Five years ago, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval walked out of an SCO meeting to protest Pakistan’s map. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China on Saturday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. He met Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss strengthening bilateral ties, amid rising tensions with the United States, which has imposed steep tariffs on Indian goods.The visit recalls when India’s ‘Super Spy’ Ajit Doval took a firm stand on the country’s sovereignty five years ago.
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Ajit Doval Walkout That Made Headlines
In September 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SCO National Security Advisors held a virtual meeting. During the session, Pakistan’s representative, Dr. Moeed Yusuf, displayed a new political map that falsely showed Jammu & Kashmir and Junagadh as Pakistani territories. The act violated SCO rules, which prohibit raising bilateral disputes in multilateral forums. India immediately objected, but Pakistan ignored repeated warnings from Russia, the chair of the meeting, to remove the map. In protest, India’s NSA Ajit Doval walked out, signaling that India would not tolerate any challenge to its territorial integrity. Sources called Pakistan’s move a blatant breach of the SCO Charter and an attack on the sovereignty of member states. Russia later confirmed it did not endorse Pakistan’s provocation, and its National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev praised Doval’s decision to exit the meeting.
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The Spy Behind The Curtain
Ajit Doval’s career reads like a spy thriller. From 1971 to 1978, he went undercover in Pakistan, posing as a Muslim cleric to collect intelligence during the India-Pakistan war. His inputs on Pakistan’s military plans shaped India’s strategic decisions. In India, he mediated peace with insurgent groups, including talks with Mizo rebels that led to the 1986 Mizo Peace Accord. And in 1988, he infiltrated the Golden Temple during Operation Black Thunder to track militants.
In 1999, he negotiated during the Kandahar hijacking to secure hostages’ release. In 2014, he coordinated the rescue of 46 Indian nurses held by ISIS in Iraq. By 2016, he oversaw surgical strikes on terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
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