Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG: Undercover - Ajit Doval in Theory and Practice, by Praveen Donthi.

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Undercover - Ajit Doval in Theory and Practice,

by Praveen Donthi.

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This book, its title and cover page are a cheating effort - its only those who may like the subject for some reason who are likely to buy it, and there's nothing in the title or cover to suggest that ot consists of venom vomited onto Doval, onto BJP and RSS by Donthi.

In all honesty the book should be titled "Stone-pelting against Doval, BJP, RSS and so on". As one proceeds with reading it, it becomes clear this exercise is not merely abuse and gossip, with conveniently unnamed sources for negative quotes, but also uses lies of at least the withholding facts variety.

It's puzzling, at the very least. Not because one isn't used to this anti-India, pro-colonial, anti-Hindu venom and abuses from a fraudulent opposition since 2014 in high gear, letting go of every semblance of decency they may have pretended before. But rather because the name of this author was given on Kindle as associated with a work by General Bakshi as an author.

Was that another bit of cheating by opposition? Was that a horrible mix-up by Amazon and Kindle?

Donthi quotes some sources (name withheld, in the kaffee-klatsch style Donthi uses of a kitty circle of society afternoons) on claiming that BJP leaders don't go by consensus, implying that congress and associated parties do so; this is so blatant a lie on both counts, it's astounding why Donthi or whoever inspired him into this stonepelting book expect people to believe it. Do they take India to be stupid?

But perhaps that never was the intention. Perhaps they never expected India to believe them, and it's only meant as a source to be quoted further, ad infinitum.

"A senior journalist covering the prime minister’s office told me, “When Doval is with the PM, nobody can enter. Not even the principal secretary, Nripendra Misra. Not even a call can be transferred.” Media coverage has played up Modi and Doval’s closeness. Five months into the NSA’s tenure, Rajeev Sharma wrote, “Ever since his Gujarat days Modi has a penchant for trusting officials more rather than politicians and ministers. … Modi finds Doval to be a perfect person whom he can trust completely and who can carry out his covert strategic and even political missions perfectly well.”"

Anybody who has even remotely known India and her political scene knows this to be blatantly double lie. Whether or not a PM holds meetings about security private, fact is Modi has a cabinet far more obviously competent and quite opposite to some previous ones.

" ... The defence ministry has lacked stable ministerial leadership, with two changes of minister already in Modi’s term. A high-ranking former cabinet bureaucrat told me that although “Sushma Swaraj is a competent person,” as the minister of external affairs she “has been made more or less a cipher.”"

This is non only blatant nonsense, it's a personal attack against someone who deserved more respect in life and after, as does the other cabinet minister referred here.

"“The subversive and violent groups disguise themselves as crusaders of disaffected or alienated sections of the society and indulge in violence and other unlawful activities,” Doval wrote in 2012. “Actions taken by the government to protect law abiding citizens or to enforce rule of law will be portrayed as persecution and oppression further eroding government’s legitimacy.”"

Exactly what opposition and it's violent "protests" including setting fire to vehicles and trains, has been routine since 2014, apart from their support of stone pelters and of slogans about breaking up India, their virulent and disgustabuse of PM and his cabinet, of Hindu Deities and more, while supporting a congress henchman requesting Pakistan on Pakistan television to get rid of PM of India soon after 2014, have all been evidence of.

"Speaking at the national police academy in Hyderabad in 2015, he said, “This war can’t be won by armies. This is the war of policemen. If you win, the country wins.”"

Seeing that it's in form of terrorists posing as internal saboteurs but being either inculcated from abroad or infiltrates pretending to be Indian, that's quite correct.

In fact, that's where Donthi and Co have lost this before their attack against Doval was even conceived.

Dovals popularity isn't based on tales about his exploits as a spy. He was in intelligence and intelligent audiences that like him aren't expecting stories about what India's agents do. It's this speech above and likes thereof, discussing facts instead of hurling usual congress platitudes and lies, that resonate with India, just as the now PM of India has done with people as few, far too few, leaders have for a long time now.

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"“Comprehensive national security is not just about borders but in its broad terms includes military security; economic security; energy, food and water and health security; and social cohesion and harmony,” the BJP’s election manifesto declared. Yet cow-protection vigilantes have been allowed free rein, and have taken several lives since 2014."

When is congress going to get it into its head that Hindu entity is not that of dumb animals free for slaughter by Abrahamic-II and Abrahamic-III without guilt? That Hindu ancient treasure of thought and knowledge is not to be despised and broken just because Macaulay was on the side behind cannons? If force were the moral victory Islamic laws punishing a female victim of rape for adultery by stone pelting to death would be righteous, but obviously they are not. PM spoke against individual action, but if protection of cows had been instituted by congress instead of the then PM Nehru slapping the monks on hungerstrike, no citizens would need to become vigilante. Besides, it's very comparable with rape, child abduction or murder - if you wait to inform the police, victims are finished.

Cattle theft isn't done by innocent unarmed babies, it's armed butchers who are now getting caught in the process of depriving a poor family of their vital lifeline.

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Author begins by describing an incident in US, where Doval was quicker than anyone on the spot to retrieve papers that had been scattered on the lawn by a gust of wind, which made him famous via various media.

But to those who value the security and consequent peace of mind of years post 2014, unlike the previous decade when terrorist attacks were as rampant as corruption, Doval needs little introduction.

So, ironically, considering the nature and importance of his work and therefore of the person at the help, one hopes as one reads this that the book does not affect Doval's own security.

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"Doval’s sphere of influence is enhanced by his links to the VIF, and also to the India Foundation. In 2015, the Economic Times reported that the India Foundation hosts weekly “closed door sessions on high policy issues.” The organisation has arranged gatherings of foreign ambassadors, hosted foreign dignitaries, and helped organise events on Modi’s foreign visits, including his rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2014. One bureaucrat I spoke to compared the foundation with the National Advisory Council of the previous government."

Judging from audiences at any public event abroad where Modi speaks to his Non-Resident Indian audiences, it's unlikely there's much truth in the venomous insinuations in that paragraph.

NRI are on the whole those who went abroad on strength of merit, worked hard and have done well; they aren't likely to be the poor villagers congress routinely busses into venues for events, with promises of a free, paid holiday tour including food, who come to supposedly protest an heir to throne being questioned on financial fraud, but when asked by reporters on camera, say candidly they are in town to meet the so-called young leader.

NRI crowds, on the other hand, can't be controlled in diverse countries where they live, and their enthusiasm for this PM is quite genuine.

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This reminds of the "rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2014' coverage by Sardesai where, standing outside and insulting the NRI crowd as a whole and as individuals, he got abusive, got into a physical fight, and was sued by at least one person he'd abused, so he couldn't dare return to US thereafter.

This crowd didn't consist of the Lutyens, Doon School dynasty he was used to abject kowtowing before, but of self respecting capable hardworking middle class achievers who had done everything on their own in a land with no support from society around even in form of ready meals for sons from parents at home, or care in times of sickness.

Sardesai had no clue about their selfhood and being, and thought he could treat them like dirt, as he and his likes are used to back home.

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"Some argue that Doval’s style is an advantage. Rajeev Sharma wrote in 2014, “while Rajnath Singh is the supreme boss of the IB, Doval continues to have direct and real-time access to IB and its reports. In many ways, Doval is the first NSA who has unbridled access to all dozen-odd Indian intelligence agencies—civil as well as military. He talks to chiefs of IB, RAW and MI”—military intelligence—“ten times a day.”

