RAW facts

K Shankaran Nair who succeeded Rameshwarnath Kao, the founding father of RAW, as its chief has recently written a book “Inside IB and RAW: The Rolling Stones that Gathered Moss” narrating his experiences. Morarji Desai who became prime minister in 1977 was out to wreak havoc not only on the Gandhi family but also on the top civil servants and intelligence officers. The late PM's policies had a serious impact on intelligence collection and operations.

His hatred for the head of the premier intelligence organization can be seen from the excerpts of the conversation which appeared in the book Inside RAW by Asoka Raina.

M. Desai: I believe RAW was involved in the internal affairs of the country during emergency.

Nair: No Sir. That is not correct, all were external operations.

MD: But your activities were highly immoral, highly irregular.

Nair: These are RAW’s external operations, sir….

MD: This does not reduce the immorality – stop operations you are handling at present.

Nair: If we do that, sir, some of them might mean a loss of faith in our promises and in the credibility of the government.

MD: I do not care. Stop all operations and also reduce the RAW strength by 50%.

This resulted many an operations being aborted and operatives compromised. One such was “Tiger” Siddiqui of Bangladesh who felt betrayed. Mr. Nair is reported to have remarked that Morarji Desai was the greatest enemy of India’s national security. Pakistan certainly would have celebrated on that fateful day.

This act of Desai was nothing short of treason for which he ought to have been severely punished.