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Dan Lomas, Spying in south Asia: Britain, the United States, and India's secret Cold War, International Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 3, May 2025, Pages 1165–1166, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf083
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In October 2024, the United States charged a former Indian intelligence officer with murder-for-hire and money laundering charges around a failed plot to kill a Sikh US national advocating for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India. In this and other cases, the US, alongside Canada, drew attention to India's foreign intelligence work against Sikh dissidents, upsetting broader international relations and bringing intelligence to the fore of national debate. India's emergence as a significant economic and political player has led, among other things, to concerns about its intelligence activities. The message is that, in pursuing its aims, India's government sees the risks of ‘covert action’ in the affairs of neighbouring states and international partners as ‘acceptable’ (p. 13). As Paul McGarr argues in Spying in south Asia, the Cold War shaped India's modern-day use of intelligence. The role of secret intelligence in India's post-imperial history has been poorly understood and little studied. McGarr draws on a wealth of knowledge on the subject to document the British and US intelligence community's covert activities in post-colonial India, shedding light on the impact of the so-called hidden hand on India's political discourse and wider international relations. This way, the book makes a major contribution to Cold War history and to the broader understanding of intelligence liaison.