"“There is much more synergy among various intelligence agencies, defence forces and central armed police forces,” Nitin Gokhale told me. “There is much more coordination at the top. … If you are a critic, you may call it centralisation of power. But the truth is, you have an NSA who has been an operative. He commands more respect from security forces. You can call it fear. But the results are good.”"

There's just one problem there with those paragraphs quoted - thar "Some argue", making it seem that the opposite is true, that Donthi and his backers are inquisitors and such "Some argue" are blasphemous that shall be burnt at stake as soon as people change their verdict.

We the people hope desperately that won't come true. Breathing has been easier, since 2014, after a long time.

"On foreign policy, a defining factor in Doval’s reach has been the equation between him and the foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. As the ambassador to China and then the United States, Jaishankar received Modi on several official trips, including his first visit to the United States as prime minister. Modi removed the incumbent foreign secretary to make room for Jaishankar in January 2015, and granted him a year-long extension on his two-year term early this year. Numerous people familiar with the ministry of external affairs told me that Modi’s great confidence in Jaishankar makes him the most powerful foreign secretary in a long time. Some of Doval’s detractors told me Jaishankar might replace him as the NSA if Modi is re-elected in 2019."

Um, - no?

"Ajit Kumar Doval KC (born 20 January 1945) is a central civil servant of the IPS cadre serving as the fifth and the current National Security Advisor (NSA) to the Prime Minister of India, with the precedence equivalent to Cabinet Minister.... "

That's currently on Wikipedia.

" ... In government circles, Doval has been nicknamed the daroga, or station-house officer, of South Block—the premises of the ministry of external affairs and the prime minister’s office. Another nickname making the rounds is “National Security Advisor (Pakistan)”—an insinuation that Doval’s understanding of other countries is non-existent."

Really, Donthi? Out and out kitty kaffee-klatsch painted nails out to scratch the missing guest?

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"The journalist Uday Mahurkar, who is considered close to Modi, pointed to a division of turf between Doval and Jaishankar in a recent book on the prime minister’s administration. “The roadmap for Modi’s global initiatives was prepared by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar,” he wrote, “with the national security focus coming from Ajit Doval in the case of countries in India’s immediate neighbourhood, particularly Pakistan.”

"I approached Doval’s office in the third week of August to ask for an interview. A member of his staff called to say the NSA was very busy and would not be able to speak to me."

One, is that the source of venom, a la Ms Dutt on Modi eight years ago, on camera, comparing him with the previous person in power - "he thinks he doesn't need us", while the audience was to infer that the other, just as unavailable, had somehow intimated otherwise?

And two, are the two paragraphs above even remotely related?

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"In early 2016, the Modi government faced a major political crisis following the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar at the University of Hyderabad. Vemula had been suspended after a complaint from the campus chapter of the RSS’s student wing, which was forwarded to the government by a BJP leader. As accusations of casteism escalated into nationwide protests, the Times of India published a story headlined “Ajit Doval gets report saying Rohith Vemula was not a dalit.” Its author, the journalist Bharti Jain, is best known for covering security. She wrote, “A secret intelligence report has claimed that both the grandmother and mother of Rohith Vemula … have declared the family’s caste as Vaddera, which is a backward caste and not part of the ‘Dalit’ fold.” This controversial claim was used to shield the university’s vice chancellor and senior BJP and government figures from charges under the stringent Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act."

Vadera, or Vadhera, incidentally, is the family name of the so-called Vadra family, latter name anglicized due to an Irish wife, the senior Mrs Vadra.

But more importantly, Vemula was involved in a fight with fisticuffs where he'd put another poor, and dalit, student in hospital. This was the reason for suspension. Affiliations of those who merely suspended a student fir injuring another poor student seriously should be questioned on basis of the assaulted being not in custody of police, not for the mild 'suspension'.

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" ... There has been much speculation about his role in the allegedly preferential treatment given to officers from his home state: among them the army chief, Bipin Rawat, promoted late last year; the RAW chief, Anil Dhasmana; AK Bhatt, the director general of military operations; and Alok Joshi, the head of the National Technical Research Organisation."

This vitriol against Bipin Rawat should be noted, especially in view of the subsequent "accident" recently.

Wasn't something similar also another disaster during Nehru era?

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" ... In early 2015, the BJP formed a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir with the Peoples Democratic Party, which Doval had helped form in the 1990s. The following year, the valley exploded in protest after security forces killed the militant leader Burhan Wani. Police and paramilitary personnel responded with shocking brutality, leaving about a hundred civilians dead and hundreds more blinded by pellet guns. The government imposed a weeks-long curfew and a media blackout. There was virtually no attempt to address the discontent through political means. The deaths of militants since then have been met with massive funeral processions, and reports indicate that a growing number of young Kashmiris are resorting to arms."

This is shameless pro terrorism by Donthi, who isn't going into stone pelting being new terrorist weapon using crowds of younger people, and large stones not exactly lying around on spot but brought in for the purpose.

He's also completely unconcerned about the security forces who weren't allowed to use serious weapons, unlike any other country where handguns (if not machine guns) are routinely used; pakis have used tanks, airplane bombings and much, much worse, and not on protesters much less stone prlters, but merely civilians who aren't exactly blood relatives of the military junta.

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"Another major militant attack followed in September, and left 18 soldiers dead at an army camp in the town of Uri, in Kashmir. Eleven days after it, the army announced that it had inflicted heavy casualties in “surgical strikes” at several militant bases across the Line of Control. Such raids had occurred before, but had never been publicly flaunted. Now the media hailed Modi for the action. Defence journalists credited Doval with planning it."

Donthi has hereby slotted himself as congress and allied parties mouthpiece. Shame he has none.

"Sober scrutiny came from elsewhere. Some analysts questioned the worth of bringing public one-upmanship into an already difficult conflict. ... "

Donthi quotes someone, presumably of West, mentioning Pakistan as "Such raids were unlikely to make Pakistan “abandon its strategy of supporting some jihadis while fighting others. … Inside the Kashmir valley, India still needed to find the political means of addressing Kashmiri resentment.”"

No, Doval ought to have had Donthi on a very Gandhian fast, at the border and under protection of security forces, until Pakistan converted to Buddhism, or better. What's a better example of peace than Buddha? None, surely?

"“You can’t have a great powerful country which can’t manage its own internal security,” Doval said in 2015 at the police academy. There have been multiple internal security crises on his watch. Just this July, militants killed seven people on the pilgrimage route to the Amarnath Temple in Kashmir. The government faced criticism from across party lines for not acting on prior intelligence about the attack. In August, supporters of the god-man Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, angered by his conviction for rape, rampaged across parts of Haryana, Punjab and the national capital region. More than 30 people were left dead."

Has congress accepted responsibility for 26/11 terrorists attacks, or even for genocide of Sikhs in 1984?

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"Modi invited the heads of state of all the South Asian countries to his swearing in. They all came, including Nawaz Sharif, then the Pakistani prime minister. The idea was reported to have come from Doval. Modi’s supporters lauded the statesmanlike gesture, and pundits dared hope for better India–Pakistan ties.

"It was in vain. A few instances of cross-border fire served as a reminder of the tense status quo. Pakistan’s high commissioner to India met with leaders of the Hurriyat, a Kashmiri separatist coalition. The Indian government and media berated Pakistan, and India called off bilateral talks scheduled for August.

