Ajit Doval

Doval was born in 1945 in Ghiri Banelsyun village in Pauri Garhwal in United Provinces (now in Uttarakhand) in the erstwhile British Raj (currently India). He is the son of GN Doval and Indra Doval. He served in the Bengal Sappers for 36 years. He graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in economics from Agra University in 1967. During his master's he secured first position. The following year Doval cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination. He went on to graduate from the 30th course of the National Defence College, New Delhi, in 1990. He married Aruni Doval in 1972 and has two children Shaurya and Vivek Doval. During a dialogue in January 2026 Doval was asked a question about how he uses communication tools, he elaborated that he largely does not use the internet for work, and the phone only for family and when speaking to people abroad. He stated that there were also other methods of communication not used by the general public. He does not have a social media account. He is fluent in Urdu. == Police and intelligence career (1968–2005) ==

Doval joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1968 in the Kerala cadre as the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) of Kottayam district in Kerala. In 1972, he was transferred to riot hit Thalassery, Kerala. He was there for a few months between January and June 1972. One of Doval's first assignments in the IB was to tackle the insurgency in northeast India, specifically in Mizoram. He was the man behind turning six of seven of Laldenga's commanders. He was head of the IBs Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau in Sikkim. He worked at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad from 1983 to 1987. Officially he was head of the commercial section. To fit the role, he had to get plastic surgery done on his pierced ears. Working undercover in Pakistan as a beggar, he collected hair from scientists from a barber shop; this hair tested positive for signs of uranium, helping to expose Pakistan's nuclear programme. He also kept a watch over Sikh pilgrims and the separatist propaganda they faced. He would go on to receive the Kirti Chakra for his role in the operation. At the time Doval was a joint director in the IB. In the 1990s he turned militant Kuka Parray. He also helped bring other Kashmiri separatists to the negotiating table. Between 1992 and 1996 he was posted at India House, London. Doval would go on to say the negotiation was a diplomatic failure. This was the first time Doval would come under the gaze of the media. In 2004 Doval was made president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police for Asia and Pacific region. ==Post-retirement (2005–2014)==

Doval retired in January 2005 as Director, Intelligence Bureau. He continued working unofficially. Doval remained actively involved in the discourse on national security in India. Besides writing editorial pieces for several leading newspapers and journals, he delivered lectures on India's security challenges and foreign policy objectives at several renowned government and non-governmental institutions, security think-tanks in India and abroad. Around 2008, Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, brought in Doval to set up a university, the Rashtriya Raksha University. In January 2009, he was chosen by the Government of Karnataka as its security advisor. In December 2009, he became the founding Director of the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a public policy think tank set up by the Vivekananda Kendra. In 2009 and 2012 he co-wrote two reports on "Indian Black Money Abroad in Secret Banks and Tax Havens" as a part of a task force constituted by Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2012, IB kept eyes on him due to then ruling party Congress's suspicions that Doval and VIF were the brains behind Ramdev and Anna Hazare led anti-corruption movement, which generated anger against the government. As director VIF, he has delivered guest lectures at National Defence College, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, Bureau of Police Research and Development, Lal Bahadur Shashtri National Academy of Administration, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, IIT Delhi, Jamia Milia Islamia University, Osmania University, Maharaja Agrasen College, Kanpur University, and Shri Ram College of Commerce among others. Lectures at foreign locations include International Institute of Strategic Studies, International Security Forum, American Foreign Policy Council, Capitol Hill, Keizai Koho Centre, and Project Interchange. Doval has written on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China, however comparatively very little on other countries. On being named the NSA, he stepped down from his post as director of VIF in 2014. ==National Security Advisor (2014–present)==

