Written by Vappala Balachandran
Jan 23, 2016,
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-kao-files/
Jan 23, 2016,
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-kao-files/
Government must publish the official chronicle of the role of intelligence before and during the 1971 war that was prepared under R.N. Kao.
Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar, former director general of military operations, had made a strong plea in 2011 to declassify the records of our 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. One year earlier, the late S.N. Prasad, the doyen of our military historians, had criticised our bureaucracy for standing in the way of prompt publication of our war histories. Since then, The India-Pakistan War of 1971: A History, edited by the late Prasad, has been released in 2015 by a Delhi think-tank with the tag: “Sponsored by the ministry of defence”. Is this our official 1971 war history?
The major lacuna in this book is that it has had no access to intelligence records.
It is a mere chronicle of military operations. Srinath Raghavan’s 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh gives a better account of the role of intelligence in this war. No history of a major war is complete without an official account of how intelligence helped. The World War II history compiled by the British government has five volumes describing their intelligence services’ contributions. We have waged four wars with Pakistan and one with China. Of these, the 1971 war was the most decisive.
Other books about 1971 give only fragmented pictures of our operations. Some are hagiographies. Brigadier Behram Panthaki’s biography of his boss, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 war, only casually refers to the role of intelligence. One month after the war, then PM Indira Gandhi handed over a RAW file to Manekshaw that documented transgressions by a handful of senior Indian army officers in East Pakistan. He took prompt action. This would give the wrong impression that the RAW acted only as a vigilance department during the war.
Our intelligence was active in East Pakistan well before 1971 and much before our composite intelligence structure was divided into separate internal and external organisations in 1968. The late R.N. Kao had led these silent operations. Our armed forces came into active mode only after the Pakistan army’s March 25, 1971 crackdown. In fact, our army took advantage of the ground conditions created by our intelligence, which facilitated their operations during the war. Their important role was mentioned in several books, including the memoirs of the late P.N. Dhar, the PM’s advisor and later principal secretary. He mentioned that Kao was trusted by all East Pakistan leaders, just as they had full faith in Gandhi.
Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar, former director general of military operations, had made a strong plea in 2011 to declassify the records of our 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. One year earlier, the late S.N. Prasad, the doyen of our military historians, had criticised our bureaucracy for standing in the way of prompt publication of our war histories. Since then, The India-Pakistan War of 1971: A History, edited by the late Prasad, has been released in 2015 by a Delhi think-tank with the tag: “Sponsored by the ministry of defence”. Is this our official 1971 war history? The major lacuna in this book is that it has had no access to intelligence records.
It is a mere chronicle of military operations. Srinath Raghavan’s 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh gives a better account of the role of intelligence in this war. No history of a major war is complete without an official account of how intelligence helped. The World War II history compiled by the British government has five volumes describing their intelligence services’ contributions. We have waged four wars with Pakistan and one with China. Of these, the 1971 war was the most decisive.
Other books about 1971 give only fragmented pictures of our operations. Some are hagiographies. Brigadier Behram Panthaki’s biography of his boss, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 war, only casually refers to the role of intelligence. One month after the war, then PM Indira Gandhi handed over a RAW file to Manekshaw that documented transgressions by a handful of senior Indian army officers in East Pakistan. He took prompt action. This would give the wrong impression that the RAW acted only as a vigilance department during the war.
Our intelligence was active in East Pakistan well before 1971 and much before our composite intelligence structure was divided into separate internal and external organisations in 1968. The late R.N. Kao had led these silent operations. Our armed forces came into active mode only after the Pakistan army’s March 25, 1971 crackdown. In fact, our army took advantage of the ground conditions created by our intelligence, which facilitated their operations during the war. Their important role was mentioned in several books, including the memoirs of the late P.N. Dhar, the PM’s advisor and later principal secretary. He mentioned that Kao was trusted by all East Pakistan leaders, just as they had full faith in Gandhi.