"Doval was not shy with his opinion of dialogue with Pakistan before he became the NSA. In 2013, he spearheaded a call by a group of former diplomatic, military and intelligence officials for the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to cancel a planned meeting with Sharif at the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly. Instead, they demanded the creation of measures “that will impose a cost on Pakistan.”

"In December 2015, on the way home from a foreign tour, Modi landed in Lahore to drop in on celebrations of Sharif’s birthday and his granddaughter’s wedding. Reuters reported, “A close aide to Modi said the visit was a spontaneous decision by the prime minister and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and that it should not be seen as a sudden shift in India’s position.”

"G Parthasarathy, the former diplomat, told me that when Modi came to power, the impression was that Doval would be very tough. “So he decided to reach out to Pakistan,” he said. “He had to do that to show that the stereotype of a hardliner is wrong.”"

"Some analysts, going by past experience, predicted a “spoiler” attack in reaction to Modi’s visit by elements opposed to peace between the two countries. The Pathankot attack came just days later. Pakistan denounced it; Modi blamed it only on “enemies of humanity.”"

"He has since said that Pakistan “bombs its own citizens using fighter planes,” and that the “time has come that Pakistan shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Balochistan and PoK”—Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In his 2016 Independence Day speech, he made a reference to Balochistan again. The media dubbed it a “diplomatic strike.”

"The Modi government had already made a significant move on Balochistan the previous year. In October 2015, a representative of the separatist Balochistan Liberation Organisation called a press conference in Delhi to read out a statement from the group’s leader, who was in exile in London. Pakistan protested against the BLO representative’s presence in the Indian capital. A report in The Hindu had Indian officials confirming “that both PoK and Balochistan will be used more and more when India faces allegations from Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir.” The BLO representative told the reporters he had been in India since 2009, and that “he feels safe in Delhi and has the support of a section of the BJP.”"

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"Inconsistency has been a hallmark in the relationship with Nepal, too. Modi headed to Kathmandu in August 2014, a few months into his tenure as prime minister. There, he promised to increase development cooperation, and to put the “neighbourhood first.” But the goodwill this earned was soon squandered.

"In September 2015, Nepal was on the verge of adopting a new constitution to cap an arduous transition away from civil war. But anger over some of its provisions had sparked protests, especially in the Madhes region along the southern border, and scores of demonstrators had died in the preceding months. India, long a supporter of the new charter’s creation, had issued notes of concern regarding the discontent, but nothing that had been interpreted in Kathmandu as suggesting a major change in the Indian stance. Two days before the constitution was to be signed, Jaishankar landed in Kathmandu to lobby for a postponement so that the concerns of people in the Madhes could be addressed."

Donthi writes about Jaishankar visiting Nepal and this being resented.

"The constitution was adopted as scheduled, with India and Nepal feeling mutually snubbed. The countries’ relationship has remained strained since. The signing of the constitution was soon followed by a devastating blockade of the two countries’ border as India and a new Nepali government clashed over suggested amendments to the document, and over increased Chinese investment in Nepal. As anger against India multiplied, China’s popularity shot up."

Is Donthi unaware of Nepal wishing to join India at independence, and Nehru refusing, as he'd also refused Baluchistan, sending back signed documents of accession in the latter case?

In the former, it was because Nepal is Hindu, he said explicitly and publicly.

He'd moreover forbidden teaching of anything of Hinduism in schools in India, and instructed the then president of India to not attend funeral of Sardar Patel because the latter had not distanced himself from renovation of the ancient temple at Somnath destroyed by islamic invaders deliberately. Several government officials nevertheless did go to the said funeral from Delhi, helped by one at his own expense; but subsequently, while took the 35 lakh purse of life's savings of Sardar Patel that his daughter brought to Nehru as per last wishes of Sardar Patel, he not only did not care to ask about her future or eellbeing, he did not even offer a cup of tea. And yet she'd been to jail with Kasturba, several times!

Problems of Nepal, Kashmir, Baluchistan, and to a large extent Tibet, apart from border and army, have been largely due to the intial inept handling by the fist PM, chiefly because the competent one elected for the post was sidelined by Gandhi who insisted Sardar Patel step aside and nominate Nehru.

So much for democracy of congress, and this was at least the third, not first, major incident of the kind.

As usual Donthi gives a colour photograph, of a beautiful location this time. It's captioned -

"A months-long blockade of the India–Nepal border swayed Nepali popular opinion firmly against India and in favour of China."

Wasn't the border closed by Nepal, not India? Blockade must, obviously, have been by Nepal.

In any case, if India were wrong to not allow transport of commercial goods between Nepal and China through India, according to Donthi, why isn't he on hungerstrike before Pakistan embassy, or birder, protesting Pakistan not allowing free access to Central Asia and Afghanistan?

Why the pro Pakistan exception to the Gandhian moral philosophy of congress?

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"India’s recent dealings with Sri Lanka, like those with Nepal, also suggest a tendency towards blunt reactions to any cooperation between China and the smaller South Asian states."

Obviously Donthi thinks previous leaders in position of PM of India handled it perfectly, including the dynasty family of three generations that were PM of India at various yikes and cumulatively longest term, but also individually so for two out of three of them. Does every congress leader of current times have the same sentiment, despite the horrible murder of one of them at hands of Sri Lankan terrorists, on Indian soil?

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"In October 2014, Doval visited Colombo. The incumbent government there, under Mahinda Rajapaksa, had actively courted China, to India’s distaste. Now, with an election due in a few months, Doval met with opposition leaders ahead of a meeting with Rajapaksa. In December, Rajapaksa’s government expelled the RAW station chief in Colombo—accusing him, it later emerged, of aiding the opposition. The following month, Rajapaksa lost the election to Maithripala Sirisena, a last-minute defector to the opposition from his own party.

"The consensus in Sri Lanka was that Doval had plotted to oust Rajapaksa, motivated largely by his antipathy towards China. This March, the New Indian Express reported comments by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda’s brother and defence secretary, at a media event in Colombo. “Gotabaya said that China has been a bee in the bonnet for Doval since his early days in the intelligence service,” the report said. It also stated Gotabaya’s view that while Doval’s predecessor, Shivshankar Menon, “looked at things as a diplomat, Doval looked at them as an ‘intelligence man.’”

"The new Sri Lankan government has continued to collaborate with China. Shivshankar Menon, in his 2016 memoir, wrote that it “would be unreasonable to expect exclusivity. For Sri Lanka, as for India’s other smaller neighbors, using China to get India to pay attention and invest in the relationship and using India to get Chinese investment and support is a productive strategy, empirically proven in the past. For India not to recognize and deal with this fact of international life would be foolish.”"

Now that India needs to rescue Sri Lanka and the supposedly good guy Donthi paints as unfairly ousted is fleeing protesting mobs due to difficulties brought on inevitably by Sri Lanka's association with China, as has been happening throughout Africa, Donthi might concede Doval was correct in his intelligence. If there's any honesty in opposition, that is!

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"India’s relationship with Myanmar witnessed another foreign-relations blunder. In June 2015, a rebel group based across the India–Myanmar border attacked Indian forces in Manipur. India retaliated with a cross-border raid on the rebels’ camps. The action was reportedly sanctioned by the Myanmar government on the condition that it be kept secret. But when government ministers in Delhi began boasting of it, Myanmar, facing an apparent affront to its sovereignty, denied that the action had taken place. After another cross-border raid, in September, Myanmar protested the intrusion."

