Bdnews24.com . New Delhi

A former deputy chief of India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing, better known as RAW, says that India was not the architect of an independent Bangladesh.

‘India’s role was more of a facilitator than a creator. It was a war jointly won by India and the people of East Pakistan,’ writes B Raman, one of India’s best-known spies, in his new book.

‘The Kaoboys of RAW,’ Raman’s new book that has hit the stands this week, gives enormous credit to the people of the then East Pakistan for the creation of Bangladesh.

‘Without the desire and the will of the people of Bangladesh, there would have been no Bangladesh. Their sacrifices for their cause were immense. How many were brutally killed by the Pakistan Army!

‘How many Bengali intellectuals were massacred by the Pakistan Army and by terrorist organisations such as Al Badr and Al Shams created by the ISI! It is their sacrifice which laid the foundation for an independent Bangladesh,’ writes Raman in the second chapter of his book.

‘What India did under the leadership of Indira Gandhi was to make sure that their sacrifices were not in vain,’ he adds.

The former intelligence agent claims that the on-ground support for the people of the then East Pakistan turned 1971 into a ‘dream situation for professional intelligence officers (of India )’.

‘Often, they did not have to go after intelligence. It came after them. There was such a total alienation of the people of East Pakistan,’ he writes.

The book traverses through India’s contemporary history — importantly the 1971 war, insurgency in the Northeast, Punjab and Kashmir, the emergency, the war in Afghanistan and how Indian intelligence functioned under several Indian prime ministers such as Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Narasimha Rao.

Raman, who had worked in RAW for 26 years, provides rare insights into the functioning of the intelligence agency.

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