NSA Ajit Doval
Today we are going to discuss the man who is popularly known as India’s real-life James Bond, Mr Ajit Kumar Doval.
He is the current National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India. He also served as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau during 2004-05. He was the youngest police officer in India to be awarded the Kirti Chakra.
Born on 20th January 1945 in Ghiri Banelsyun village,Uttarakhand, in a Garhwal Family. His father, Major G.N. Doval was an officer in the Indian Army. He received his early education at the Ajmer Military School in Rajasthan. Then he did a master’s in economics from the Agra University.
In 1968 he began his journey working for Police as an IPS officer. He was actively involved in controlling the uprising affairs in Mizoram and Punjab. He played a crucial role as a negotiator in the release of passengers from the hijacked IC-814 in Kandahar in 1999. Between the period of 1971 to 1999, he successfully terminated about 15 hijackings of Indian Aircraft.
He spent seven years gathering intelligence on active militant groups as an undercover operative in Pakistan. He then worked at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad for six years. Doval gathered intelligence for ‘Operation Blue Star’ and helped the Indian Government to choke Khalistani militancy in 1984. During the 1990s he went to Kashmir and convinced hardcore militants and troops to surrender thus clearing the way for Jammu & Kashmir elections in 1996.
He spent a major portion of his career acting as a field Intelligence officer with the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Doval has built a reputation for taking a strict stance against militancy and terrorism. Because of this, he was appointed as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau. He retired from his position in 2005. In 2009, Doval became the founder-director of Vivekananda International Foundation.
On 30 May 2014, he was appointed as India’s fifth National Security Advisor. After only serving for a month of his tenure he added another feather to his wings by ensuring the release of 46 Indian nurses who were trapped in a hospital in Tikrit, Iraq. On June 25, 2014, he flew to Iraq, on a top-secret mission to understand the position on the ground and made high-level connections in the Iraq government. On July 5, 2014, the nurses were brought back to India.
Later, Doval also headed a successful military operation in Myanmar along with the Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag against National Socialist Council of Nagaland militants operating out of Myanmar.
He is widely credited for the doctrinal shift in Indian national security policy in relation to Pakistan. Switching from 'Defensive' to 'Offensive' as well as the 'Double Squeeze Strategy. It was speculated that the September 2016 India’s URI attack was his brainchild. For those of you who don’t know, the character played by Paresh Rawal in the film "URI- The Surgical Strike" was inspired by him.
On 27 February 2019, when Pakistan military captured the Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, while he was in the custody of Pakistan officials claim that Ajit Doval held talks with US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to secure the release of the Indian pilot. The captured pilot was released on the very next day by Pakistan. Pakistani officials claimed that the pilot was released as a gesture of peace and to de-escalate the tensions between the two countries. The release of Indian pilot was a major victory for Indian officials.
For his outstanding contribution to the Indian Army on June 3, 2019, he was reappointed as NSA for 5 years and was given the rank of Union Cabinet Minister.
