The key person handing this for Nair was P.N. Bannerji, serving as both joint director of the Calcutta IB and commissioner, RAW.
Bannerji was a friend of Sheikh Mujib. The story is that Bannerji suffered an untimely death in a hotel in Bangladesh.
He was sitting, having a cup of tea when he hiccupped and collapsed. No foul play was suspected; Officially, he died of a massive heart attack.
In any case, the Bangladesh operations was a success. Nair became the second R&AW chief, after Kao's retirement in 1977, but lasted only three months; he resigned over Morarji's decision to trim the operations of RAW.
When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she asked Nair to review the working of India's intelligence organisation, and bring about a restructuring in RAW.
The RAW has never gotten over its early problems of ad hoc-ism and still suffers from problems of a lack of cohesiveness, despite having a number of top-notch spies.
