NSA Doval shares his toughest career moment at IIT Roorkee convocation

Doval used the story to advise IIT Roorkee's graduating class on navigating setbacks and uncertainty

September 19, 2026

NSA Ajit Doval recalled how, as a young intelligence officer in Sikkim in 1975, a team he sent to the border was captured by Chinese forces, leaving him convinced his career was over before an inquiry cleared him of fault

From career-ending fear to a lasting lesson: Doval’s Sikkim mission story

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Saturday recounted a tense episode from early in his intelligence career, recalling how a team he had sent on a mission near the China border during Sikkim’s merger with India was taken into Chinese custody — an incident that, at the time, left him convinced his career was finished. He shared the story while addressing the IIT Roorkee Convocation 2026 as chief guest.

A Young Officer’s Toughest Assignment

Doval said he was a young IPS officer, still new to intelligence work and in his twenties, when he was posted as intelligence in-charge in Sikkim during the period the territory was becoming part of India in 1975. His responsibilities included monitoring the border areas and gathering intelligence on the movements of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As part of that work, he sent an intelligence team on a mission to a border area, expecting them to return within about eight days.

The Call That Changed Everything

Instead, Doval got a call from headquarters informing him the team was in Chinese custody, being interrogated. The personnel were eventually released, he said, likely after some form of negotiation, but the episode triggered a formal inquiry — and Doval was certain his time in the service was over. “I knew that this was the end of my career. I was still in my twenties, and I had to start a new career,” he told the students, recalling how unprofessional the whole episode had felt to him at the time.

Vindicated, But Never Forgotten

The inquiry ultimately cleared him of fault. Doval said the maps and sketches supplied by headquarters for the mission had contained defects and errors, and that he had likely done everything correctly given the flawed material he’d been working with. Even so, the episode left a lasting impression, and Doval shared advice he once received from a Tibetan Sherpa colleague at the Intelligence Bureau, who told him life was, in essence, about “map reading” — knowing where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there.

A Message For Graduates

Doval used the story to speak to the graduating class about navigating setbacks and uncertainty, calling them the “luckiest generation” in a thousand years given the scale of opportunity now available to them, driven by technological change that earlier generations never had access to.

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