This problem shouldn't have existed for India at this late date. If congress and associated governments had not been so lethargic dealing with insurgents using neighbouring countries for seven decades, it wouldn't have, and nobody in Delhi would feel it's worth bragging had it been routine over decades.

Moreover, Burma denying would have not allowed Pakistan then to brag that India couldn't do this to them, proved false amply more than once subsequently but denied by Pakistan and in concert by opposition, as mentioned disparagingly and with denial by Donthi.

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"Doval’s main examination as a diplomat on the global stage has been his handling of China. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, visited India in September 2014, stirring hopes of progress on long-standing disputes over the two countries’ border. When the time came to talk, Modi appointed Doval his special envoy on the issue over Jaishankar. A former official at the ministry of external affairs and a former RAW officer told me that Doval specifically asked for the job.

"A round of talks in 2015 yielded little substance. Another round followed in mid April 2016. Prior to this, China had blocked Indian efforts at the UN to have Masood Azhar—released by India to end the IC 814 hijacking, suspected of orchestrating the Pathankot attack and now living in Pakistan—internationally recognised as a terrorist. Doval raised this issue with his Chinese counterpart.

"Days later, India granted a visa for Dolkun Isa, an exiled leader of the Uighur ethnic group wanted by China, to attend a conference in Dharamshala. China pointed out that Isa was listed as a wanted fugitive by Interpol, and reminded India of its resulting obligations. The ministry of external affairs cancelled the visa.

"“Dolkun Isa episode is a self-inflicted humiliation. Mercifully, wiser heads prevailed, not prickly & immature new warriors of our diplomacy,” Shekhar Gupta tweeted. A veteran diplomatic correspondent told me that the impetuous issuance of Isa’s visa and its later withdrawal showed a disharmony between Jaishankar’s and Doval’s approaches."

Whereas outright refusing to countenance any raising of Tibet to help the beleaguered neighbour fir humanitarian causes, in a craven policy to please China when China occupied Tibet forcefully and proceeded with a genocide of Tibetan, was a masterpiece of diplomacy, that had then avoided China attacking India during congress regimes, of course!

It didn't?

Oh, wait!

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"Rajesh Rajagopalan, a professor of international relations, wrote, “It is unclear how India expects putting Masood Azhar on a UN terror list will stop his depredations … the amount of diplomatic effort that India expends on these ventures is much too disproportionate to any likely benefits.”"

So opposition suggests, what? Partying with terrorists, or begging them for a cup of tea as opposition mission of friendship did on television, refused by the said terrorists outright, without opening the gates of the fortress-like accommodation protected by security that congress and associated regimes had been providing at government expense for decades?

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Another photograph, this time a tea with Chinese, presumably hosted by Chinese leaders, before a huge painting of a mountain landscape, perhaps of Tibet?

"Modi initially empowered Doval to spearhead India’s relationship with China. More recently, much of that responsibility has reportedly been taken from the NSA, and given to the foreign secretary."

Whereas right from Nehru to his grandson none of them shifted ministries and responsibilities from one person to another? Wasn't it Nehru who began the ousting of others and keeping key portfolios himself, including presidential of the party?

A tradition continued, of course, until Dr Subrahmanyam Swami foiled a born and brought up Italian from becoming PM of India, with individually signed over hundreds of letters including one that nominated self, letters seen at Rashtrapati Bhawan by Dr Subrahmanyam Swami, despite a constitutional provision that did not allow such a possibility except when reciprocal?

The reciprocity clause was subsequently removed during UPA decade, just so such a person could occupy the position of PM of India in future at will.

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"In August 2016, The Telegraph reported, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has handed foreign secretary S. Jaishankar charge of India’s diplomacy with China and Pakistan, ending the near-complete control that national security adviser Ajit Doval held over New Delhi’s two toughest relationships. … Jaishankar will from now on hold regular talks with his Chinese counterpart … to manage a tricky bilateral relationship threatened by a series of spats in recent months.”

"“Doval’s wings have been clipped on China because Jaishankar has been roped in,” an analyst who worked with Doval at the VIF told me. “Because the things are far more complicated, it requires delicate diplomacy. With Pakistan there is mostly terrorism.”"

And the positive outcome was China refraining from suspicious incursions intended to occupy neighbouring countries and proceeding with genocide, as with Tibet?

"But Doval remained Modi’s special envoy for border talks. This June, China attempted to extend a road into Doklam, an area that it claims at the trijunction of the Indian, Chinese and Bhutanese borders. India, in keeping with existing treaty agreements with Bhutan and its own strategic calculations, defended the Bhutanese claim. Indian soldiers entered the territory to confront Chinese troops, and a standoff ensued. Just before Doval visited China during the incident, the Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, carried an editorial titled “Doval visit won’t sway China over border standoff,” which said the NSA “is believed to be one of the main schemers behind the current border standoff.” After months of stalemate, in late August both sides agreed to disengage."

What's exactly therein bothering Donthi and his political backers he's mouthpiece of in this book? That India didn't let China this time fo to Bhutan what Nehru allowed them to do with Tibet?

"Meanwhile, R Prasannan, a veteran journalist on defence and foreign affairs, wrote,

"Clearly, Modi had been led up the mountain path by his strategic managers. First, they failed to read the Chinese mind, which had been made up to slight India. The Chinese had notified their intent to build a road to Doklam, but our diplomats did nothing to dissuade them. When the Chinese came in, India used the military first and diplomacy last. It should have been the other way around. … Throughout the crisis, Bhutan didn’t utter a word. After it was diffused, there was just a “phew” statement. No “Thank You, India”. Pray, why the silence?"

Unlike the thanks Dalai Lama gave Nehru for defending Tibet on ground and in UN, Donthiwished to say, but refrained, solely due to courtesy to Dalai Lama?

Oh! Wait!

"During the standoff, Tsering Shakya, a historian of the Himalayan region, wrote, “The Indian media’s sabre-rattling on defending Bhutan from Chinese encroachment may be good for arousing nationalistic sentiment but does not find echoes in Bhutan. While the Bhutanese don’t fear invasion from the north, an increasing Indian presence will surely undermine its sovereignty.”"

If Bhutan had agreed with this paid piece of anti-India propaganda nobody had stopped Bhutan from saying do, at a press conference at the time, so the Indian soldiers need not have risked their lives, or Indian diplomatic corps wasted time.

This argument by Donthi, though, places him squarely as mouthpiece of the party with fraudulent claims of Hinduism and silly claims to a two hour fast immediately post a sumptuous breakfast at a Chandani Chowk eatery with a very filling chhole bhature dish, one that fir poor suffices for a single meal for the day.

"“There has been no progress absolutely” on India–China relations, a senior diplomatic correspondent told me. After the initial meetings between India and China after Modi took power, “Doval didn’t seem to have any ideas to take the second step forward. The relationship never really took off. Doval’s whole emphasis seemed to be on border management. Three years later it is dead. The problems are as alive as in 2014.”"

What's on life support is the secret treaty between China and heir of congress as evident in a photograph of the signing event, a document not disclosed to nation then or since, despite repeated queries. Surely it wasn't about a personal relationship, not between China and a great-grandson of the first PM of India who declined due to shock he received due to Chinese attack?

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"… The diplomats of other countries in our neighbourhood, including China, don’t really have any respect for Doval and Jaishankar as they are seen not as diplomats with a vision but as apparatchiks.”"

