The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) headquarters boasts a life-sized fibreglass statue of a cowboy. This seemingly unrelated artwork which might be waved off as a bureaucratic whim is a rare display of the gentleman spymaster’s sense of humour. On learning that the agents of R&AW had been nicknamed ‘Kaoboys,’ RN Kao, the first chief of India’s external intelligence agency commissioned the statue himself.
Kao’s legacy precedes him. The first article from the simple search for ‘Spymaster,’ puts him on the same list as Michael Collins and Thomas Cromwell, and to his successor, former R&AW chief A.S.Dulat, he is nothing short of a legend.
Days of the Kashmir Princess and Good Cricket
The man responsible for sculpting present-day South Asia was born in 1918 to a Kashmiri Pandit couple in Benares. Rameshwar Nath Kao completed his Masters in English Literature from Allahabad University and proceeded to join the Imperial Police force in 1939. And on June 3, 1947, he was deputed to the central intelligence bureau. The organisation was structured along the lines of the MI5 and, during World War II, Kao and his colleagues were tasked with collecting intelligence along the country’s borders.
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