As Ajit Doval 3.0 begins, a look at IB, RAW, intel titans & how India’s NSA office evolved

are you sure here's the 30C lesson on what Legends know never ask a bride why she's getting married don't wear a skirt on a windy [Music] day dant is not a shower don't sniff chil flee and don't forget saving is not investing Legends don't just save they invest in mutual funds mutual fund Investments are subject to Market risks read old scheme related documents carefully Ajit Kumar doal as we know has been appointed National Security adviser for a third term for an unprecedented third term now ajitkumar doal has had a storied life there is a lot written about him a lot of it accurate a lot of it mythological there are myths buil built around him we've also featured him in two earlier episodes of kak clutter of which I'm sharing the links with you check out the check out the links under the description so I will not go into any of that again as I said in one of those links that in some ways my professional life has run sort of parall with his professional life I'm a bit younger or he's a bit older than me he's he's a bit sen senior to me but you know what happens that we journalists reporters tend to interact with people older than us or people much more senior to us in government services because they are the ones who are generating the news so that said please check out those two links for more details on him and his life as a professional intelligence person through his life however last 10 years and now going ahead in this term because his appointment is C Terminus with the prime minister or as ordered whichever is earlier so he is actually an essential part of prime minister modi's Entourage that said this is a very different role from just being the the intelligence Chief or the intellig bureau chief for running operations at the intelligence Bureau before that by the way he was appointed intelligence bureau chief IB Chief by the UPA government by Dr Manmohan sing's UPA government that's a fact we should not forget because he had had an excellent relationship with all the governments he had worked with in the past vajpai government manm Singh government before that the indraa Gandhi government he was among the younger people Al also involved in the IND the entire operation which led to the merger of Sikkim with India 1974-75 that was a tumultuous period in India's history finally it led to the emergency but before that the year before that India had seen a lot of dramatic developments also on the National Security front remember in 1974 it was that India tested the nukes for the first time India call it it peaceful nuclear explosion but that was 1974 also so called pokran one or Buddha smiling one test that said because we have already said written and spoken so much about Ajit doal I will also share a national interest article on him that I wrote in 2016 all that done let's look let's focus today on the post of National Security advisor in fact so understated is this post that the 25th anniversary of the founding of the position just passed sort of sort of unknown to anybody now we are in the 26th year of the position of the National Security adviser India became independent in 1947 the NSA position was only set up in 1998 it took that long for that position to come up 51 years that's because India was decayed upon decade upon decade India was beginning to figure out its external and internal security needs and in the course of time also figured that the internal security and external Security First of all the first lesson for India was that internal security and external security are two different things the next thing India Learned was that foreign policy strategic policy and external intelligence were also linked they were not that far apart and finally a realization came as India's threat perceptions grew somehow India was always behind the curve on this a country like India in such a hostile environment inheriting a history of war after all our birth the first war came with our birth 1947 1948 we had a war over Kashmir with Pakistan 1962 there was another full-fledged war with China 1960 was the liberation of Goa 1965 was another full-fledged war with China before that the cat conflict or a series of skirmishes there after that the natula Skirmish with the Chinese in 1967 then the war with Pakistan in 1971 Cold War coming into the subcontinent Americans making pakistanis their Ally with Pakistan signing up to their treaties India getting close to the Soviet Union and ending the 1960s by signing the India Soviet Indo Soviet Treaty of Peace friendship and cooperation after that the Bangladesh War Shimla agreement 1974 nuclear test so India's security needs were always intense and that's why it's surprising that it it took India more than half a century just a bit more than half a century to realize that it needed a position located in the prime minister's office working closely with the Prime Minister and in that position would then come all the inputs on internal security external security or internal in intelligence and external intelligence and also the foreign policy plans and formulations because ultimately foreign