As opposed to the immense respect for the signatory great-grandson (signatory of the secret document), of the first PM of India who gave up Tibet, Nepal, Baluchistan and land of his ancestors, Kashmir?

He'd have given up Kashmir completely, instead of partially, but for Sardar Patel.

At that, he also gave up over a million square miles in East when Pakistan occupied it illegally, claiming a smaller river to West was boundary, despite British award being Ganga as border - because Gandhi told him to give it to Pakistan and not protest.

................................................................................................

"Speaking at the national police academy in Hyderabad in 2015, he said, “This war can’t be won by armies. This is the war of policemen. If you win, the country wins.”"

Seeing that it's in form of terrorists posing as internal saboteurs but being either inculcated from abroad or infiltrates pretending to be Indian, that's quite correct.

In fact, that's where Donthi and Co have lost this before their attack against Doval was even conceived.

................................................................................................

"Doval’s close associates in power seem to have imbibed some of this thinking. Advani referred to the “invisible enemy” in his autobiography. Modi told a conference of military commanders in 2014, “Beyond the immediate, we are facing a future where security challenges will be less predictable, situations will evolve and change swiftly, and technological changes will make responses more difficult to keep pace with. The threats may be known, but the enemy may be invisible.”

"“This suits Doval because he is so comfortable in this skin, because terrorism is his domain of expertise,” Pravin Sawhney, the editor of the defence magazine Force, told me. But, he said, “If the Indian army starts parroting this line then they don’t have to prepare for conventional warfare. How can terrorism be your invisible threat when you have two clear military lines”—one each with China and Pakistan, with the former increasingly aiding the other. “Your biggest threat is China, China, China.”"

This is the problem with opposition thinking. They, used to parroting after one dictator after another mouthing platitudes, and suppressing ir expelling the competent one after another, cannot fathom a political scenario where a leader and his audience can all independently know a fact that's been a phenomenon for decades, and not need to parrot a speech or a line of thought just because it was spoken first by someone, to whom donthi objects because he's not a congress leader.

................................................................................................

Has congress accepted responsibility for 26/11 terrorists attacks, or even for genocide of Sikhs in 1984?

................................................................................................

Cattle theft isn't done by innocent unarmed babies, it's armed butchers who are now getting caught in the process of depriving a poor family of their vital lifeline.

................................................................................................

"Addendum:

"Doval responded to the interview request submitted to his office on 18 August with a phone call to Praveen Donthi on 1 September, after the September 2017 issue, in which this story appeared, had been closed. In a seven-minute conversation, Doval said, “As far as the policies of national security are concerned, that is the government’s policy and Ajit Doval is only a part of the machine. You should be able to study this thing as the performance of the government. … Don’t over-credit me with something. … I am associated in shaping it to some extent. I am also associated with executing it. But I am not the only one. There is the army chief, there is the navy chief, there are intelligence chiefs, there is the ISRO, there is the DRDO, there is the foreign secretary. There is everybody around. I am part of the team. Maybe I lead the team, but I am part of the team. … Media might be right, the media may not be very right. I do whatever I know or whether I can do, I do my part.”

................................................................................................

"Corrections:

"1. The print version of this story erroneously described Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014 as his first foreign trip as prime minister.

"2. Due to an editorial oversight, the following lines did not appear in this story in the print issue: Modi tweeted, “In Pathankot today, our security forces once again demonstrated their valour. I salute their sacrifice.”

"The next day, remaining militants launched fresh attacks, and there were more casualties.

"This has been corrected online.

"The Caravan regrets the errors."

This book, this publication was error.

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"I | “INDIA’S JAMES BOND”

................................................................................................

"Doval’s projected self-image spills beyond the formal constraints of the NSA position. Though he has shied away from public pronouncements since taking office, between 2005 and 2014, the time between his retirement from the IB and his appointment as the NSA, he aired sweeping theories on, and hard-line solutions for, some of India’s most complex domestic and international challenges. Many of the issues he held forth on—minority politics, for instance—fall beyond the usual purview of intelligence and national security. Breaking the omertà typical of even retired spies, he also proffered some astounding details of his 33-year career in the IB. The result was a popular persona of a grand statesman and strategist, a super-spy, the perfect man to handle a life-or-death crisis."

Having described Doval's powers and position, author turns to describe his critics' - well, criticism.

"The NSA’s record so far has been lacklustre. The situation in Kashmir is now more volatile than it has been in decades, with militancy once again on the rise. India’s relationship with many of its immediate neighbours is worse now than when Doval took office, in May 2014. Even from a narrowly tactical viewpoint, Doval’s leadership has raised concerns: the response to last year’s militant attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station, during which Doval directed operations, was called inept by numerous experts. None of this bodes well for India’s safety."

This work was published December 19, 2017. Was the surgical strikes in response to Uri later? It could hardly be called lacklustre, seeing how opposition demanded proofs thereof, joined pakis in denying it happened at all, and claimed congress had conducted such strikes routinely - all of which was often shouted simultaneously.

To average citizens, of course, they were a fresh breath after a long time!

But the next paragraph surprises one more, while placing the author unquestionably on side of the very questionable section of the opposition that acts as a mouthpiece of Pakistan in India regardless of facts or truth, sees all Hindus as merely cipher, with no history, no culture, and nothing until invaders arrived.

"Doval’s political connections have contributed heavily to his career. During his IB years, he had close links to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In the build-up to the 2014 general election, when he was in charge of an RSS-affiliated think tank, there were rumours of Doval aiding Modi’s campaign and weakening the incumbent government. The details of his contribution to that project are just beginning to come to light. He has shown an unquestioning loyalty to Modi—a disquieting trait, in some eyes, for someone tasked with informing the prime minister of difficult facts he might not want to hear. Doval’s actions and statements reveal an adherence to the belligerent Hindu nationalism of the RSS. That a man of such convictions has become the most popular NSA in Indian history reveals how a large part of the public has been inculcated with the same obsessions and prejudices. Studying how Doval sees the Indian state lays bare how the country’s present rulers and their supporters do too."

One, if Doval was associated with BJP, his career under seven decades of congress and associated governments (where ultimately a bill was almost passed depriving Hindus - and only Hindus - of habeas corpus unquestioningly, if an Abrahamic-II or an Abrahamic-III complained against them), could hardly have flourished, much less 'political connections' could 'have contributed heavily to his career'; in fact, if he'd been associated with RSS, more often than not he risked bring jailed just gir this, and certainly thrown out of government employment of any sort, and demanded all back pay, if not worse.

That paragraph above has far more faults than that. For example where author says

"He has shown an unquestioning loyalty to Modi—a disquieting trait, in some eyes, for someone tasked with informing the prime minister of difficult facts he might not want to hear."

Donthi is thinking of leaders of far lesser calibre and different hue, those who India has seen for seven decades for most part, who rarely qualified as leaders but were for most part either in power due to reasons of descent or matters equally irrelevant to capabilities needed for the position.

................................................................................................

What is most surprising is that paragraph coming from the author, Donthi, whose name was associated with at least one work of General Bakshi, as author. Was that a horrible mix-up by Amazon and Kindle?

................................................................................................

................................................

July 09, 2022 - July 09, 2022.

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................................................................................................

II | OPERATIONS

................................................................................................

Donthi begins, again, strangely.

