How S. Jaishankar Became India’s Most Recognizable Diplomat
There’s a specific kind of person who spends thirty years doing quiet work behind the scenes, only to suddenly become a household name overnight. S. Jaishankar is one of those people. If you only started paying attention to Indian politics recently, you’d probably think he appeared out of thin airsharp, quick with a comeback, completely unfazed by tough questions, and just as comfortable taking on a hostile journalist as he is a foreign minister. But that sharp public personality wasn’t built overnight. It was forged slowly over four decades of hard work that almost no one was paying attention to. Born in Delhi in 1955, Jaishankar didn’t grow up with ordinary dinner table chatter. His father, K. Subrahmanyam, was one of India’s top strategic thinkers—a man who helped shape the nation’s defense and nuclear plans for years. While most kids were listening to local gossip, Jaishankar was overhearing debates about international power dynamics and military strategy. That environment clearly shaped his path. He went to St. Stephen’s College and then to Jawaharlal Nehru University, staying long enough to earn a master’s, an M.Phil., and a Ph.D. focused on nuclear diplomacy. It’s a rare detail worth noting: he didn’t just study international relations in books; decades later, he would actually be sitting in the room negotiating those exact deals. Three Decades of Unseen Work In 1977, Jaishankar joined the Indian Foreign Service. What followed wasn’t a quick rise to fame, but a long, steady journey through the gears of global diplomacy. His first big assignment was in Moscow during the final, tense years of the Cold War. After that came postings in Colombo, Budapest, Tokyo, and Washington—each city bringing a new set of rules and a new challenge. Two specific roles defined his career: By January 2015, just as he was preparing to retire, the government appointed him Foreign Secretary-India’s top diplomatic officer. It was a clear vote of confidence. Over the next three years, he handled the Doklam crisis, strengthened relationships with neighboring countries, and pushed for stronger regional partnerships like BIMSTEC. He was so effective that the government gave him a rare one-year extension in 2017. The Twist No One Saw Coming Most long diplomatic careers end with a quiet retirement and a memoir read only by policy nerds. Jaishankar retired in early 2018, and for a short time, it seemed like he was heading down that exact path. He took a job as President of Global Corporate Affairs at Tata Sons. It seemed like an unusual shift, moving from government halls to corporate boardrooms. Though he only stayed for about a year, it gave him a practical look at how businesses view global markets, regulations, and political risks. Then came the move that shocked everyone. In May 2019, Jaishankar was appointed India’s External Affairs Minister- without ever having run for political office. He became the first person in Indian history to serve as both Foreign Secretary and External Affairs Minister, making a rare jump straight from bureaucrat to cabinet minister. He took a seat in the Rajya Sabha and, after the 2024 elections, kept his post, solidifying his role as one of India’s longest-serving foreign ministers. Finding His Voice What makes Jaishankar stand out isn’t just his unique resume; it’s how he speaks. Most career diplomats are trained to speak cautiously, avoid taking sides, and use vague language. Jaishankar threw that playbook out the window. He adopted a direct, plain-spoken style. He doesn’t shy away from confrontation, whether he’s answering a tricky question from a student, a reporter, or a world leader. He explains complex foreign policy in plain English, which is why everyday people—far outside the usual political circlesactually tune in to watch him. He’s also put his thoughts on paper, writing The India Way (2020) and Why Bharat Matters (2024) to explain how he views India’s place in the modern world. In 2019, he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honors, for his service. The Real Takeaway It’s easy to look at his story and see a sudden rise to fame. But the real story is much simpler and far more grounded. He spent almost forty years doing demanding work out of the spotlight. He sat through tough postings, did the tedious reading, and mastered complicated subjects long before anyone cared to ask him about them. So when the spotlight finally turned on him, he didn’t need to fake confidence- he already knew what he believed because he’d been doing the work for decades. It’s a simple truth: the effort you put in when no one is watching is what prepares you for the moment everyone is. @Rohit Manral
Ajit Doval: A Life Spent Working Out of Sight
