They built him up as the ‘James Bond of India.’ When Ajit Doval walked in as National Security Advisor, he had that spy-chief swagger and a promise to secure the country with an iron fist. He talked a big game about his ‘Defensive Offense’ doctrine, convincing people that peace would come through sheer strength. But looking back ten years later, that ‘superspy’ myth feels hollow. It’s been washed away by a river of blood that runs all the way from the peaks of Kashmir down to the coasts of Kerala.
As I look at the grim ledger of the last ten years, one number stands out: 500+. That is the conservative estimate of lives lost in major terror attacks under Doval’s direct watch since May 2014. For all the bluster of surgical strikes and covert ops, the security reality of India is defined not by strength, but by catastrophic vulnerability.
Let’s dispense with the Bollywood image India loves to project and look at the timeline of failure.
It started almost immediately. In 2014, Bangalore rocked with a church blast. By 2016, Doval’s vaunted security grid failed to protect its most critical assets. The Pathankot Airbase—a facility that should have been impregnable—was breached, leaving 7 dead. Months later, the Uri Army Camp massacre claimed 23 soldiers. Doval promised vengeance, but he couldn’t promise safety.
But the real hemorrhage was internal. The government was so busy pointing fingers at Pakistan that they let the Naxals run wild in the heart of India. The insurgents were killing Indian troops almost at will. Nearly 35 men die in the Sukma ambushes over two years. Then, in 2019, a bomb in Gadchiroli took another 16. It was a slow-motion slaughter happening in plain sight. In Doval’s “secure India,” the state cannot even move its own troops through Chhattisgarh without them coming home in body bags.
And Kashmir? The “muscular policy” championed by the NSA has resulted in the total alienation of a population and the inability to protect even the minorities New Delhi claims to champion. The targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits have continued relentlessly from 2015 through 2025. Then there was Pulwama in 2019—a colossal intelligence failure that left 40 brave soldiers dead and the establishment with nothing but questions they refused to answer.
India loves to lecture us about security, but look at what is happening on their side of the fence right now. In 2025 alone, the attack on tourists in Pahalgam left 26 dead, completely shattering the fairy tale of ‘normalcy’ they try to sell the world about Kashmir. But the real shocker was in Delhi itself. A blast at the Red Fort—the absolute symbol of their power—killed 8 and injured 30. If they can’t even protect the Red Fort in their own capital, maybe the NSA should stop obsessed with Pakistan and start looking at his own crumbling grip on national security.
This list goes on: Gurdaspur, Sunjuwan, Rajouri, Kochi, Bengaluru. Every pin on the map represents a family shattered and a promise broken. Thousands have been injured, maimed, or traumatized.
Doval’s supporters argue that terrorism is complex. But after ten years, complexity is an excuse, not a defense. The “Doval Doctrine” was supposed to be a masterclass in preemption. Instead, it has been a masterclass in reaction. Intelligence failures are patched over with hyper-nationalist rhetoric, but rhetoric doesn’t stop IEDs.
India is bleeding from multiple wounds—Naxals in the red corridor, ISIS-inspired modules in the south, and an insurgency in the north that refuses to die. The man charged with stitching these wounds has instead watched them fester.
This isn’t security. This is repeated, systemic failure marketed as strength. 500 lives lost is not a statistic; it is an indictment. The myth of Ajit Doval is dead, buried under a decade of carnage that he failed to prevent. It is time for India to stop watching the movie and look at the morgue. The “James Bond” era has been a deadly disaster.
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