Ajit Doval, India’s longest serving NSA, turns 80-OxBig News Network

India’s longest serving National Security Adviser Ajit Doval turned 80 on Monday, with felicitations pouring in from all quarters.

Doval, born in Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, on January 20, 1945, is currently into his third term as the NSA and was reappointed in the key PMO role on June 13 last year.

A former Intelligence Bureau Director, Doval’s appointment signalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continuing stress on continuity in security and administrative policy in his third term.

Doval’s appointment, in the Cabinet rank, would be co-terminus with the tenure of the Prime Minister.

Known as the most trusted of the PM’s aides, Doval received his early education in Delhi and Ajmer and later joined the Indian Police Service in 1968. After a short stint in the parent cadre of Kerala, he joined the Intelligence Bureau in 1972 and remained an operations man serving in the northeast, Sikkim and J&K.

He spent six years under cover in Pakistan and went on to head the IB from where he retired in 2005.

Doval’s tenure under Modi as PM has seen major military actions — the 2015 surgical strike across the Myanmar border following the killing of 18 Army men in an ambush in Manipur; the 2016 surgical strike following a terror attack in Uri; and the 2019 airstrikes on terror camps in Pakistan’s Balakot after the Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel on February 14 that year. It is Doval’s aggressive policy that is learnt to have inspired the PM’s political line: “‘Ghar mein ghus ke marenge’”.

In his current role, Doval is also credited with massive expansion of the National Security Council Secretariat which operates out of the Sardar Patel Bhavan in Delhi. From 2014 — the year of its commencement to now — the NSCS has grown in importance and strength. It was after Doval’s appointment as NSA in 2014 that two more deputy NSAs were appointed.

Earlier, Doval was the first cop to be awarded Kirti Chakra, the second highest peacetime bravery award, for his role in the 1988 Operation Black Thunder-II that was launched to take out terrorists holed up in the Golden Temple.

Even in his 80th year, Doval continues to be critically important to government’s strategic plans, especially at a time when Army Chief Upendra Dwivedi has stated that the ground situation along the Line of Actual Control remains stable but sensitive and the Army was not withdrawing any troops deployed near the disputed boundary between India and China.