Book Review: The War that Made R&AW by Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket (Westland)

Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket, The War That Made R&AW, Westland (April 2021)

Indian writing has come a long way. The trick is that like a racy screenplay in films, the writing should be catchy and racy. This is true especially in non-fiction. The recently released book, the War that made R&AW, is about the founding of the Research and Analysis Wing and its working in the Indo-Pak War of 1971. R&AW is the foreign intelligence agency of India, while its domestic counterpart is the Intelligence Bureau.

The book discusses how R&AW was founded by RN Kao, how he selected his team, how the Prime Minister supported establishment and functioning of R&AW, how Sankaran Nair helped RN Kao in running the R&AW, and how India helped in the formation of Bangladesh. Such books are rare to come by. Well researched, compact (~187 pages), and written like a racy film, the book is a must read for those interested in political non-fiction and about Indian polity. 

The authors, Anusha Nandakumar, and Sandeep Saket are not political journalists. They're basically film makers and first time authors. Given these, the book is mind-blowing and the authors are to be congratulated for writing this wonderful book.

On the flipside, the book does not talk about post-1971 developments of R&AW. Given the title "The War that Made R&AW", this is not a 'defect' as such. However, a ten page chapter covering some landmark events post 1971 would have been helpful.

Another problem with the book is that it  presents the book from an Indian perspective. The American,  British, Chinese and Pakistani perspectives on the war are nowhere to be seen. 

Even so, this is an excellent read. 

Links to the some of the book reviews of this book are provided here: The Indian Express, The Scroll (with excerpts from the book), The Print,

Other books on R&AW are RN Kao are given in the bibliography of the book.