Reading the enemies: India’s unseen shield

India’s intelligence battle is changing—and the most important battles may be the ones the public never sees. From China and Pakistan to terrorism, cyber warfare and AI-driven disinformation, the country’s security challenges increasingly demand the ability to distinguish truth from deception and anticipate what comes next.

There are battles that make headlines and battles that never should be. The Indian intelligence network largely belongs to the second category. Its success is rarely measured in photographs, medals, or captured territory. It is measured in the attack that never happened, the infiltration detected in time, the hostile network disrupted before it became operational, and the warning that reached a decision-maker before a crisis reached the border.

For India in 2026, that invisible contest has become far more important. And growing day by day. The country's security environment is no longer defined by a single battlefield. The threat can come through a terrorist network, an unmanned aircraft, a cyber intrusion, a financial trail, a manipulated video, or a military manoeuvre along the Himalayas. That makes India's intelligence agencies not merely institutions of national security, but increasingly institutions of national anticipation. Previously, the appointment of P. Jain as Secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) assumes particular significance in this environment. A career intelligence officer with experience in sensitive assignments, including the Pakistan desk and the Aviation Research Centre, Jain took charge of India's external intelligence establishment at a time when the country's principal security challenges increasingly overlap: Pakistan-backed terrorism, China's expanding strategic footprint, technology-driven warfare and information manipulation.

The story of India's intelligence community, however, did not begin with R&AW. The Intelligence Bureau traces its institutional origins to 23 December 1887, when the Central Special Branch was established. It was subsequently renamed the Criminal Intelligence Bureau and eventually the Intelligence Bureau. The IB completed a century of existence in 1987, a reminder that India's intelligence machinery has been evolving for well over a hundred years. R&AW came much later. Established in 1968, in the aftermath of the painful intelligence lessons of the 1962 war with China, it gave India a dedicated external intelligence organization. Its early years coincided with one of the most consequential periods in India's neighborhood.

The 1971 Bangladesh war is perhaps the most prominent example of intelligence operating behind a historic military victory. R&AW's contribution to the larger Indian strategy surrounding the Bangladesh Liberation War has been documented in historical accounts, particularly in relation to intelligence collection and support to the forces fighting in what was then East Pakistan.

Some of the agency's other historical roles remain less publicly debated. Accounts available through India's National Academy of Administration's library record R&AW's subsequent involvement in covert operations and intelligence activity across countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Fiji. Many of the details remain classified, which is perhaps appropriate for an organisation whose effectiveness depends upon precisely that silence.

There is also the lesser-known story of Sikkim. R&AW's presence in Gangtok in the early 1970s coincided with a period of profound political change in the Himalayan kingdom. Public accounts, including those of former intelligence officer G.B.S. Sidhu, describe the interaction between local political developments, New Delhi and Indian intelligence officials before Sikkim became India's 22nd state in 1975.

That distinction is important. Intelligence history is particularly vulnerable to mythology because the best operations are rarely documented in full. And shouldn't be in this digital age. India's intelligence community also learned some of its hardest lessons through failure. Kargil conflict in 1999 exposed gaps in surveillance, intelligence assessment, and information sharing. The reforms that followed recognised that information trapped within one organisation has limited value unless it reaches the organisation capable of acting upon it.

That principle has become even more important today. Consider the recent controversy over alleged Chinese activity in Upper Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh. Reports claimed PLA personnel had entered areas claimed by India and established temporary camps. The Indian Army rejected the reports as incorrect and without basis, while political and local groups continued to raise concerns and called for further probe. For intelligence professionals, this is precisely the kind of situation in which ground truth becomes a strategic commodity. Is an unfamiliar group of troops a patrol, an intrusion or routine movement? Has a structure been newly established or misidentified? Is an image genuine? Is information being deliberately planted? Does a seemingly minor movement form part of a wider pattern?

These are intelligence questions before they become military or diplomatic questions. Arunachal makes that challenge particularly acute. The Line of Actual Control is not a mutually demarcated international boundary, while the terrain is vast, mountainous and difficult to access. A road, bridge, settlement or temporary military structure can consequently acquire significance far beyond its physical dimensions. The challenge is that modern adversaries are generating information too. A satellite can provide extraordinary visibility. A drone can watch a frontier continuously. Artificial intelligence can process imagery and communications at a speed no human team can match. But the same technological environment allows adversaries to create deepfakes, synthetic audio, manipulated photographs and carefully designed misinformation.

The intelligence challenge has therefore changed from simply finding information to establishing what is true. That may be the most important transformation of all. Imagine a hostile network preparing an operation. One agency detects unusual communications. Others notice suspicious financial movement. Border personnel report unfamiliar activity. A technical organization identifies a digital signature. Local police observe an unexplained change in behavior.

The same is true of deterrence. Good intelligence can prevent escalation because it allows a government to distinguish between an actual threat and a misunderstanding. Poor intelligence can produce either dangerous complacency or unnecessary confrontation. The Indian intelligence officer of tomorrow may therefore need to be part field operative, part technologist and part analyst. Artificial intelligence will help identify patterns, but human judgement will remain indispensable in deciding whether those patterns represent an actual threat or an elaborate deception. India's intelligence story began with files, informants, coded messages and human sources. It now includes satellites, drones, databases, cyber networks and algorithms. Yet the central question has remained remarkably constant. What does the adversary intend to do before the adversary does it? That question connects the quiet intelligence work of the past with India's present strategic environment.

The successes of 1971, the lessons of Kargil and the many operations that remain outside public knowledge should not be romanticised. Nor should intelligence agencies be judged only by dramatic stories of espionage. Their real value lies in something far less glamorous: producing reliable knowledge in time for the State to act. In an age of China, terrorism, drones, cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, and information manipulation, the first battle may no longer begin at the border. It may begin with whoever understands the situation first. Jain's recent visit to Dhaka may therefore prove significant not for what made it to the headlines, but for what may quietly follow.

His meeting with Bangladesh's security establishment comes at a delicate moment, when New Delhi and Dhaka are attempting to rebuild confidence while navigating questions of border security, terrorism, regional influence, and the future direction of Bangladesh's foreign policy. If the visit succeeds in restoring a more dependable channel between Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, improving the exchange of security information and reducing the space for forces hostile to either country, its value could extend well beyond a single meeting. For India, Bangladesh is not merely a neighbouring country; it is a strategic land and maritime gateway to the Northeast and the Bay of Bengal. In that sense, Jain's Dhaka visit could quietly mark the beginning of something more consequential-a recalibration of India's intelligence presence in its eastern neighborhood, where knowing what is changing may matter as much as knowing what has changed.

Artificial intelligence can process imagery and communications at a speed no human team can match. But the same technological environment allows adversaries to create deepfakes, synthetic audio, manipulated photographs and carefully designed misinformation

The writer is an educationist and senior columnist; Views presented are personal.