Karan Johar's next film on RN Kao, founder of R&AW, 'India's greatest spymaster': All you need to know

Dubai: Six years after he first announced it, Karan Johar has locked a release date for his film on Rameshwar Nath Kao, the spymaster who founded India's external intelligence agency.

Dharma Productions and Leo Media Collective confirmed on Monday that the untitled film will open in cinemas on 11 August 2028, over the Independence Day weekend in India. The announcement was timed to 21 September, which marks 58 years since R&AW was founded in 1968. The 2028 release is aimed at the agency's 60th anniversary.

The film is based on journalist Nitin Gokhale's 2019 biography R.N. Kao: Gentleman Spymaster.

It will cover the years from 1955 to 1971: the case for creating a dedicated external intelligence agency, the formation of R&AW itself, and its first major operation during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan.

The makers are describing it as a large-scale espionage action film. The title, director and cast have not been announced, though reports say a leading star is attached.

"Leo media has painstakingly been researching and dramatising this narrative with passion for the past two years, we want this film to be a gripping story based on true facts to pay homage to RAW and honour their milestone year with a solid motion picture… all of us at Dharma are so excited to get going," Johar said.

Johar first announced the adaptation in January 2020, shortly after the success of Good Newwz, calling it a story of how Kao founded R&AW and became a success in the world of international espionage.

The project then went quiet for years. It now arrives as part of a run of Dharma films built on real-life military and national history, including Kesari, Raazi, Shershaah and Kesari: Chapter 2.

It also reunites Dharma with Leo Media Collective, its partner on Bad Newz in 2024 and Kesari: Chapter 2 in 2025.

Rameshwar Nath Kao was born in Benares in 1918 into a Kashmiri Hindu family. He studied at Lucknow University and Allahabad University, and briefly worked for a cigarette company in Allahabad before passing the civil services exam in 1940 and joining the Indian Imperial Police.

Around the time of independence, he moved to the Intelligence Bureau, where his duties included the security of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and visiting foreign leaders.

In the 1950s he built a reputation beyond India. He helped Ghana set up its own intelligence and security organisation, and assisted Chinese and British investigators after the 1955 bombing of the Kashmir Princess, an Air India aircraft.

India's defeat in the 1962 war with China exposed serious gaps in its intelligence. Nehru handpicked Kao to build a separate capability, and he became the first director of the Aviation Research Centre, then still part of the Intelligence Bureau.

In 1968, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi split external intelligence away from the Intelligence Bureau to create the Research and Analysis Wing. Kao, who had helped design it, became its first chief and led it for nine years, building it from the ground up.

His best-known work came during the 1971 war, which ended with the creation of Bangladesh.

After the Pakistani army launched Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan in March 1971, R&AW supported the Mukti Bahini, the Bengali resistance forces, with arms and training, including through camps set up along the border. That period, and the agency's role in it, forms the climax of the film's timeline.

Kao was known for his closeness to Indira Gandhi. His longtime associate Victor Longer once described it this way: "Intelligence is the only government business that depends upon the spoken word. Sometimes you can understand signs and body language. Kao had that rapport with Mrs Gandhi."

Under his leadership, R&AW was also involved in the events that led to Sikkim becoming an Indian state in 1975.

When Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 general election, the incoming government was wary of Kao, and he retired.

He returned when she came back to power in 1980, serving as security adviser to her and later to Rajiv Gandhi. During that time he played a key part in establishing the National Security Guard, India's counter-terrorism force.

Kao left public life in the late 1980s and died in 2002, aged 83. He rarely spoke publicly about his work, which is part of why his story has remained largely unknown outside intelligence circles.