Memory Lane, by B. Raman in the year 2007.

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