John Kerry in Washington DC First term On 30 May 2014, Doval was appointed as India's fifth National Security Advisor (NSA). Doval will hold the post as long as Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister, or until further orders. He was appointed as the Prime Minister's special envoy to Afghanistan. Although the exact circumstances of their release are unclear, on 5 July 2014, ISIL militants handed the nurses to Kurdish authorities at Erbil city and an Air India plane specially-arranged by the Indian government brought them back home to Kochi. Along with Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, Doval planned a cross-border military operation against National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K) separatists operating out of Myanmar. Indian officials claimed that the mission was a success and 20–38 separatists belonging to Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K) were killed in the operation. However, the Myanmar government denied the strikes. According to Myanmar officials, the Indian operation against NSCN-K took place entirely on the Indian side of the border.|left and the Air Force Chief Arup Raha at Pathankot Airbase|left He is widely credited for the doctrinal shift in Indian national security policy in relation to Pakistan. It was speculated that the September 2016 Indian strikes in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir were his brainchild. Doval is widely credited along with then Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Indian Ambassador to China Vijay Keshav Gokhale, for resolving the Doklam standoff through diplomatic channels and negotiations. As NSA, Doval is also the special representative responsible for the Special Representative mechanism on the India–China boundary question. In October 2018, he was appointed as the Chairman of the Strategic Policy Group, which is the first tier of a three-tier structure at the National Security Council and forms the nucleus of its decision-making apparatus. As NSA, Doval is ex officio agency executive of the National Security Council, and executive council head of the Nuclear Command Authority. Doval was one of the seven persons who knew about India's classified 2019 Balakot airstrike, including Indian Navy, Army, Air Force chiefs and prime minister Narendra Modi. Following the airstrike and retaliatory 2019 Jammu and Kashmir airstrikes and subsequent capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman by Pakistani military, Ajit Doval held talks with US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to secure the release of the Indian pilot. Second term On 3 June 2019, he was reappointed as NSA for another 5 years and granted the personal rank of a Cabinet Minister. Doval is the first NSA to hold such a rank. He would go onto become India's longest serving NSA. He was also an instrumental figure in revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. On 26 February 2020, Ajit Doval walked the streets of riot-hit northeast Delhi to assess the situation and reassure the local residents. Following the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes four interactions took place between Doval and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. On 15 May 2020, the military forces of Myanmar handed over a group of 22 militant leaders, active in Assam and other northeast states, to the Indian government. This was made possible through negotiations headed by Doval. On 15 September 2020, Doval walked out of a virtual SCO meeting after Pakistan projected a fictitious map omitting parts of India. Third term On 13 June 2024, Ajit Doval was granted third five-year extension for his tenure as National Security Advisor of India. In the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict following the Pahalgam terror attack, NSA Ajit Doval played a key role in formulating India's strategic response. He coordinated Operation Sindoor, a series of precision airstrikes on terrorist camps located in Pakistan. Indian officials described the operation as "measured and non-escalatory," aimed at neutralizing terrorist threats without provoking a broader conflict. In January 2026, Doval addressed the "Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue," where he called on the youth to "avenge our history" through proactive national reconstruction. This address was noted for its departure from traditional scholarly focus on historical loot, framing nation building instead as a form of civilizational resurgence. == Views and security positions ==

