In Its 50Th Year, The Research And Analysis Wing Is At The Centre Of A Massive Overhaul Of India’S Intelligence Apparatus
As he enters the last lap of his first term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is undertaking a quiet overhaul of the top echelons of India’s security establishment. In a series of moves that could change the character of governance, he is pack ing the security establishment with former and serving spymasters and generals.
The National Security Council Secretariat, a fief of former diplomats even when headed by former Intelligence Bureau chief M.K. Narayanan, is now packed with former and serving spymasters. Its budget has been upped 10 times from a paltry 33 crore in 2016-17 to 334 crore in 2017-18, and rules have been eased so as to make import of security equipment exempt from item-wise licence.
In a signalling gesture, the Sardar Patel Bhavan on Parliament Street has been allotted to the exclusive use of the NSC Secretariat. Other offices in the building—such as part of the cabinet secretariat, and the panchayati raj and statistics and programme implementation ministries—are moving out. In the new security regime, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, will be a virtual security czar with all security agencies and advisers reporting to him. He will be aided by four (earlier there was only one) deputy NSAs—most of them former spymasters—plus a military adviser.
Former R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna and Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R.N. Ravi, who is also the interlocutor for the Naga talks, have been made deputy NSAs. These posts were hitherto held by diplomats whenever the NSA was from the police. The other deputy NSA is Pankaj Saran, a former diplomat. Former Defence Intelligence Agency chief Lt Gen V.G. Khandare will be the new military adviser. With this, the JIC, which analyses intelligence data flowing from the R&AW, IB, Military Intelligence, Naval Intelligence and Air Intelligence, gets subsumed under the NSCS.
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