Journalism of Courage
Vice Chief of Army Staff and Army Chief-designate, Lieutenant General Manoj Naravane said on Saturday that armed forces owe it to the intelligence agencies for their operational success.
Lt Gen Naravane was speaking at the launch of the book titled ‘R N Kao – Gentleman Spymaster’, authored by national security expert Nitin Gokhale in Pune.
Gen. Naravane said in his address, “Many of you might be wondering what a person in uniform is doing at the launch of a book on subject of intelligence. Military operations and intelligence go hand in hand. In fact, whenever we have an operational briefing, it always begins with ‘khabar dushman ke bare mein’ and that khabar is what we get from our intelligence operatives. I dare say that none of our military operations would have been successful, had it not been for the support, we got from the various intelligence agencies including Research & Analysis Wing.”
He added, “when we talk or think of intelligence, we normally think of James Bond. Guns, girls, guitar and glamour. But the world of intelligence is not that. It’s more like John Le Carre’s Smiley’s People. Unseen, unheard of, unknown and working behind the scenes.”
Gen Naravane shared dias with two retired IPS officers V Balachandran and Jayant Umranikar, both of whom served long tenures with the RAW during their careers.