A. G. Noorani and A. S. Dulat have, among others, called Doval a "hawk" or "hawkish"; and a China hawk. Fourth-generation warfare Doval, speaking at the passing out of the 2014 batch of IPS officers, said "You are now in the phase of fourth generation war... It is a warfare with an invisible enemy... it's a warfare, in which the civil society is both the battleground and... the people that you have to protect." Critics argue that Doval's conceptualisation of fourth-generation warfare has "dangerous implications" and that Doval does not define what he means by "civil society". According to Aruna Roy, Doval was ignoring his obligations to the spirit of the constitution and to his office in his speech to the probationers. At the 6th Pune Dialogue on National Security in 2021 Doval explained how this form of warfare targets people rather than territory and territorial frontiers, that is, it targets civil society and through them cumulatively the will of a nation. National security According to Doval, the greatest threat to a nations' security is not external aggression but internal security. Doval has stated "India's internal vulnerabilities are much higher than its external vulnerabilities". His writings regularly tilt towards the importance of national issues as compared to external ones. In 2025 Doval stated that "left-wing extremism has reduced to less than 11 per cent areas than what existed in 2014". Borders In 2024, during the 21st Border Security Force investiture ceremony and Rustamji memorial lecture, Doval said that India's economic progress and internal security has been hampered by undefined borders in the north and west, and that even in the future India's borders will not be as secure as needed when taken in accordance with the country's economic growth. Bio-security In the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic in India Doval highlighted the importance of anticipating biological threats, since scientific research can be misused for harmful purposes. Governance At the annual Sardar Patel memorial lecture in 2018 titled 'Dream India: 2030, avoiding the pitfalls' Doval stated that for the next ten years India needed a strong government with a "total mandate" which could take hard decisions which may not be populist. At the Sardar Patel memorial lecture on governance in 2025 Doval shared a "security man’s perspective" on the importance governance has on securing a nation. He said that weak governance has led to regime changes in India's neghbourhood in countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Nuclear deterrence Speaking at a Munich Security Conference meeting in Delhi in October 2014, he stated that India has shifted its nuclear stance "from credible minimum deterrence to credible deterrence". Pakistan During the tenth Nani Palkhivala memorial lecture in February 2014, when talking about how to tackle Pakistan, he stated three postures- defensive, defensive-offence, and offensive. Doval said that India had so far been defensive and that it was time to turn to a defensive-offensive stance, that is, "to defend ourselves, we go to the place from where the offence is coming". During the lecture he stated that if another attack like Mumbai 26/11 happened, Pakistan may be split. The 2016 Indian Line of Control strike has been called "a perfect example of defensive offense". The 2019 Balakot airstrike, in response to the 2019 Pulwama attack, has also been equated to the doctrine. It has also been compared to the slogan "" (). The doctrine could also be felt at the 21st Lalit Doshi memorial lecture in August 2015 where, during the interactive session, Doval responded to a question saying "India has a mind-set where it punches below its weight. We have to punch not above our weight, we have to punch not below our weight, we have to increase our weight and punch proportionately". He added that if you have power but do not yield it, then that is as good as not having that power. 'Defensive offence' and 'offensive defence' are similar however in the case of the latter, an offensive stance is taken preemptively with a defense purpose. When there is a question regarding the morality between an individual and the state, the state comes first. When there is a question between defence and offense, offense should be prioritised. And third, militarism, might is right, force by any means where the only objective is to win. Doval stated in 2019 that the media is an important component in the terrorism ecosystem. In 2023, speaking at an event in New Delhi, in the presence of Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Doval stated that "terrorism is not linked to any religion". ==Awards and recognitions==

• He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University (formerly Agra University) in December 2017; Kumaun University in May 2018; Amity University in November 2018; HNBGU University in December 2019; GB Pant Agriculture and Technical University in February 2023; and Central University of Punjab in March 2024. • Doval was the youngest police officer to receive the Police Medal for meritorious service. • Doval was later awarded the President's Police Medal for distinguished service. • In 1989, Doval was granted one of the highest gallantry awards, the Kirti Chakra, becoming the first police officer to receive a medal previously given only as a military honour. He received the award for his role in Operation Black Thunder II. • In 2022 he was awarded the Uttarakhand Gaurav Samman. ==In popular culture==

• Doval appeared on Epic TV's show Adrishya, in which his success against Khalistani separatist during Operation Black Thunder was featured. • In the film Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), his cinematic character was portrayed by Paresh Rawal. • In the film Dhurandhar (2025) and its sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026), the character "Ajay Sanyal" portrayed by R. Madhavan is heavily inspired by Doval. • In 2025 web series Salakaar for JioHotstar based on his covert operation in Pakistan in 1970s, his role was played by Naveen Kasturia (as his younger self) and Purnendu Bhattacharya (as his present self) alias as Adhir Dayal. == Selected bibliography ==

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