"LITTLE IS KNOWN about Doval’s early years. He was born in 1945, into a Brahmin family in a village called Ghiri, in the hills of what is now Uttarakhand. His father was an officer in the Indian Army, and the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Congress leader HN Bahuguna was his mother’s cousin. Doval studied at Ajmer Military School in Rajasthan, and went on to earn a degree in economics from the University of Agra. He joined the Indian Police Service in 1968, as part of that year’s Kerala cadre. After a stint as a trainee in Kottayam, he was appointed the additional superintendent of police for Thalassery. Doval was there when the town witnessed infamous communal rioting, at the end of 1971 and beginning of 1972. According to Alexander Jacob, a former director general of police of Kerala, who in 1989 wrote a report on the violence, Doval played an important role in controlling the riots. By 1972, he had been moved to the IB, joining its operations wing. Before his retirement in 2005, he would rise, although briefly, to the directorship of the organisation."

That opening is, to say the least, asinine! Who knows much about real life intelligence officers? And wouldn't it render their work completely ineffective, at least during early stints, if they were as famous as film personalities? Besides, the rest of the paragraph tells more about him than most people would know about an unfamiliar generic government employee.

The paragraph does, however, give a clue that his competence was proved early!

................................................................................................

"Doval’s career in the IB coincided with several of independent India’s major internal security crises. He left his impress on many of them, even if not as deeply as popular accounts might suggest. A pattern that sometimes repeated itself wherever he appeared was the use of what some in intelligence circles call “out-of-the-box” methods, often a euphemism for extrajudicial means. Doval was not solely responsible for these methods—Indian intelligence services have readily resorted to them since long before he joined the IB. But these events and methods, in turn, left their mark on Doval."

One, internal security crises have proliferated since 1984, at the very latest, if not earlier. Two, that whole paragraph seems based, seek as it does to brand Doval while simultaneously author covering his own bank with that "was not solely responsible for these methods—Indian intelligence services have readily resorted to them since long before he joined the IB", and yet saying much without explicitly doing so.

Two, did Donthi, or anyone else, expect an intelligence officer to go with explicitly red tape methods of Indian bureaucracy? Where, while operating in enemy territory?

Or is he imagining intelligence officers carry around complete works of Gandhi, checking at every step to make sure they comply? "Hey Mr terrorist, may I shadow you, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on 13th of next month, in a year of your choice" or something like that, copying Gandhi’s intimation to British government regarding his future plans?

................................................................................................

"The new recruit’s first IB assignment took him to Aizawl, where he served as the head of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, the local unit of the IB, until 1977. According to KM Singh, his IPS batchmate and a former special director of the IB, Doval volunteered for the posting. It was a bold move. In 1966, rebellion flared in the surrounding hills, then still a part of Assam. The Mizo National Front, headed by a former army hawaldar named Laldenga, established a separatist insurgency. The government responded with immense violence. It turned the air force against its own citizens, ordering the bombardment of Aizawl. Government forces cleared Aizawl and other cities of the MNF, but the rebels continued guerilla warfare in the countryside. Entire villages were forcibly relocated in a bid to starve the rebels of recruits, hideouts and supplies. The intensity of the insurgency had waned by the time Doval arrived, but the area was still very volatile."

Notice how Donthi avoids naming the then p.m., although it's not a secret, neither the name nor the methods or severity with which for example, naxalites were put down?

................................................................................................

A photograph caption here says

"Accounts of Doval’s intelligence career typically begin with the story of how he undermined a secessionist movement led by the Mizo leader Laldenga."

It's unclear who is featured.

................................................................................................

"In 1974, six years into his career, Doval was decorated with the Police Medal, an award for distinguished service. He received the medal at an unusually young age—it was typically awarded to officers with more than a dozen years of service."

Surely medals aren't given for birthdays?

Donthi, by not acknowledging that it was for extraordinary excellence of work, implies here that it was somehow improper or due to political connections, as he claimed earlier.

But he's also stated that Doval was associated with BJP and RSS, which wasn't likely to get him a medal, more likely an early quiet death by accident, if not imprisonment.

"Doval did not stay in Aizawl long enough to witness the official end of the conflict, in 1986, with the signing of the Mizo Peace Accord, under which the government granted full statehood to Mizoram. According to some of his journalist biographers, however, the settlement was almost single-handedly his doing."

Hence medal?

"In a profile of Doval published just as he became the NSA, the journalist Nitin Gokhale wrote, “The Mizo Accord of July 1986 … was propelled largely by Mr Doval’s initiative.” Gokhale added, “As a mid-level Intelligence Bureau officer in the north-east, he infiltrated the underground Mizo National Front … weaned away half a dozen of its top commanders and all but broke the back of the MNF, forcing its leader Laldenga to sue for peace.”

"In a piece titled “Ajit Doval, giant among spies, is the new National Security Adviser,” the journalist Saikat Datta, citing an undated conversation between Laldenga and unnamed “interviewers,” quoted the late MNF leader as saying, “I had seven military commanders under me. When Doval left, he took six of them with him and I had no choice but to come on board and negotiate a peace accord.”"

Next, again in a tactic he used at the beginning, Donthi proceeds to chop up the seeming initial credit, by explaining it was 1971, Bangladesh, and anyone but Doval who were responsible for the event.

Then he does another turnabout.

"VK Duggal, who was the district magistrate in Aizawl at the time, told me, “The approval and directions came from the prime minister, and the role was performed by the lieutenant governor and the IB. The IB did the underground negotiations. … Doval was the field man in Mizoram. He had good connections with the underground.”"

"The draft peace agreement needed official ratification, so in March 1976 the IB organised an emergency convention of the MNF in Calcutta. “Doval performed excellently in arranging for the hostile leaders to attend,” JFR Jacob, the chief of staff for the eastern army command at the time, wrote in his memoir. “There were protracted negotiations leading to a peace agreement that still stands. Doval was indeed the most outstanding IB officer I had the good fortune to work with.”"

" ... VK Duggal told me. “The political leadership had to take into consideration many factors. I can’t say that Doval had contributed more, but his contribution to implementing the strategies adopted at the time was more than substantial.”"

And then another turnabout, this time quoting Ravi Nair. Reading this bit, one would think they both - Donthi and Nair - were happier if insurgency in India had continued and flourishing with help if China, if not with every neighbour turning hostile!

................................................................................................

"DOVAL’S NEXT COUP, according to the popular biographies, came in Pakistan. The IB man arrived there at some point in the early 1980s, on a posting to the Indian high commission in Islamabad. Before that, he served a few years in Sikkim, again as the head of a Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, at a time when India was consolidating its position in the territory, which was incorporated into the country in 1975."

Again Donthi attempts to kill it, before quoting another source.

"“Doval was the man who dared to sneak deep into Pakistan at the risk of his life and remained in that country incognito for years, delivering virtually real time intelligence on Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear plant,” the journalist Rajeev Sharma wrote in 2014, in a piece titled “Why ex-IB chief Ajit Doval is the best NSA India could ever get.” The journalist Shishir Gupta wrote in 2012 that Doval “is said to have walked into Pakistani nuclear establishment at Kahuta during his six-year long posting in Islamabad in the 1980s.”

"One security journalist told me that Doval managed to get inside a barbershop that served scientists from the nuclear facility, and collected samples of their hair. These, he said, were analysed to determine the grade of uranium the scientists were working with.

