Raw : A History of India's Covert Operations

About the Book

The Research and Analysis Wing, India’s shadowy external intelligence agency, is one of the country’s least understood institutions—at least in part by design. Perhaps fittingly for a spy agency, there is very little information about R&AW in the public domain. What is this organisation, its structure, its role and vision? Why was it set up? Who are the people that run it?
Set up in 1968, as a reaction to India’s massive intelligence failure during the war with China, R&AW played a crucial role in the formation of Bangladesh. It has since carried out highly successful covert operations in Fiji, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and has countered and foiled Pakistani spy agency ISI’s machinations in the subcontinent. R&AW has operations in other parts of the globe too; it played an important role during the Iran–Iraq war, for instance.