Interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Monday said the issue of Baloch families protesting was being “negatively projected,” and accused terrorists in the province of taking money from India’s RAW intelligence agency to kill people. While bluntly stated, this is not the first time a government official has blamed RAW for the Baloch insurgency. Even within India, the agency is not free from criticism, as it reports solely to the prime minister and is now answerable to the people. At its inception, fears arose of it turning into India’s KGB, gaining strength during the 1975-77 emergency, when the opposition alleged it was letting itself be used for terrorizing and intimidating its leaders and workers. Today, the main controversy plaguing RAW within India is over-bureaucratization and lack of merit, with reports of favoritism in promotions, corruption, zero financial accountability, and inter-departmental rivalry.
Indian security analyst B. Raman has criticized RAW for its asymmetric growth. “While being strong in its capability for covert action, it is weak in its capability for intelligence collection, analysis and assessment. Strong in low and medium-grade intelligence, weak in high-grade intelligence. Strong in technical intelligence, weak in human intelligence, strong in collation, weak in analysis, strong in investigation, weak in prevention, strong in crisis management, and weak in crisis prevention.” The agency started as a wing of the main Intelligence Bureau with 250 employees and an annual budget of Rs. 20,000,000, rising to Rs. 300,000,000 in the early ‘70s, with several thousand personnel. In 2007, the budget was estimated to fall between $100 and $150 million.
There is sufficient evidence, including the conviction of spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, arrested from Balochistan, to establish the role RAW plays in destabilizing Pakistan. Multiple reports have also alleged it is funding terrorists based in Afghanistan, who then cross the porous border into Pakistan to stage attacks here, targeting civilians and security personnel alike. In recent years, however, it appears to be expanding its footprint in the West, with a Sikh leader’s murder in Canada that triggered a diplomatic row, forcing it to halt its operations in North America for the first time since 1968.