Vikram Sood is the former head of India's external intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) who retired in March 2003. He is currently associated with the Observer Research Foundation, an independent public policy think tank. He has been writing and commenting on foreign policy, strategic affairs and geopolitical issues for various newspapers. He talks to MyIndMakers about Intelligence agencies and budgets, R&AW, current state of affairs after the Pathankot Attacks and more.

Let’s start from the very beginning. From the Indian Postal Service to the R&AW, a very interesting 'delivery' indeed! Did RN Kao handpick you to join R&AW? 

 In 1971, the R&AW sought to expand the service and it was consciously decided to look for men and women from all services and from the open market, not just the police as was done in the Intelligence Bureau. Yes, I was interviewed both by RN Kao and before that, by his deputy, K. Sankaran Nair

Intelligence agencies around the world operate with unlimited budgets and access to the latest technologies. However do they attract the smartest and the brightest these days?

 Intelligence agencies in democracies, such as ours operate with limited budgets, the amounts are secret and hidden in the overall budget of the country. Richer and more powerful democracies with larger interests operate with huge budgets e.g. the US whose intelligence budget is higher than our defense budget. There is no way of knowing the intelligence budgets of autocratic regimes.

As a former intelligence Chief, you will agree that politicians come and go but R&AW stays. Going back in time, Morarji Desai and IK Gujral are two Prime Ministers who were considered naive or ignorant of the ground realities of their times. Does R&AW have push back mechanisms against any incumbent political leadership?

 Intelligence agencies are permanent institutions and naturally they outlast political regimes all the time. Morarji was incredibly naïve and his actions were extremely detrimental to intelligence agencies, especially the R&AW. It took R&AW a long time to recover from this onslaught. Gujral was not naïve, his priorities were differently ordered. R&AW does not have a push back mechanism against the incumbent political leadership. It would be extremely dangerous in a democracy to let intelligence or security agencies have this ability.

Let’s talk about current state of affairs. When attacks such as Pathankot happen, do we have the defensive capabilities to respond effectively? What should India’s response be post such an attack?

Pathankot was something that was almost destined to happen; not Pathankot per se, but an incident of this kind was par for the course after the Lahore bon homie. There is adequate defense capability but all terror attacks cannot be avoided. India’s response has been too tame all along. Mere promises to threaten action, or that terrorism would not be tolerated in the future, has no impact. We have to evolve responses that hurt the perpetrator too. The time and manner will naturally have to be our choosing depending on the type and severity of the terror attack.

We have seen reports that sections of the Pakistani Military may be behind the attacks on Indian consulates in Afghanistan. In lieu of these events, do you think that GHQ and Mr. Nawaz Sharif are thinking differently on the policy towards India? Or are these elements now beyond the control of the GHQ as well?

I am not convinced that the political leadership and the GHQ in Pakistan think differently with regard to India. Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister in 1993 at the time of Mumbai bomb blasts in March 1993, he was in power when the Taliban were rampant in Afghanistan and when Musharraf launched his campaign in Kargil 1999 and now. These elements operating in India and Afghanistan are not beyond the control of Pakistan GHQ and the attack on the Indian Consulate in Herat and other places against Indian interests and entities was with their approval/instigation.

Do you think China remains a factor in the India-Pakistan relationship at present, or is it too mired in its own domestic affairs to take an interest in these developments?

China remains a factor in India-Pakistan relations. While China has not come to Pakistan’s rescue in the past in all its misadventures against India, it is cautious about terror emanating from Pakistan, it still sees Pakistan as a low cost option against India. It will continue to strengthen Pakistan in its abilities to take on India. It will use Pakistan for its grand design in West Asia and access to the Arabian Sea for geo-strategic reasons. It is now a factor in Afghanistan and will preserve Pakistan’s interests there. It will use its new found profile in Iran to its advantage. It has a salience in Saudi Arabia which brings into focus the suspected Saudi-Pakistan nuclear connection or arrangement. The nuclear and missile linkage between North Korea-China-Pakistan-Iran and Saudi Arabia is a complicated one.

Kashmir is at an interesting juncture again. Recently there have been reports that home grown militancy is gaining grounds again. As you are well aware that Kashmir terrorism began with home grown terrorists replaced by foreign mercenaries and now we seem to be back where it all began with increase in home grown terrorists. How do you view this situation?  

The Kashmir situation will have its ebb and flow, no Pakistani politician, the GHQ or the jihadis can give up playing this card. There is also a realization, expressed by many Pakistani analysts that Kashmir has now become an albatross. This is not politically or militarily acceptable in Pakistan and so long as this is so, we will continue to have trouble in Kashmir from time to time. Pakistan will try to play the ISIS card which would give them an alibi that terror in Kashmir is no longer of Pakistani origin or an inspiration but an Islamic issue. Indian authorities should not discount this but we should also not overplay this out of proportion.

This is a question we have always wanted to ask ex- R&AW Chief. The impatient yet capable younger generation wants to get inspired. CIA and MI5/6 offer 'custom scripts' to movies and novels that keep the young always on the edge. Does R&AW have untold success stories that should be dusted off the shelf & made public?

There have been a few movies recently like D-day and Madras Café were pretty decent fictionalized renditions although Ek Tha Tiger was Bond-ish!! I thought we were getting better at this and surely there are incidents that could be used to make movies of the kind suggested by you. But we are still a long way off from a tell-all kind of script.