policy sec security policy is made politically prime minister of India heads that process while inputs come from the field from the various Ministries and departments intelligence Etc to the Prime Minister the policy decisions have to come down and the policy objectives have to come down from the Prime Minister for execution so there was need felt for such a position that will distill all the information that's coming in to the prime minister so that that the Prime Minister has the right inputs also get the prime Minister's mind advise the Prime Minister and help the Prime Minister formulate policies and then ensure their implementation that's how this position was created in 1998 by atel bihari vaj that is how the first NSA was appointed however since we have an opportunity today to review and to look at and to try and understand how this process grew and what kind of changes it went through as it evolved we have to remember that the first incumbent bresh Mishra he was a former Indian Foreign Service Officer he was appointed India's first national security adviser of NSA in 1998 by the vajpai government and his job was defined as being the primary adviser to the Prime Minister both on internal security and external policies as well external security as well as foreign policy as well now he did not have just one job he was also also simultaneously given the job of principal secretary to prime minister of India now see the two appointments that the Prime Minister has now decided to continue in his third term one is the National Security advisor second is PK Mishra who is the principal secretary to prime minister both appointments now are in the rank of full cabinet ministers right both these jobs were combined in one position by atel bhari bajp in 1998 under brijesh Mishra so he was the first NSA come principal secretary from 1998 to 2004 until vajpai lost power then manm sing government was forn in and the interesting thing the manm Singh government did was they thought that NSA was too powerful a position possibly it was also a reaction or a response to the fact that brijesh Mishra was seen to be so close to prime minister vajpai it had drawn adverse comments in public adverse comments in public from the RSS then there was a lot of criticism so maybe maybe reacting or responding to the idea that the position had become too powerful and probably not thinking that the position became to powerful one because it was a dual position it also combined the principal secretary's position principal secretary to prime minister and also because brijesh Mishra and atal bihari vajpai enjoyed a very close personal relationship nevertheless the UPA government decided to split the post so they decided to have two nsas so first of all India did not have an NSA for 51 years and now that we had an NSA we decided to have two nsas what's better than having one NSA have two nsas so two nsas one was taken from Indian Police Service IPS that is MK Narayanan who had been director of intelligence Bureau and again had a storyed career in fact for many years he was like he was he was the he was the boss that Ajit doal reported to do sometimes remember M from Ian Fleming novels he was the boss who kept who kept James Bond on the narrow and the straight if anybody could keep or to the extent anybody could keep James Bond on the narrow and the straight nevertheless this job was split so MK Naran was brought in to keep an eye on internal security and advise the prime minister JN dshit known as Mani dshit wrote many books JN dikshit was brought in from Indian Foreign Service he'd been ambassador to many important countries including Sri Lanka and Pakistan India's neighborhood in very difficult times very eventful times wonderful scholar great mind as MK Naran is you should read his column in the Hindu It's a Wonderful column and he comes in comes in with a great depth of knowledge so these two then became the duo that that ran the National Security advisor's office two national security advisors 3rd of January 2005 unfortunately less than a year into the job JN dikhit passed away he died in his sleep had a heart attack and passed away when that happened Manmohan sing government also decided not to replace him with another Foreign Service Officer or another officer to look at external inputs to advise the prime minister on external issues or external Securities then once again the UPA combined the office they collapsed the office again under one NSA so MK Naran then became India's sole NSA and served in that position for more than 5 years after MK Naran the position went again UPA came back to Power in 2009 about a year later MK Naran left and the position now went to shiv Shankar Menan shiv Shankar Menan of the Foreign Service former foreign secretary High Commissioner to Pakistan ambassador to China ambassador to High Commissioner to Sri Lanka with many many important positions across the world with great deal of experience also a scholarly mind so he had his job under UPA 2 after UPA 2 Narendra Modi government because Ajit doel had also been a fellow traveler with the opposition group with the BJP group he had been involved with he had been