On 10 January 2026, India’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Kumar Doval, Kirti Chakra gave a speech in the opening ceremony of the “Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue” in Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
The NSA highlighted the need for our country to fortify itself, not only in the borderlands, but in every encompassing facet of life, including social development and economy. He also made a passing remark about “avenging” the history of subjugation that we have been subjected to. He also spoke about decision-making, leadership, and as to why nations wage wars.He invoked our freedom struggle and spoke about the sacrifices of the Azadi Greats like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh.
“You are lucky that you were born in an independent India. I was born in a colonised India. Our ancestors fought for independence and went through so many trials and tribulations,” he told the 3,000-strong congregation of youth from across India. He did so with a clear mandate in his mind, a mandate that spoke of a Viksit Bharat to an upcoming leadership.
It was an inspirational speech from an octogenarian and seasoned thought leader to a new generation. The accent, at least to me, was that he was, in a very calibrated manner, both passing on the baton to the new generation of India, as also steeling them with the realities that India of the moment is faced with. There wereprofundity and farsightedness that characterises guru-Shishya” Parampara in his words. Nothing else!
But Vinash Kaale, Viparit Buddhi (when the times are hostile, the mind goes awry)!Ajit Doval’s stimulating speech seems to have stirred, albeit offended a section of India. The operative word which started a campaign against India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) is “revenge”.
Doval’s exact wordings were: “Revenge is not a good word, but it can be a huge force. We have to avenge our history and take this country to the point where it is great again not just in terms of border security, but economy, social development, every aspect,” He was using the word revenge in afigurative sense. He was appealing to the youth that it can no longer be subservient as it had been when it was under foreign yoke, but that it has to stand up to protect its pride, its sovereignty and integrity. The fact that he preambled his most important sentence in the entire speech by stating that “revenge is not a good word” was itself suggestive that he was using it as a metaphor. Doval was urging New India that the time has come for the nation to stand up against suppression. The fact that he peppered his lecture with examples from history had nothing to do with a communal tenor.
A solitary word, “revenge” was minedout from a speech, completely out of context, and given a horrific intent. A motley group of pseudo intellectuals of India have found unimaginable cause in the word, and have begun drumming up a case that Doval is calling for avenging the humiliation of the distant past by setting the sights of the youth against the Muslim community of India. Nothing can be further from the truth.
I have heard Doval’s speech in its entirety and even my sub-standard mind could fathom both the emotion and the strategic dimension of the speech.
Naysayers of the Doval Doctrine can interpret his speech in whichever they wish to. But the fact of the matter is that even as the NSA was venting his “anger” against indignity that had been meted out in the past to India, he was only training his angst at the aliens—colonial or invaders from afar. There was not even a whiff of provocation in his speech. Yes, it was spirited. But the spirit was that of a visionary who wanted the resurrection of greatness to a nation that had suffered because of our innate pacifism and perhaps even our inability to stand united.
I have had the good fortune of knowing Doval rather closely. I first met him in 2004 when he was still the Director, Intelligence Bureau. I still recall the complete sixty minute spent sitting in front of the Intelligence Czar in his North Block office chamber. I pride myself on my photographic memory, and, I can, therefore, narrate every minute of that momentous hour. The first 15 minute was passed in studied silence as Doval waded through my just released book Terror Sans Frontiers: Islamist Militancy in North East India. Then, on shutting the book, we began talking about the security situation in the North East and the dangers emanating from across the borders. We spoke of China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. He congratulated me for having predicted the entry of the al-Qaeda into Bangladesh (I wrote the book in 2003 in the United States) and his remarkable mind was concerned about Bangladesh, that the erstwhile East Pakistan could become a thorn in the flesh one day.
I had written a full chapter about the issue in my book which was inaugurated by Stephen Philip Cohen just a few months ago in the India International Centre. I had titled it “Events in the Neighbourhood.”
Doval was particularly interested in a small paragraph where I had written, “the return of the Jamaat-e-Islami to the land where they were once hated as anti-liberationists has had far-reaching ramifications. It has signalled the revival of old linkages between Bangladesh and Pakistan and its bid to promote an anti-India stance has brought to the fore a fundamentalist agenda which is both anti-Hindu and anti-India.” I wonder what he must have been thinking of that sentence in 2026, even as Bangladesh gears up for a crucial election where Jamaat-e-Islami is all geared up to play a shaping role.
Ajit Doval and I discussed politics and national security. Indeed, my very first conversation with him was a precursor for several hour-long conversations in later years, especially after his retirement from the IPS. Conversations grew far and few between when he became the NSA, and I don’t think I have spoken to him during the last four years at all. I have tried to meet him, but he was always occupied to give me time. But, an almost lifetime of conversations with Doval, physically, or over phone and emails have never elicited a communal outlook in the man. He has never spoken to me about the minority population of India in a disparaging manner ever. If at all, he always spoke of an India that is inclusive and strong.
As I wrote in the preceding paragraph, my association with Doval was rather close at a particular point of time. But it waned after he became the NSA and, as aforesaid, I have not spoken to him at all in the last four years. I sometimes nostalgically browse through his long emails and feel smug that I once knew a man that has a beautiful dream for India. While listening to his speech to the youth in the Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue recently, I felt I was back in 2004 when I met him for the first time. I still recall how he, in the presence of Avadhesh Behari Mathur (his junior colleague in the Intelligence Bureau), had held my shoulders and called me “Rosseau of the North East.”
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The only reason I opened my laptop this morning and write what I wrote above was to correct a wrong. To disabuse the many who might be swayed by the nefarious intentions of a few. Ajit Doval is a patriot. He is not a communal man. If he used the word “revenge” in his speech, it was not to provoke his audience onto an action of “us-and-them,” but to instil a sense of pride and courage in a people that it is time that India stood up and proclaimed that we are one against agendas that hadonce sought to humiliate and subjugate us. And, most importantly, may, if we let our guard down, do so again.
(Jaideep Saikia is an internationally acclaimed conflict theorist and bestselling author)
