After the intelligence failure of being unable to predict the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Operation Gibraltar of 1965, the Indian polity felt the need to establish a separate organisation for gathering intelligence for military purposes. Kao was handpicked by Jawaharlal Nehru himself, who knew him well, from his years as Nehru’s Head of Personal Security. On his return from Ghana, he was made the first director of the newly formed Aviation Research Centre at Charbatia, Odisha, that chiefly concentrated on TECHINT collection. The Sino-Indian War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 caused the restructuring of the country’s intelligence apparatus, since real-time foreign intelligence had become a political necessity. The Intelligence Bureau of India (IB) was considered to have become something of a behemoth, and was bogged down by internal operations and politicisation.
In 1968, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had then also begun tightening her grip on the Congress party, bifurcated the Intelligence Bureau to form the Research and Analysis Wing. The IB would be involved in domestic intelligence gathering, while the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) was created as India’s primary external intelligence agency. Its mandate was to monitor the world in general and South Asia in particular. Kao was chosen as the head of the new organization, with a rank of Secretary (Research) in the Cabinet Secretariat, a post that all R&AW Chiefs occupy. As its founder-chief, Kao was given the task of building up R&AW from scratch. He spent the next nine years as the head of the organisation. He took over R&AW at a time when things were beginning to hot up in the subcontinent. His tenure, which began in 1968, lasted for nearly a decade and marked the closest association that an Indian prime minister has ever had with the country’s intelligence chief. He had unlimited access to Indira Gandhi. She reposed complete faith in him.
Merger of Sikkim
Kao can also largely be credited for merging Sikkim into India in 1975 as its 22nd state. It was he who predicted and identified the fact that the merger must be effected before other competing interests like China moved in. Delhi had publicly acknowledged the good work done by R&AW at that point. Some analysts say Kao also had a substantial role in arming Tamil guerrillas in the late seventies and eighties and played a pivotal role in Sri Lankan affairs, even though he was no longer the hands-on man.
Here we comes to conclude the story tomorrow we will read the final chapter of Kao’s life and achievements. Hope viewers are enjoying reading this. If yes then please share your feedback.
-Shikhar Swami