By Swati Singh
Although the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has raised serious questions about the purpose and efficacy of India’s intelligence community, the most important discussion is focused on the diplomatic and political aspects of the case. Although Indian leaders justify aggressive statements regarding Pakistan’s internal troubles, insinuating a new phase of intense covert warfare with reference to Pakistan’s support for anti-India militants, the statements raise questions about the role of the intelligence agencies in Indian foreign policymaking processes and the relationship between India’s intelligence community and its political class.
There is no systematic way to assess how R&AW ensures accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness due to a lack of parliamentary oversight and reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s office. This lack of data risks undermining public confidence within the agency, exacerbating existing bureaucratic rivalries, and masking the very fact that India’s political elites share an equal responsibility within the success or failure of external intelligence.
The Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav- Lieutinient Colonel Muhammad Habib Zahir case marks a continuity instead of change in how intelligence has been understood and treated in India. It is immaterial that Jadhav was truly an Indian spy or not. His military background and forged identity documents completely fit into the definition of an Indian spy according to Pakistan’s profile. The unspoken aspect, however, is, his image that is sketched among many Indians as of a capable covert operative fomenting violence in Pakistan. Modi’s statements on Balochistan, and therefore the alleged kidnapping of Zahir, make sure that this case entrenches old narratives publicly memory. The existence of such binary narratives is diagnostic of the failure to know and appreciate the larger purpose of intelligence as a tool of statecraft. Unlike other democracies, India has been shy to declassify intelligence dossiers, or maybe authorize a politician history of the R&AW. A former chief of R&AW in an interview stated: “We are fine if people talk about our failures. But we don’t want our successes to become public.” True, ventilation of covert successes which will have operational implications is very undesirable.
A rising power in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment like India urgently requires serious study of intelligence beyond operational matters. The argument that a classy conceptual understanding among the general public of the role of intelligence in foreign policymaking isn't essential for R&AW to work effectively overseas is erroneous. It overlooks the very fact that effective overseas operations require sound structural base reception. Few government officials aspirants in India want to hitch R&AW today. Most officers recruited via government officials exams have poor ranks, and intake from other departments raise problems with bureaucratic politics and inconsistency in training standards. The two primary steps towards strengthening this base and attracting high-quality recruits are a better understanding of intelligence in foreign policymaking and parliamentary accountability of India’s agencies.
Although Indian intelligence practitioners are blamed for being obsessively secretive, the political class is also equally culpable. Few politicians want classified files to become the topic of public scrutiny because they are worried about political legacies. What people believe these matters might not seem important in operational terms. However, declassifying historical documents for public consumption and accepting parliamentary oversight is critical to make sure that the functioning of the agency is optimized by those in government with the power and authority to try to do so, and equally, for the agency to stop itself from becoming a tool of abuse by the political leadership.
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