involved with Vive Anand Foundation producing some academic work and also some line of thinking that the new government bjb government might follow he got this position he has grown in this position it is in this position that he became he was designated cabinet minister as also was principal secretary to uh to to prime minister so important is his role considered and so trusted is he by the Prime Minister that at the age of 79 he's again been given given a fresh appointment this fresh appointment has given us an excuse also to look at the evolution of India's thought on the higher National Security Management from 1950 India became independent in 1947 1947 India had inherited the intelligence Bureau from the British and the intelligence bureau chief then was an officer of Ip as it was called that was the Indian Imperial police obviously India became became independent so Imperial was dropped it became Indian police so the first IB director was TG sanjiv P intelligence Bureau now looked at all intelligence internal as well as external he was succeeded by ban mik so B Malik 1950 B Malik was somebody who n knew well he became very powerful as I told you earlier IB at this point intelligence Bureau looked at both internal as well as as well as external intelligence so this was the National Intelligence Zar also worked very closely with the prime minister so effectively performed the role of the National Security adviser how long did he serve in that job he took over in 1950 served in that position in an all powerful manner for more than 14 years he demitted office on 9th of October 1964 just months after javahar Neu passed away on 27th of May in the same so in a way his position was also coterminous with with that with that of javahar Neu now his era saw a lot of action I told you 1962 War The Liberation of liberation of Goa all of the tamasha that went on leading up to the War in 1962 and and the buildup in Kashmir with hazrat Bal Etc hazrat Bal incident Etc so he had seen a very action-packed time he had also seen the evolution of Indian intelligence so in some ways he was the original Spy Master although he was blamed many times and repeatedly in history sometimes rightly sometimes based on folklore for India's intelligence failure or what was seen as India's intelligence failure in the 1962 War however India's failure in 1962 was more political it was mostly political then military as well as that of intelligence B Malik was also one of those scholar L old generation police officers he wrote his autobiography his Memoirs in three volumes and in college I in college I found all three volumes in the library and I read all of them then and you can still refer to them if you can if you can find them they are wonderful pieces of writing so the three volumes are my years with neru one the Chinese betrayal about 1962 number two Kashmir that is the whole gamut of talks with kashmir's behind the scenes all the shenan G with shik Abdullah and the rest so first is the Chinese betrayal second volume Kashmir and third volume just called 1948 to 1964 I also had the privilege of getting to know him much later in the mid 80s when I used to work for India today and I would go to his home and he was very happy he was then living with his son-in-law that is har Anand barari who was then director of intelligence Bureau 1984 to 1987 and J I would put up my motorbike and walk into the house and and Mr ban Malik would be there sitting in his garden in the winter in a in a golf cap full of Stories full of stories it was a wonderful rord here so for 14 years he sat in a position which would today be called National Security adviser however the setback against China and also the limitations of Indian intelligence shown up in 1965 he wasn't heading the in intelligence Bureau then he had retire retired as I told you on 9th of October 1964 now Mr SP Verma was heading intelligence Bureau so once again some some inadequacies were seen for example first of all there was the inability of Indian intelligence to forc operation Gibralter with the pakistanis launched in Kashmir Valley by bringing in thousands of infiltrators the fact that they trained them over time planned and then sent them in Indian intelligence and F failed to sniff that out so that gave India the impression that India was weak on external intelligence that one office that is intelligence Bureau was overburdened looking at internal as well as as well as external intelligence also remember this was the time when America had become a hostile power India was seeing FBI and CB CIA for example working separately Indian officers Indian leaders were getting exposed to other countries particularly in the western world so the idea now was to split the jobs and create another office it took some time Mrs Gandhi came to power in 1966 it took her a couple of years in 1968 she founded R aw that is research and Analysis Wing as a separate external intelligence agency now there were two agencies intelligence Bureau research and Analysis Wing but there was no office where both could input their findings and that office would then distill them and take them to the Prime Minister that still took some