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,........

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