Ajit Doval

Ajit Doval was born on 20 January 1945 in Ghiri Banelsyun village in Pauri Garhwal, in the United Provinces of the British Raj, an area now in Uttarakhand. He received his early education at Ajmer Military School and completed bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Agra University, securing first position during his master's studies.

Doval cleared the Union Public Service Commission examination in 1968 and later graduated from the 30th course of the National Defence College in New Delhi in 1990. He married Aruni Doval in 1972, and they have two children, Shaurya Doval and Vivek Doval. Doval has said that he comes from a vegetarian family, although his work led him to eat non-vegetarian food as well.

Doval joined the Indian Police Service in 1968 as a Kerala cadre officer and began as Assistant Superintendent of Police in Kottayam district. In 1972, after a posting in riot-affected Thalassery, Kerala, he joined the Intelligence Bureau. His early intelligence assignments focused on insurgency in northeast India, particularly Mizoram, where he led the Intelligence Bureau's Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau in Aizawl from 1972 to 1977 and spent much of the period undercover.

His work in Mizoram contributed to the groundwork for negotiations that eventually led to the Mizoram Peace Accord of 1986. He also played a role in the political liaison and intelligence work surrounding Sikkim's merger with India in 1975. During the 1990s, he helped bring Kashmiri separatists to negotiations and was involved in turning militant Kuka Parray into an intermediary.

Doval spent seven years in Pakistan and served at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad from 1983 to 1987, officially as head of its commercial section. He was also posted to India House in London from 1992 to 1996. His Pakistan assignments included undercover intelligence-gathering work, including collecting material that was tested for signs of uranium and contributed to exposing aspects of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

In 1988, during Operation Black Thunder II, Doval infiltrated the Golden Temple while posing as a Pakistani agent disguised as a rickshaw puller. He gathered information on Khalistani separatists and later received the Kirti Chakra for his role. He also headed the 1991 operation to rescue a captured Romanian diplomat from four Sikh militant groups.

Doval was involved in the termination of all 15 Indian Airlines hijackings between 1971 and 1999, including the 1999 hijacking of IC-814. At Intelligence Bureau headquarters, he led the operations wing for more than a decade and founded the Multi Agency Centre and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence. He became Director of the Intelligence Bureau in July 2004 and retired from the post in January 2005 after a career of more than 33 years in intelligence.

After retiring from the Intelligence Bureau, Doval remained active in national security discussions through lectures, interviews, and newspaper and journal articles. His writing focused particularly on Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, terrorism, internal security, and India's strategic response to regional threats.

Around 2008, he helped establish the Rashtriya Raksha University. In January 2009, the Government of Karnataka appointed him as its security adviser. Later that year, he became the founding director of the Vivekananda International Foundation, a New Delhi-based public policy think tank established by the Vivekananda Kendra, and held the position until he became National Security Advisor.

Doval also co-wrote reports on Indian black money held abroad in secret banks and tax havens in 2009 and 2012. As director of the Vivekananda International Foundation, he delivered lectures at institutions including the National Defence College, the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, and several universities and security forums in India and abroad.

On 30 May 2014, Doval was appointed India's fifth National Security Advisor under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During his first term, he served as the Prime Minister's special envoy to Afghanistan and helped facilitate the return of 46 Indian nurses trapped in Tikrit, Iraq, after the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State. He also worked with Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag on a cross-border operation against NSCN-K separatists operating from Myanmar. Indian officials described the mission as successful, while the Myanmar government said the operation had taken place entirely on the Indian side of the border.

Doval was associated with the diplomatic resolution of the Doklam standoff alongside Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Indian Ambassador to China Vijay Keshav Gokhale. He also served as the special representative for the India-China boundary question. In 2018, he became chairman of the Strategic Policy Group, the first tier of the National Security Council's three-level decision-making structure. He also served as chairperson of the Defence Planning Committee and executive council head of the Nuclear Command Authority.

Doval was reappointed in June 2019 and received the personal rank of a Cabinet Minister, making him the first National Security Advisor to hold that rank. His responsibilities during the second term included major national security decisions connected with the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, the 2019 Balakot airstrike, and negotiations following the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman by Pakistan. He also held several interactions with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi after the 2020-2021 China-India border clashes.

In May 2020, negotiations headed by Doval helped secure the handover of 22 militant leaders from Myanmar to the Indian government. In September that year, he walked out of a virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting after Pakistan displayed a map that omitted parts of India. He received a third five-year extension as National Security Advisor in June 2024.

During the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict following the Pahalgam terror attack, Doval played a key role in formulating India's strategic response and coordinating Operation Sindoor. Indian officials described the operation as measured and non-escalatory, while accounts from Pakistan and international reporting disputed aspects of the strikes and their targets.

Doval's security outlook places particular emphasis on internal vulnerabilities, which he has described as more serious than external aggression. He has identified infiltration from Bangladesh and left-wing extremism among India's major internal security challenges. He has also argued that undefined borders in the north and west have affected India's economic progress and internal security.

In speeches on fourth-generation warfare, Doval has described conflict as a struggle directed at civil society and the will of a nation rather than only at territory or military forces. Critics, including Aruna Roy, have argued that this formulation has dangerous implications and does not adequately define the meaning of civil society.

Doval's approach toward Pakistan is commonly associated with the Doval Doctrine. In a 2014 lecture, he described defensive, defensive-offensive, and offensive postures, arguing that India should move from a purely defensive stance to a defensive-offensive strategy while avoiding actions that could cross the nuclear threshold. Critics such as A. G. Noorani and Harsh Mander have characterised the doctrine as hawkish and overly reliant on military power.

He has also spoken about the need to anticipate biological threats, the importance of strong governance to national security, and the distinction between terrorism and religion. In a 2014 discussion on nuclear policy, he said India had shifted from credible minimum deterrence to credible deterrence.

Doval received the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 1974 and later the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service. In 1989, he was awarded the Kirti Chakra for his role in Operation Black Thunder II. He became the first police officer to receive the honour, which had previously been awarded only for military service.

He has also received honorary doctorates from Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Kumaun University, Amity University, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, and Central University of Punjab. In 2022, he received the Uttarakhand Gaurav Samman.

Doval's work during Operation Black Thunder was featured on Epic TV's programme Adrishya. His public image as an intelligence officer has also influenced fictional portrayals in Indian film and television.

In Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), Doval's cinematic character was portrayed by Paresh Rawal. The 2025 web series Salakaar drew on his covert operation in Pakistan in the 1970s, with Naveen Kasturia and Purnendu Bhattacharya portraying versions of the character under the alias Adhir Dayal. R. Madhavan's character Ajay Sanyal in Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge was heavily inspired by Doval.