time evolving person Mrs Gandhi appointed as raw Chief RN CA Ramat C again a storied life he lasted in in that job for 9 years he actually should have retired in 1976 when he turned 58 which was the retirement age then she gave him an extension so he served till 1977 but would probably have gone on serving but for the fact that Mrs Gandhi lost power in 1977 after the em geny in so many ways he I mean of course he was the founder of raw but in so many ways he was also the founder of modern Indian external intelligence because he ran operations leading up to the 71 War about which books have been written and then we know pokran 1 Etc many things happened under his watch the the merger of sim happened under under his watch and also a very good CER of Indian Intelligence Officers got trained under his watch that's the important thing to watch when ban mik took over as intelligence Bureau director in 1950 he also brought in a young officer with him at that point that is RN cow RN CA was 1940 batch IP officer he had only been in service for 10 years then he was brought in to look after personal security for javahar Neu in the process he also he also developed a close relationship of trust with jawaharlal Neu and that's why jawaharlal Neu it was who appointed him as the head of what was called and is still called Arc Aviation Research Center it was based at charbatia in odisha it worked closely with the CIA the basic it worked closely with the CIA the early 60s not not later and it worked with the CIA to run operations or to run overflights over Tibet to collect technical intelligence Arc still does a lot of that work it was you can say that you can pretty much say that RN cow was its Founders and maybe maybe that research in ra aw research and Analysis Wing has also come from Arc Aviation Research Center Aviation Research Center Arc is now a part of RA aw important thing I'm sure you have noted by now but if you haven't Arn cow he took over as the head of raw in 1968 he was born in 1918 right which means he took over as the head of raw at the age of 15 that's how young these leaders were in that era but he wasn't done yet right he he he had to go out as morar Desai became prime minister he was very suspicious of RW and intelligence work so Rena went out of the system but soon enough Mrs Gandhi was back and he was back in the system also Mrs Gandhi was not going to be working without him so he came in as a kind of adviser foreign policy SL security advisor to Mrs Gandhi and continued on in that position with Rajiv Gandhi as well by the way he passed away in January 2002 at the age of 84 so he worked closely with both of them and that in a way was the precursor to the position of National Security adviser after Rajiv Gandhi as we know India had many unstable governments so National Security issues they were always threats to National Security but many of those issues were immediate and tactical narim Mara for example had an had an unbroken five stint but in in his time there was a big Insurgency on in Punjab and in Kashmir so he was so busy fighting that that the larger thought process on National Security Management took the backseat and that's why it had to wait for at beari vajpai to come in because that group had been out of power for a very long time and when you're out of power you have more more time to think plan it also had fine Minds like say Jan Singh pesh Mishra and they were all Al more exposed to the to the Western ways of working by this time India had also begun to work much more closely with America that started in the era of Nimar so as Indians were dealing again and again with US presidents with the US NSS the idea that India should have an NSA as well that took ground and that's how this position came up and then You' seen the evolution of the position we have described that to you and then the position involved from 1 is to two back into one right and we've described it to you how this process took place and why the important thing one takeaway before I let you go is that if you see the incumbents in this position Rajesh Mishra JN dikhit MK Narayan shiv Shankar Manon Ajit Kumar D Ajit Kumar D Ajit Kumar D Ajit Kumar d three terms in fact at the end of this term Ajit Kumar doel would have held this position longer than than Malik had the position of the director of intelligence Bureau where he combined all these functions the important thing is this position has been held by Indian Foreign Service officers Indian Police Service officers but has never been held by an is officers in fact beginning 1998 when when it became a much wider larger position Indian foreign Services made it to it but the fact is that this is one Fortress that IAS has failed to break I thought that's an interesting side light to this [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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Keywords: theprint, shekhar gupta, ThePrint, ThePrint news, ThePrint videos, ThePrint Hindi, Ajit Doval, NSA, Modi Government, Nastinal Security, Narendra Modi, BJP

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Length: 23min 37sec (1417 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2024