With his glasses and somber gray suit, Pawan Kumar Rai looks every bit the professional, senior Indian civil servant.
< p>His low-key, bureaucratic demeanor fits perfectly with the silent name of his employer: Research and Analysis Department.
Yet Mr Rai and his organization have found themselves in the spotlight this week following high-profile allegations. Justin Trudeau said India killed Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Trudeau's announcement, which sparked outrage in India, was followed by the swift expulsion of Mr. Rai, whom Canada identified as a local resident. station chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW or R&AW), the Indian equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
The furore has drawn rare attention to the intelligence agency serving the world's most populous country but far less known abroad despite its reputation in its region.
RAW was founded in 1968 under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the New Year . Delhi felt twice stymied by his neighbors. The Intelligence Bureau, India's internal security agency equivalent to MI5, failed to foresee either the humiliating border war with China in 1962 or Pakistan's invasion of disputed Kashmir in 1965.
Vappala Balachandran, a former senior RAW officer and special secretary to the government, said, “The 1962 Indochina War shook us badly because we could not really understand. We didn't have much insight into China's capabilities. India has realized that we need to have a professional foreign intelligence agency.”
RAW was founded by presidential order and must report directly to the Prime Minister of India. This means that, according to intelligence scholars, it does not receive the same attention from Parliament or Congress as MI6 or the CIA.
Its ranks have traditionally been swelled by Indian civil servants, many of whom, like and Mr. Rai, are former police officers. From the very beginning, the focus was on India's interior, primarily Pakistan and China.
“In the East and West, RAW operates everywhere, but our first priority is the neighborhood and the security of our neighborhood,” explained A.S. Dulat, former RAW chief
From the very beginning, there was debate about what kind of activities RAW should be allowed to do. He needed to be able to carry out «covert action», but it was decided that this would be limited to political action and influence, not assassination.
Some of the more hawkish Indian security officials disagreed with this, believing instead, that RAW should copy the Israeli Mossad and be able to commit murders.
Dr Walter Ladwig, an expert on South Asian security at King's College London, said: «There has always been this undercurrent, or at least one school of thought, that this should be the model for Indian intelligence.
» They should be able, as the Israelis supposedly are, to reach out and touch the bad guys wherever they are. It was a dream, but they didn't consider it their bread and butter.»
No killings
Former officials are adamant that murder was always ruled out. Mr Dulat said: “We are not in the business of killing. If something new has started, I don't know anything about it.”
Mr. Balachandran added: “We never do that. This goes against our philosophy. We are purely an intelligence agency. We gain favor with people and collect information through technical or human means. Killing has never been part of our culture.»
On the contrary, this wing has a reputation for a softer approach and more subtle tools.
«The traditional view is that they wield money as a tool of influence and perhaps sometimes blackmail, rather than a gun or a bomb,» Dr. Ladwig said.
This position is consistent with the broader Indian approach to combating enemies and insurgents,” said Dr Dheeraj Paramesha of the University of Hull, who has written a book on RAW.
“The first step is to try to make peace with the interested party, then if that doesn't work, the second step is to try to bribe them, and if that doesn't work, the third step is to try to separate them.
However, such a soft approach does not mean that the Indian state has always been against eliminating enemies, he said. Since the 1980s, there has been a feeling that Pakistan and its feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spies were so heavily involved in fomenting militancy in Kashmir and Punjab that «certain individuals needed to be eliminated.»
By building in the units they had already created, intelligence officers encouraged militants to kill other militants.
Dr Paramesha said: “We do not have Indian trained intelligence officers who are trained to be killers, but it would be wrong to assume , that the Indian intelligence agencies go beyond the practice of killing, since their method is to use one group against another group.”
Soon after its founding, RAW helped train and supply insurgents in what was then East Pakistan and also spied on the Pakistan Army in the run-up to the 1971 war that created Bangladesh. Since then, RAW has waged a decade-long battle with the ISI, which it accuses of supporting Islamist and Sikh militancy to weaken the Indian state.
Pakistan, in turn, accuses RAW of supporting separatists in its province of Baluchistan. Sri Lanka has also in the past accused RAW of training and arming Sri Lankan Tamil militants.
More recently, China's clashes with India at Galwan in the Himalayas meant that Beijing, rather than Islamabad, was now once again the primary focus of the RAW neighborhood.
Western discontent
Moving forward, however, the growth of diasporas in the West has also created another arena. Former RAW employees say the company has no interest in spying on Western governments, but is believed to be actively involved in intelligence gathering in both the Indian and Pakistani communities.
While Sikh militancy has been largely suppressed in northern India, especially Canada and to a lesser extent Britain are seen as a breeding ground for the Khalistan movement seeking the creation of a separate Sikh homeland.
Dr Ladwig said: » I think it's difficult for us, looking at it from the outside, to really understand how this Khalistan is such a hot spot. India has always considered the Canadians to be particularly soft on the Khalistani issue.»
Despite these occasional tensions, RAW, until this week, has traditionally prided itself on good relations with its host governments.
Mr Balachandran said his staff worked in embassies and consulates.
“There is nothing secret about this. In the West, we tell them about our problems and threats, and they help us. We do not want to enter into any confrontation. This is not our job at all.”
However, some analysts wonder whether Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, might favor a more muscular and assertive RAW. The agency's structure means it is difficult to see changes in policy, but there have been reports of increased budgets and promotions of field operations staff over those with more analytical experience.
Dr Ladwig said: «There are people who assume they are being encouraged to be more advanced. I think there is just a general feeling that the security challenges that India faces are something that India wants to try to deal with. Certainly part of Modi's modus operandi is to portray himself as tough on security and tough on threats to India.»
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