"This level of detail on a sensitive operation, and on Doval’s role in it, seems remarkable when compared to the lack of agreement across available accounts of even the basics of Doval’s Pakistan posting—such as his official designation. It is also doubtful that Doval could have operated as a spy without the knowledge of his Pakistani counterparts—passing intelligence officers off as mid-ranking diplomats is an old trick in the business. A senior RAW officer told me that spying is impossible for anyone posted at the high commission in Pakistan because of “constant, bumper-to-bumper surveillance.”"

Donthi seems to have a level of faith in pakis that parallels Abrahamic creeds in terms of absoluteness. He's discounting, or is oblivious to, racism in that country.

................................................................................................

Donthi recounts a story told by Doval saying he was telling it because it'd been published by someone else already, about his being recognized in Pakistan as a Hindu who was himself a closet Hindu, surviving after his whole family had been massacred.

"This story made the rounds on Indian social media, and found its way into mainstream media as well. But to Pakistani ears, it rang untrue. One user on the Pakistani discussion forum Siasat reacted, “Hard to believe some one with such a hard core hindi accent can pass of as a Pakistani muslim for 7 years.”

"“He was doing nothing covert in Pakistan,” a former official of the ministry of external affairs who was in Pakistan around the time told me. “He was deputed by the IB to look after the internal security of the high commission. The cover was information officer, I think.” According to a senior editor who has known him for many years, Doval had his family in Pakistan with him, and his son, Shaurya, attended school there."

Donthi does show great faith in infallibility of paki judgment, despite this being post three wars won by India, and none by pakis.

"The veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta wrote about Doval last year ... Doval, he said, was busy “keeping a close eye … on the subversion and separatist propaganda to which Sikh pilgrims visiting their holy places in Pakistan were exposed”—this was at the height of the Khalistan movement. “In an ugly and unfortunate incident, fully instigated and orchestrated by Pakistan intelligence, he was once attacked by a jatha at one of these pilgrimages.” The Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI—Pakistan’s main intelligence agency—is widely considered to have been involved in the Khalistani insurgency.

"G Parthasarathy, who was the Indian consul in Karachi from 1982 to 1985 and later the country’s high commissioner to Pakistan, told me that he remembers Doval being designated the first secretary in Islamabad. “I must say he had a very sharp political sense,” Parthasarathy said. “He was the first chap to contact Nawaz Sharif, a young, upcoming politician in 1982,” in the position of finance minister for Pakistani Punjab. When the Indian cricket team reached Lahore while on a tour of Pakistan in 1982, Sharif welcomed them with a huge party at his home. This, Parthasarathy said, was facilitated by Doval."

................................................................................................

Donthi writes about 1988 operation Black Thunder at Amritsar and stating that Doval was there, proceeds to discredit his role, quoting several sources and pointing that his name didn't feature. Then he turns around.

"In “Return of the Superspy,” a profile of the new NSA, the journalist Yatish Yadav wrote,

""Sometime in 1988. Residents of Amritsar around the Golden Temple … and Khalistani militants spotted a rickshawpuller plying his trade. … The rickshaw puller convinced the militants that he was an ISI operative, who had been sent by his Pakistani masters to help the Khalistan cause. Two days before Operation Black Thunder, the rickshaw-puller entered the Golden Temple and returned with crucial information, including the actual strength and positions of the terrorists inside the shrine. He was none other than Ajit Doval undercover. When the final assault came, the young police officer was inside Harminder Sahib, streaming much needed information to security forces to carry out search-and-flush operations."

"The journalist Praveen Swami, writing in February 2014, put forward an even more detailed account.

""Early in the summer of 1988, as scorching winds of death blew across Punjab, a short, wiry man entered the Golden Temple, invisible among the great throngs of pilgrims gathering at the shrine from across India. Inside, he was greeted as an honoured guest by Surjit Singh Penta, the Khalistan terror commander who had made the temple his fortress. For the next several days, Mr. Penta worked with his visitor, an officer assigned by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, wiring up the temple with explosives. The threat, he was certain, would deter India from considering storming the temple, as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had done in 1984.

"New Delhi ignored Mr. Penta’s threats: the bombs were duds, and the man Mr. Penta thought was an ISI officer would serve, decades later, as Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB).

"… The President of India later handed Mr. Doval a small silver disc, embossed with the great wheel of dharma and a lotus wreath, and the words Kirti Chakra.

"Swami named Doval in the acknowledgements of his 2006 book India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad."

"The only eyewitness account of Doval’s presence at the siege came from Karan Kharb, a retired colonel who commanded a squadron of the National Security Guard during the siege. In an article published in June 2014, the month Doval became NSA, he wrote,

"When Ajit Doval arrived there, not everyone knew him. Only a select few of us knew about this super cop’s incredible role in this operation. He gave us a first-hand account of all that was going on inside the Golden Temple Complex … In utter disregard to personal safety, he moved around all over the complex even as bullets were raining from all directions. Much later, we learnt that he had disguised himself as an agent of ISI.

"Kharb confirmed these details when I met him, and added some others. “Even while we were firing, he would go inside and come out,” he said. Kharb also told me that he and Doval are friends."

Donthi quotes several others, mostly journalists, who were there, saying Doval wasn't there, they didn't see him. Presumably they, and Donthi, are aware that one not seeing someone in a large crowded complex is only natural, unless he's supposed to have led a parade?

" ... Kharb told me that Doval “was the overall in-charge for the covert operations in Punjab.” In 2011, Doval wrote an introduction to a book titled The Politics of Counterterrorism in India. There, he claimed a share of credit for the IB, saying that the work “successfully demolishes the commonly held view that Khalistani Militancy was defeated by force alone and underlines the seminal role of covert maneuvering by India’s Intelligence Bureau, which deftly exploited strategic mistakes made by the ISI.” Shekhar Gupta wrote in 2016, “I have often said, somewhat half-facetiously, that each A or B category Punjab militant killed or captured in the Operation Black Thunder phase (1989-90) should be marked ‘caught Doval, bowled Gill’. In the last phase, Mr Doval was more involved tracking Khalistan terrorists across the country, and did that with his usual panache.” The details of this work remain to be written about."

................................................................................................

Donthi writes next about the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight in 1999 from Nepal, by terrorists taking it to Afghanistan. He captions a photograph, showing Doval clearly, with the plane and presumably terrorists,

"Doval was one of India’s negotiators with the hijackers of flight IC 814. He later called the operation a “national intelligence failure.”"

"Shortly after the crisis, an article in India Today by Harinder Baweja and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik narrated the negotiations. The Taliban posed as neutrals, but it was clear they really sided with the hijackers. “Confronted with this twin offensive, the negotiating team took on different roles. While Katju negotiated with the Taliban, Doval engaged the hijackers,” Baweja and Bhaumik wrote."

"In March 2000, Jaswant Singh, the minister of external affairs, told parliament that at one point the Taliban stepped in to tell the hijackers that their demands for money and the release of the body of a militant buried in India were un-Islamic. Singh claimed that these demands were then dropped."

Donthi quotes opposition blaming Vajpayee government, but does not recount that this was despite opposition having agreed that there was no other course in the joint deliberations before the government proceeded.

"Dulat, speaking on television in 2014, said, “In the IC 814 case, there was no scope for any elaboration. Our options were all closed. The only thing left was how to get the passengers on the plane back at the least price. That Doval-saab got it done. Not just Doval, there were others too. … It was a teamwork.”"

................................................................................................

Next, Donthi comes to 1990s and Kashmir.

"Doval played a part in a new strategy of containment. He “watched the Pakistanisation of the militancy from close-up, monitoring the growth of infiltration from over the LoC, designing some of the most far-reaching counter-measures to contain it, and working to expose Pakistan’s hand using pro-government renegades,” the British investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark wrote in The Meadow, their 2012 book on the kidnapping of six Western tourists by Kashmiri militants in the summer of 1995."

Donthi certainly wastes no tears on the well over a thousand Hindus massacred, or hundreds of women kidnapped and transported across birder never heard of again.

................................................................................................

Having made much of Amritsar and hijacking detractors of doval, donthi proceeds to Kashmir, Kargil and more, making short shrift of each, with mostly negative gossip - I.e., quotes from unnamed sources - before proceeding to Gujarat encounter of terrorists, subsequently proved genuine, despite all the Congress and associated parties crying foul until now.

"In June 2004—the month after a Congress-led alliance came to national power, toppling all predictions of a return for the incumbent Vajpayee regime—three Muslim men and a young woman named Ishrat Jahan were gunned down on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in a joint operation between Gujarat police and the Ahmedabad unit of the IB. Officials said that the four were operatives of the extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba out on a mission to assassinate Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of the state. They also said the four had been killed after a car chase. Many questioned this version of events."

Donthi provides a photograph of four bodies laid straight and parallel on road, next to a vehicle, captioned -

"An investigation into the 2004 deaths of Ishrat Jahan and three Muslim men in Gujarat culminated in several IB officers being charged for extrajudicial killing. Doval came out in loud opposition to the investigation and prosecution."

Fact is Donthi is going with the opposition bias of last eight years that cried foul whenever terrorists were pointed at, wept when they were killed, but had no word to say about innocent citizens killed by paki sponsored terrorists throughout India, unless victims happened to be non Indian as it happened at Taj Mahal in Mumbai.

"In a 2013 piece titled “Ishrat Jahan case: Intelligence won’t survive the investigation,” Praveen Swami recalled the story of Doval’s actions at the Golden Temple in 1988 and his subsequent decoration with the Kirti Chakra, India’s second-highest award for peacetime gallantry. Then he wrote, “He won that medal for unspeakable crimes. Like many former intelligence officials, Doval considers himself bound not to discuss past operations. I have his permission, though, to speculate that it may have involved the cold-blooded execution of a Pakistani intelligence officer, the illegal detention of terrorism suspects, torture, the smuggling of arms and explosives across India’s borders, and the use of false identities.”"

................................................................................................

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July 09, 2022 - July 09, 2022.

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................................................................................................

III | THE CIVILIAN YEARS

................................................................................................

Donthi goes through various organisations Doval associated with post retirement in 2005, and comes to the well known anti-corruption protest by Anna Hazare.

"When questioned about links between the movement and the VIF, Doval told the Indian Express that “we had no role” in the agitation. But, he said, “Corruption and black money are draining India. We not at all feel defensive about talking about these issues.” Doval denied that the organisation was connected to the RSS."

Because RSS is untouchable in the Abrahamic caste system, or corruption by congress and left must not be talked about?

"Around this time, media reports mentioned that Doval was under IB surveillance. In an interview with Outlook, he said that he knew nothing about it, and that the IB “is only doing its duty if it’s watching me—it’s the eyes and ears of the government.” Asked of the Congress’s assertions that he was in cahoots with the BJP, he responded, “How can I be in cahoots with the BJP? One can be in cahoots with the ISI or CIA. BJP is a mainstream party like the Congress or SP. … The level public discourse has sunk to is disturbing. Don’t forget I’m the highest decorated officer.”"

Donthi seems to be too stupid to understand that here, Doval is correct in every detail, and he, Donthi, is coming across like a gossiping sister-in-law!

"Many of Doval’s public statements echo the draconian majoritarianism of the BJP and the RSS, often in euphemistic security jargon. “India’s internal vulnerabilities are much higher than its external vulnerabilities,” he said in an interview in 2006 where he identified “infiltration of Bangladeshis”—the disputed notion, fanned by the BJP and the wider Sangh Parivar, of an ongoing invasion of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants—as “the biggest internal security problem.” He continued,

"India has got all the fault lines—ethnic, religious, cultural, linguistic and caste. The synthesis is on but there has yet to be amalgamation. … India’s internal vulnerability is also because of political factors. … To get the vote of a particular community I’ll need to accentuate their favours. If the minority or majority are not afraid of each other then there is no vote bank. So politicians have to give voters an imaginary or real perception of fear. The genius of politics lies in the exploitation of fears and the invention of new ones."

It's hardly news that congress and associated parties have courted favors from creeds associated with ex-regimes of colonial era of past millennium and more; so much do, they were categorical denying existence or validity of Hindu Deities, publicly, while still scream about any facts mentioned about any later Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III creeds 'hurting sentiment' and demanding incarceration of someone because it happens to be a Hindu who said it, even though it's admitted within the said creeds.

So congress and Co encouraging murders of Hindus by so-called minorities extremists by not censoring thise voicing such demands, isn't news. It's something that won't be accepted silently as holy diktat, as it was in Gandhi’s day, is all. If donthi finds it draconian, perhaps he'd better train his sons to be a chameleon turning into a daughter-in-law when dealing with anything or anyone non-Hindu.

"In a speech at a BJP event in 2013, Doval said that the party is the only one that promotes an Indian identity over other identities. “We cannot base our nation-building on diversity. A nation can’t be strengthened on the basis of weakening the forces of unity and strengthening of the forces of diversity because we have a diverse culture.”

"In an article published on the VIF website in 2011, Doval criticised liberal democracies for their tendency to treat “acts of violence (no matter how gruesome) as normal crimes, punishable through due process of law, and not as acts of war. This jurisprudence is heavily weighed in favour of the wrong doer and is practically inoperable against those who operate from foreign lands. Instruments of state, its laws, police, judicial systems and even militaries, find themselves grossly inadequate to prevent, protect and penalize the wrong doers.”"

Perhaps Donthi differs because he has no problem with non-muslims being beheaded, whether in India or in France, at will because someone was displeased at a drawing, a statement?

Would he approve of retaliation thereof, when another religion's deity is discovered having been used for deliberate humiliation?

"An officer who worked in the IB for over a decade told me that Doval “practically nurtures a feeling that Hindus have been suffering for almost thousand years. … He used to tell me that I have a typical leftist European view of secularism.” The officer described Doval as “a hundred-percent careerist with high efficiency.”"

Did this officer applaud Iran denying holocaust, too? Which, incidentally, is what India has suffered for over a millennium. As for that 'nurture' accusation, does anybody aware of history need to? With eleven million Hindus massacred during partition, nobody needed to nurture the feeling. The reminder was plenty. Incidentally the number, over centuries, is given by a reputed historian of West as estimated at well over a hundred million. ................................................................................................

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July 09, 2022 - July 10, 2022.

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IV | DAYS WITH MODI

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"Doval is only the fifth NSA in Indian history. The post, modelled on a parallel one in the United States, was created in 1998, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The former diplomat Brajesh Mishra was the first to fill it, and remained in the position until 2004. While the NSA role combines defence, intelligence and diplomatic work, three of those to have held it have come from the diplomatic corps. Before Doval, MK Narayanan was the only intelligence officer to fill the NSA seat."