Rameshwar Nath Kao was an Indian spy who was one of India’s most important intelligence officers. He was the most prominent member of the R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency, and served as the organization’s first chief. He served as Secretary (Research) in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India. He was also made responsible for being the personal security chief to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and security advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He died on 20 January 2002 due to age-related illnesses.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Rameshwar Nath Rao was born on Friday, 10 May 1918 (aged 83 at the time of death) in Varanasi, British India. His zodiac sign was Taurus. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Arts from Lucknow University and a master’s degree in English Literature from Allahabad University. His family lived in Srinagar, but they moved to Varanasi when Kao was young. His father died at an early age so his uncle Pandit Trilokinath Kao took care of him. At Allahabad University, he took admission in law, but in between, he passed the Civil Services Examination and joined the Indian Imperial Police.
Physical Appearance
Hair Color: Gray
Eye colour: black
Family
parents and siblings
Kao’s father’s name is Dwarika Nath, who was the Deputy Collector of Lucknow. His mother’s name is Khemvati Kaul. His brother’s name is Shyam Sundar Nath.
wife and children
Kao was married to Malini Kao in 1941. His daughter’s name is Achala Kaul.
Caste
Kao is a Kashmiri Hindu Pandit.
livelihood
Kao started his career after joining the Indian Imperial Police in 1940. He was posted as Assistant Superintendent of Police in Kanpur. Later, he was posted at Kheri, headquarters of Lakhimpur Kheri district of UP and many other places in UP. He was put in charge of the security of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru a day before partition. In the 1950s, he helped establish an intelligence and security organization in Ghana. In 1950, he provided security to Queen Elizabeth II when she visited India. While attending the reception party, he caught a bouquet thrown towards the Queen, mistaking it for a bomb. In April 1955, when the Air India-owned Kashmir Princess aircraft carrying delegates to the Bandung Conference crashed, Kao was made part of the investigation. In the report he said that 16 delegates died in the accident and 3 survived. He also said that the crash was planned by the Chinese nationalist party, the Kuomintang, to kill Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, but fortunately, he was not on the plane. Later, Cao received a letter of recommendation from Zhou Enlai for his work. Jawaharlal Nehru was so impressed with Kao, his personal security chief, that he was made the first director of the Aviation Research Center at Charbatiya, Odisha. In 1968, there was a need for an intelligence organization for the military due to the impact of the Indo-China War of 1962 and Operation Gibraltar of 1965, so Prime Minister Indira Gandhi directed the Intelligence Bureau to create a Research and Analysis Wing which would be India’s primary external intelligence wing. Will act as an intelligence agency. He appointed Cao as the head of the organization. He became the first Hindu officer to join the Intelligence Bureau. Later, he was also appointed as Additional Secretary and Secretary (Research) in the Cabinet Secretariat. He worked in the IB for ten years and was praised for taking the organization to new heights. Many government officials praised Indira Gandhi’s decision to appoint Kao to head the department. In the 1960s, Indira Gandhi’s confidence in Kao increased and they met frequently to discuss various issues. In an interview, an associate of Kao’s talked about Kao’s relationship with Indira Gandhi and said,
Intelligence is the only government function that depends on the spoken word. Sometimes you can understand signals and body language. Kao had similar rapport with Mrs. Gandhi.
Rameshwar Nath Kao with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
He played an important role in the merger of Sikkim with India in 1975. He advised the government to provide arms to Tamil guerrillas in the 1980s. He actively participated in Sri Lankan affairs. Kao made a huge contribution to the creation of Bangladesh. He and his team members Shankaran Nair (former R&AW Director) and Girish Chandra Saxena (former R&AW Director and Governor of Jammu and Kashmir), as well as a group of Kashmiri advisors DP Dhar, PN Haksar and TN Kaul, organized the Mukti Bahini, the forces Provided training. Of Bangladesh. The Indian Air Force was also given permission to bomb the room where the East Pakistan Cabinet was in session. They also shared strong relations with Bangladesh for a long time. In 1975, he went to Dhaka and met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and warned him that an assassination was planned against him. They also revealed the names of suspected military conspirators, but Rahman did not listen to them. Unfortunately, after a week, he was killed. Kao resigned from his post when the Janata Party came to power in 1977. Janata Party leaders questioned him for his role in the emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He again joined the organization when Indira Gandhi came to power in 1980. Talking about his resignation in an interview, he said,
Prime Minister Morarji Desai was contemptuous of RAW and believed that it was just another police force, there was no point in working for an intelligence agency if the Prime Minister had no faith in the business.
