Dhurandhar has sparked comparisons and conversations about Ravindra Kaushik, the Indian intelligence operative who situated himself within the Pakistani army and Pakistani life, but was arrested and died in a Pakistani prison in 2001. The narrative traces back to retired R&AW Major General V. K. Singh’s book, “India’s External Intelligence”, and family recollections passed down from his nephew. The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), however, has confirmed neither the operation nor the existence of Kaushik.
R&AW recruited Kaushik in 1973 after a mono-act at a theatre competition caught an intelligence officer’s attention. He underwent two years of training to erase his identity before crossing the border in 1975 as Nabi Ahmed Shakir. He earned a law degree from Karachi University, married a Pakistani woman, Amanat, had a son and was commissioned into the Pakistani Army, rising to Major. Between 1979 and 1983, he passed sensitive military information back to India, and he was reportedly titled “Black Tiger” by Indira Gandhi. In 1983, a junior operative sent to re-establish contact with him was captured and broke during interrogation, giving up Kaushik’s identity. Kaushik was arrested by Pakistan’s foreign intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He was tortured and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2001, at the age of 49, he died in Mianwali jail of tuberculosis and heart disease. He lies in Pakistan, in an unmarked grave. In the last letter he wrote to his family in Rajasthan, he noted that an American in his place would have been freed within three days.
While speculations drawing comparisons between Dhurandhar and Kaushik abound, no official recognition of Kaushik exists. No file tracing his recruitment has been declassified. All publicly available information exists through familial memory, smuggled letters and a retired officer’s book. This is not the first time we observe a gap in recognition. This absence of recognition is a feature and condition of the organisation and of operatives like Kaushik. India has also never declassified an official RAW history of any kind. The silence around Kaushik is not exclusive. It is traditional to the organisation.
However, other intelligence services such as the CIA have built ways of acknowledging without disclosing. On a marble wall inside CIA headquarters in Langley, more than a hundred stars are carved for officers who died in service, with a blank space beside each star for the names that still cannot be disclosed. For their spy, Eli Cohen, hanged in Damascus in 1965, Mossad issued a commemorative stamp in his honour, mounted a covert operation solely to recover his wristwatch and had its chief speak publicly about what Cohen gave to Israel. Both states found a way to recognise an intelligence operative without revealing operation details.
India’s posture has been different. In 2016, when Pakistan captured Kulbhushan Jadhav and released a video of him confessing to RAW links, India denied it. The Ministry of External Affairs said that the confession “clearly indicates tutoring” and continued to describe him as just a former naval officer even while pressing for his consular access. This posture, where the existence itself is denied, does not leave room for a memorial. RAW’s technical reason for not building something like a wall of honour has been that Kaushik was a source, not an employee. While this distinction highlights the structure of intelligence networks, it is also the reason why states do not and cannot recognise an operative like Kaushik.
An interesting perspective is propounded by philosopher Judith Butler in her argument that a state decides in advance whose death will register publicly as grieveable and whose will not. And it does this through the frames it applies to loss. A blank star on a marble wall is a physical frame; a designated place set aside for commemoration even without a name. It is not only a mark of respect for the sacrifice of undercover operatives but also a reminder to the state itself of what national security rests on. In India, this frame is a vacuum, so other institutions are attempting to supply it.
When Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar was released to widespread acclaim, audiences read the fictional RAW operative undercover in Pakistan as representative and symbolic of Kaushik. On the other hand, Dhar has clarified that the film is based on Operation Lyari and on figures resembling India’s National Security Advisor, not Kaushik. In 2012, Kaushik’s family asked director Kabir Khan if his film “Ek Tha Tiger” was based on Kaushik. Khan said it wasn’t. These speculations and claims abound precisely because there is a recognition/acknowledgement vacuum left by the state.
Thus, the record on Kaushik comprises the memory of one family. They held on to his rank, letters and title, which found their way into a retired officer’s book, then to journalists. The state’s silence stems from the fact that acknowledging this in any form opens the door to further questions. A blank star also denotes the existence of an operation. A pattern of denial is evidence of its structural embeddedness. Ravindra Kaushik is not the only covert operative to have sacrificed his life for India. His is the only story known. It highlights the irony that it is precisely the nature and degree of his sacrifice due to which it cannot be acknowledged or recognised.
References:
- Wikipedia – Ravindra Kaushik
- The Print – Subscriber writes: Why India must restructure RAW, recruit agents from different backgrounds
- CIA Memorial Wall
- The Times of Israel
- The Wire – Transcript of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s confession
- Open – The Real Dhurandhar: How Ravindra Kaushik Rose to Major in the Pakistan Army for RAW
- Rhizomes – Judith Butler: Frames of War