The Spy Who Never Sought the Spotlight : Ajit Dovals’s Untold Journey Some people spend their careers chasing recognition. Ajit Doval spent his avoiding it. For more than five decades, he has worked in some of the most dangerous corners of India’s recent history – insurgent camps in Mizoram, the height of militancy in Punjab, the tarmac in Kandahar during a hijacking that held the country’s attention for over a week — and walked away from each one without asking for credit. Today, as India’s National Security Advisor, he’s talked about almost like a legend. But before the title, and before the films loosely inspired by his career, he was a boy from a small village in the Himalayas who grew up believing that discipline could take you further than luck ever would. This isn’t the story of a superhero. It’s the story of someone who kept choosing service over comfort, for more than fifty years. Growing Up in the Hills Long before his name meant anything in security circles, Ajit Doval was a kid growing up on the pine-covered slopes of Pauri Garhwal. Life there wasn’t easy — it asked for a kind of resilience and patience that city life rarely teaches. His father, Major G. N. Doval, served in the Indian Army, and the uniform hanging in their home was more than clothing. It was a daily reminder of what duty and sacrifice actually looked like. Doval picked up these values less from what his father said and more from what he watched — the discipline, the composure, the sense that responsibility wasn’t optional. Growing up somewhere that demanded real grit taught him early that comfort had to be earned. That upbringing laid the groundwork for the self-control that would shape the rest of his career. School, University, and Joining the Police Doval’s education started at Ajmer Military School; an institution built around discipline long before its students ever wore a uniform of their own. Structure, punctuality, and physical endurance became second nature to him there. He later studied at Agra University, earning a master’s degree in Economics with distinction — the kind of record that usually points toward a safe, conventional career. Instead, in 1968, he cleared the civil services exam of that era and joined the Indian Police Service, posted to the Kerala cadre. No one could have known it at the time, but the decision would quietly reshape the course of India’s security establishment. Choosing Intelligence Work Over a Visible Career Most young IPS officers want the kind of postings that come with recognition command roles, public profile, a name people know. Doval went the other way. In 1972, he moved into the Intelligence Bureau, India’s internal intelligence agency, where success rarely gets noticed and failure is never forgiven. Why give up a path with clear rewards for one where you can’t even tell your own family what you do? Doval has said, in different ways over the years, that real service doesn’t need an audience. Intelligence work came with no medals, no headlines, and often not even the benefit of the doubt. What it offered instead was the chance to protect the country at its most vulnerable moments — and for him, that mattered more than a conventional career ever could. The Difficult Years The Mizo Insurgency In the 1970s, Doval was sent into the middle of the Mizo insurgency, one of India’s most complicated internal conflicts. Working undercover — often alone, unarmed, and inside hostile territory — he built relationships within insurgent networks that took patience most people don’t have. That groundwork helped bring key Mizo leaders to the negotiating table, easing a conflict that had dragged on for years. The Punjab Insurgency The 1980s brought Punjab close to the edge, as militancy and violence spread across the state. Doval took on a covert role during this period, including intelligence work connected to Operation Black Thunder in 1988 — the operation that cleared the Golden Temple complex of militants with minimal loss of life. It’s still studied today for how precisely it was carried out. Counterterrorism Operations Over the following decades, Doval was called back repeatedly whenever India’s internal security came under threat, from counter-militancy operations to intelligence coordination during periods of heightened terror activity. Every assignment carried real risk, with no guarantee that things would go well. The Kandahar Hijacking Crisis In December 1999, when Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 was hijacked and flown to Kandahar, Doval was one of the officials involved in the negotiations to secure the passengers’ release. It was a situation where every word carried weight, and it became one of the clearest examples of how he handled pressure. Shaping National Security Policy After retiring from the Intelligence Bureau — where he served as Director from 2004 to 2005, following more than a decade running its operations wing — Doval didn’t step back from public life. In 2009, he founded the Vivekananda International Foundation, a think tank that grew into a serious platform for strategic thinking on India’s security challenges. It quietly set the stage for what came next. Becoming National Security Advisor In May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed Doval as India’s National Security Advisor, putting him at the center of the country’s strategic decisions. It was recognition, decades in the making, for a career built on substance rather than visibility. He was reappointed in 2019, making him the first person to serve more than one term as NSA, and was later given Cabinet rank. Under his leadership, India’s approach to counter-terrorism, border security, and strategic doctrine has been described as more assertive and more coordinated than before. What stands out isn’t just the position itself — it’s that someone who spent decades working in near-total anonymity now shapes decisions that affect an entire country. The Dhurandhar Effect In recent years, public interest in Doval’s life found its way into popular culture through the film Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar and starring Ranveer Singh alongside R.