Sir, do Indians read their own history?
we are the same stock after all
LOL.
Very well played, and thank you for reminding me: Iss hammam may hum sab..er...ek saath hain.
You are an exception, sir
I like to read your posts
but don't engage usually
as I find your views neutral and balanced mostly
I've been saying for some time, and nobody listens: Nilgiri is an Anglo-Saxon Conservative. I don't know why he enters social and political discussions relating to South Asia. It looks like somebody wearing a DJ at a village feast attended by lungi-clad yokels. His views are perfectly consistent with his present milieu, and seem incongruous to me - sometimes - in our local circumstances.
Disclaimer: I wear trousers and shorts, sometimes Aligarhis, seldom any other nether-wear.
Dada RAW was formed on September 21, 1968 by Rameshwar Nath Kao, A Kashmiri Pandit by birth. Immediately before the 1971 freedom struggle in Bangladesh. Needless to say, RAW was very active in Bangladesh in 1971.
Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
You may want to purchase or borrow the following title, it is quite a fascinating read,
Here's a review,
https://winnowed.blogspot.com/2013/03/book-review-kaoboys-of-r-down-memory.html
I was hoping nobody would cite this, but it was inevitable. Why I didn't want this to be cited was because like most of Raman's hagiography, as the reviewer himself pointed out, was just that, a hagiography, and considerably exaggerated the activities, the effectiveness and the role of R&AW. For instance, in the Bangladesh conflict, the liaison with the political leadership, after Mujib was arrested, and survivors of 'Searchlight' fled, was done by the MEA; the Home Ministry played a service role. The entire training of the Mukti Bahini was done by the Indian Army, in training areas on the border, some within Bangladesh itself. In contrast, the entire responsibility for interacting with the Naga militants and with the Mizos, most particularly the Mizos, was with ISI; from all accounts, the ISI took the decisions, if particular programmes had to be carried out - arms training, infantry tactical training, logistical support outside the Chittagong Hill Tracts - it was handed over to the regulars.
The following section is entirely based on hearsay; the sources include a former Cabinet Minister in the Government of India.
As for R&AW's role within Bangladesh, the Mukti Bahini rejected any intermediation; Tiger Siddiqi was a prime example, who allowed nobody to come in between him and the personnel of the Indian Army located across the border, to the extent that the top leadership of the Mukti Bahini thought of him on occasion a loose cannon. Shabeg Singh, then a young and active Major, was one of the few regular officers who moved across the border at will, working closely with the Bangladeshi cadres in that zone, with strict orders never to be found firing a weapon (whether he complied with this or not is left to hearsay, and his own account, which is that he played it by the book).
My question was rhetorical, and I am rueful that someone attentive and alert, such as you, picked up on it. The point I was trying to make, and that is now debatable, thanks to your direct response, is that R&AW were still trying to figure out what to do to gather intelligence abroad, amongst our hostile neighbours, when ISI was capable of giving it a Master Class.
...and it is just the faint, distant shoreline of an unexplored continent of possibility that is coming into view...so just you watch my venerable friend, just you watch.