In 1980, he brought terrorism into the spotlight in India by creating the National Security Guard (NSG) during the insurgency in Punjab. In 1989, after his retirement, he used to interact with various political leaders and talk about the problems of Kashmiri Pandits.
Death
Cao died of age-related illness on 20 January 2002 in New Delhi.
Facts/General Knowledge
- His friends and colleagues knew him as Ramji.
- Kao is the founder of the Aviation Research Center (ARC) and the Joint Intelligence Committee.
- Before joining the Intelligence Office, he worked in a cigarette company.
- Prime Ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi praised Kao for being honest, intellectual, shy and humble.
- He appeared in KAO’s list of the ‘Five Great Intelligence Chiefs of the 1970s’, created by Count Alexandre de Maranches, head of the French external intelligence agency. The Count talked about him and said,
What a fascinating blend of physical and mental beauty! What achievements! What a friendship! And yet are very shy about talking about themselves, their achievements and their friends.”
- The boys who trained under him were known as Cowboys. In an interview, former Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, KN Daruwala, while talking about Kao, said,
His contacts around the world, especially in Asia – Afghanistan, Iran, China, you name it – were something else. He could move things forward with just one phone call. He was a team leader who avoided the notorious inter-departmental and inter-service rivalries that are common in India.”
- Following his death the R&AW instituted the annual RN Kao Memorial Lecture to remember him. In 2006, the first lecture was given by Shashi Tharoor on the fifth anniversary of Kao’s death and the second lecture was given by Kumar Mangalam Birla.
- Cao lived a very private life. He was photographed in public only twice in his entire life. He lived under tight security in his bungalow in New Delhi and did not give many interviews.
- According to his colleagues, he used to recite couplets fluently in Urdu whenever he was free.
- He kept horse statues in his house and loved making sculptures.
- In an interview, his colleagues revealed that he kept a small bronze statue of a cowboy in his desk office, which was gifted to him by George H.W. Bush when he visited the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Washington DC.
- In 2020, film director, Karan Johar announced on Twitter that he would be directing a film based on the book “RN Kao: Gentleman Spymaster” written by Nitin Gokhale. In a Twitter post he said,
Adapting the book RN Kao: Gentleman Spymaster written by Nitin Gokhale, the film will tell the story of Kao who founded India’s external intelligence agency – RAW and how he became a success story in the world of international espionage.
- Interestingly, he had recorded the events of his life in seven audio files but he wanted them to be released publicly after his demise. Only four of the seven files in the libraries are available to scholars. The 1971 war, merger of Sikkim with India and the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi are believed to be revealed in 2027.
- In 2020, another filmmaker, Firoz Nadiadwala, posted on social media that he would be making a web series on Kao’s life. In the post he told that he had done the research part on his life in 2015. In a social media post he wrote,
We have been working on this project for five years. This is a story that deserves to be shared and known with everyone, so we are making it as a web-series for the first time, with 20 episodes currently planned. We are in talks with two major streaming platforms for this.
- Many of his colleagues said that his network was very strong. His aide said that once he received a code from Pakistan that it would attack India, so he put the Indian Air Force on high alert, but there was no unidentified activity for two days. The force demanded that it could not be kept on high alert for so long, but he requested them to remain on alert for another day and the Indian Army was attacked on 3 December.
- In 2022, in an interview, filmmaker Hansal Mehta announced that he will release a series based on RK Yadav’s book ‘Mission Raw’ on SonyLIV app. Talking about this in an interview, Hansal said,
As a storyteller, my endeavor has always been to bring stories to life and explore ordinary people and their extraordinary deeds. These are the people who have strengthened our political and military history. Rameshwar Nath Kao was considered a genius, about whom very little is known. I am thrilled to explore his story with the talented Karan Vyas and SonyLIV, who are such wonderful partners. I look forward to starting this project soon.”
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn