Supercop NSA AJIT DOVAL
The Inspirational Biography of the hero of Surgical Strike
By Mahesh Dutt Sharma
Vignettes Gleaned from the Book
Personally, I cherish it when - for a change - students come up to their Professors and say, ‘Sir, you should really read this book. It’s so inspiring’.
And here I would like to acknowledge a few of such lovely student-recommends that I had got from my vibrant students.
The first student-recommended book that I received was from Dhanavaishnavi, MA English, and it’s titled, Hunger by Knut Hamsun.
Yet another student-recommend that I received this year, was from Lakshmi Ramaswamy, II MA English, and it’s titled, Demian, by Hermann Hesse.
Jerusha from II MA Philosophy had recommended one such book. It’s titled, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz. (Mr. Sabari, III BBA is reading it now). 😊
And this particular book, titled, Supercop NSA: Ajit Doval. It’s by Mahesh Dutt Sharma. This book I received from Anagha, I MA English, a month ago.
Well, this inspirational biography on Ajit Doval is quite engaging and inspiring for many reasons.
Ajit Doval – is one of the most respected officers of the Indian Police Service. Having joined the IPS in 1968 in the Kerala Cadre, he retired in January 2005 as the director of Intelligence Bureau.
He is popularly known as the James Bond of India, and ‘Operations Man’, and has the distinction of being the first police officer to be awarded the Kirti Chakra, the second-highest peace-time award in India, after the Param Vir Chakra.
His adventurous stint as ‘Supercop’ is something highly laudable, and the stuff that thrillers are made of.
After a particular incident in 2014, he was appointed as National Security Adviser of India. In 2014, ISIS terrorists took 46 Indian nurses captive in Iraq. To rescue them, India undertook an intelligence mission, under which Ajit personally went to Iraq, to understand the ground reality. He interacted with the ISIS terrorists, took them into his confidence, and successfully brought all the nurses back home safely.
As an undercover operative, he spent seven years in Pakistan, gathering information on intelligence and terrorist activities.
Since the author Mahesh Dutt Sharma also happens to be a journalist, he does an inspiring interview with Ajit Doval, in Chapters 19 & 20 of the book.
Two such replies that he gave to a few questions intrigued and inspired me much. Reproducing it here below.
Question: You said that you do not use a cellphone, do not use a computer for communication, but have many profiles on social media, on Twitter. What do you have to say about this? Several ideas are promoted on these for a by calling them your views.
Ajit Doval: I do not have any social media account not did I have any account till now. All of them are either my well-wishers or are fake accounts. But I would like to tell the audience that whatever you see on Ajit Doval’s Facebook or Twitter accounts, don’t get confused by it. It don’t have any such account. Maybe when I stop working for the government, then maybe I would create an account. But I don’t have an account right now.
Question: India is a country of youth. What would you like to say to the youth about how to take their future forward, how to make India more secure?
Ajit Doval: I think our youth are so well-informed and so motivated that I don't need to tell them much in terms of information. They browse and know everything about where the opportunities are.
But I want to tell them something about their attitudes, which can make their lives more worthwhile. We all have an identity. The smaller the identity, the smaller the person.
Expand your identity. I have an identity; I am Ajit Doval. If I live as Ajit Doval, what I eat or what my hobbies are-that is all there is to it. But if I live for my family, then my identity gets bigger. When I live for my village, it gets even bigger; people know that I belong to a particular village.
Some people identify themselves by caste and people say that he belongs to a particular caste. You are growing, but you are not getting a big identity.
Connect your identity with your country. You will become part of a very big family. Today my identity is that of an Indian, I have no ethnic, linguistic or regional identity. Being an Indian is my identity.
That's why I feel that I am as big as India. Every Indian should feel the same way. That's the way.
You see that something wrong is happening in your country. If someone is tearing the railway seat or someone is creating a mess, then you feel bad. You feel that someone is defiling your country if they speak against it. I don't have much time, otherwise, I could have told you about many incidents.
Once, Vivekananda was going to America from Japan by ship. He saw that an Indian, who had bought the ship ticket but had not bought a meal ticket, was being given some snacks instead of a full meal. He started cursing the Japanese saying that it was discrimination etc. Maybe he probably did not even understand the language and that caused the dispute.
A Japanese got up and said, "Here is your food Until the ship reaches its destination, I will not eat, rather I will give my food to you. But if you utter a single word against Japan, I will throw you out of the ship."
He could give up his food but could not hear a single negative, objectionable or offensive word against his country. It is a feeling. Develop such a feeling. Be a big person, be large-hearted, think big. Rise above trivialities, Don’t pursue small benefits, or small facilities. Think Big. When you grow up, the whole of humanity becomes yours, like Buddha or Gandhiji. Your identity becomes bigger than just that of a human being.
Our Vedas give us a greater identity than that of being just human; SO, I am connected to everything that has life. Some people become so great that they think that the formless Brahma has given them everything.
Whether there is life in it or not, it is part of me and I am part of it. This is Aham Brahmasmi or Shivoham. This is how you become great.
Materialism, modern values make you a smaller person. In the eyes of your children, your wife, you keep shrinking. Even your parents, relatives, your society and country do not matter to you. You just think that only you matter.
So, change your attitude. Be proud to be an Indian, live for India. When you do this, you will be very happy, even if you die doing it, you will still be proud. Death will come anyway, but you will be proud of it. So, live your life well and die in a way that will be remembered, signs off Ajit Doval.
A book that I highly recommend for today’s youngsters, to get that much-needed inspiration that would lead to compelling action – action that would advance the nation - in their own sweet ways.