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| Top brass of RAW in a practical dilemma | | Insider VK Singh exposes secrets of high-profile agency | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, JUNE 30: Major General VK Singh, former officer of India's all-important intelligence agency, RAW, has created history by being the first person to have made public inner working of the agency. His account of the functioning of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) is quite explosive.
Major General Singh has made use of a potent instrument to detail RAW's lack of accountability and poor leadership. He has spilled the beans in his book titled India's External Intelligence: Secrets of Research & Analysis Wing.
No sooner did the contents of the book become subject matter for animated discussions in various circles than the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Cabinet Secretariat were set in motion--both departments anxious to put in place remedial measures. RAW is under the administrative control of the Cabinet Secretariat. And Cabinet Secretariat is one of the portfolios of the Prime Minister.
The top leadership of the Research and Analysis Wing is, according to knowledgeable sources, in a practical dilemma. After Major General VK Singh kept the RAW leadership in the dark till he threw light on the agency's inner working in his book, government sleuths said that discussions were underway on whether the Offical Secrets Act (OSA) should be used against him.
It was also gathered from official sources that the Cabinet Secretary, in his unpublished meeting with the present chief of RAW, Ashok Chaturvedi, discussed a set of measures to ensure that, in future, no opportunity was provided to any serving and retired oficials of the RAW to make public inner working of the agency. Major General VK Singh has, undoubtedly, confronted the government, particularly the Cabinet Secretariat, with a new challenge.
It was, apparently, in this context that Ashok Chaturvedi let it be known: "We are looking at the matter seriously and will take a decision shortly". RAW chief also clarified: "There is a code and propriety that former officers do not write on revealing what are official secrets".
Major General Singh's recently released book basically addresses three issues in the high-profile Research and Analysis Wing — lack of leadership, no accountability and political mishandling. The book vividly describes his stint in the agency between 2000-2004 when he looked after the technical intelligence wing, particularly events that unfolded during and after the Kargil war.
In his reckoning, India’s decision to hand over a tape to former Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in June 1999 containing a telephone conversation between then Army Chief, General Pervez Musharraf, and his Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz, was an intelligence "disaster". After the tapes were publicised, the Pakistani establishment got wind of the technology being used by Indian intelligence to tap their internal communication and within no time the leak was plugged, eventually leading to information drying up.
Major General Singh, in his book, also writes of the communication systems procured by the Special Protection Group (SPG) for the Prime Minister from an American firm in 2001 and how the RAW leadership failed to carry out due diligence. Writing on the defection of Rabinder Singh, a former RAW joint secretary to the United States in 2004, VK Singh blames the "lack of leadership at the top responsible for the major fiasco".
While insisting that he has done nothing wrong, Major General VK Singh told a news agency: "I know they (government) are thinking of using OSA (Official Secrets Act) but I have done nothing wrong". He also asserted that he had not revealed anything sensational and was well within his rights to pen what he believed was "standard information".
Major General Singh was quoted as emphasizing: "I have not written anything that is inimical to the interests of the country or passed on information to the enemy. I have not disclosed anything about our defence and nuclear secrets. Foreign firms who we contract to buy equipment know what our requirements are. It is all there in the tender documents."
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