Though the Indian movie industry, which includes Bollywood, produces the highest number of movies annually, only a few of them depict the life and work of an intelligence officer in India or abroad. Bollywood's spy movies like Ek Tha Tiger and Agent Vinod, however, are sloppy in terms of how they portray intelligence operations.
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Such casual portrayals might make way for some real-life and motivational accounts of Indian intelligence community who are the faceless and nameless people behind several successful operations, be it in the liberation of East Pakistan or during the Khalistan movement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now reportedly asked the country's intelligence agencies -- Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) -- to help produce spy movies that are based on their work, the Huffington Post India reported. Modi is also said to have asked for better analysis, and to upgrade their technology and development of case studies, to be used as learning guides.
According to an anonymous senior PMO official, the move is to make intelligence operators feel "glamorous and worthwhile," and will allow them to be remembered for their real brave acts.
In the west, Hollywood produces a variety of spy movies, from thrillers to comedies. But they also produce certain intense and real-life accounts of its intelligence operations, be it in Zero Dark Thirty, Argo or Munich.
Zero Dark Thirty and Argo deal with CIA operations, while Munich with Israeli Mossad. There are other movies like Salt, which fictionally depict Russian intelligence capabilities. But there are very less movies of this kind made in India.
The report also notes some of the daring acts of Indian intelligence officers, including one by the current National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval. He had famously walked into the Golden Temple in Amritsar which was under siege by dreaded Khalistani terrorists, posing as a Pakistani agent. Doval was able to extract some vital intelligence on the terrorists holed up there before the Indian Army was sent to neutralise them in 1988's Operation Black Thunder.
Other such operations include, Operation Meghdoot – where vital information by the RAW, helped Indian Army prepare to deter Pakistan from taking over the Siachen Glacier in 1984. Another famous story is that of B Raman, a legend in Indian intelligence, who documented how Indian mole in the office of Yahya Khan, the then President of Pakistan revealed them about date, time and location of the Pakistani airstrike that led to 1971 war, leading to liberation of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
