In August 2014, when the office of then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh recommended former Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chief Ajit Lal as the next interlocutor for Naga peace talks, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) overruled the proposal and appointed ex-IPS officer R N Ravi to the position instead. The decision came despite Lal having already officiated as the Naga interlocutor for five months that year in his capacity as the JIC chief.
More than a decade later, the scenario appears to have come full circle. Lal, now 74, has been brought back to help untangle a Naga political process that many within the security establishment privately describe as more convoluted than ever. The Centre recently appointed him as the Adviser (Northeast) in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), replacing former Intelligence Bureau (IB) special director A K Mishra.
After Ravi moved to Raj Bhavan as the Tamil Nadu Governor in September 2021, Mishra was tasked with steering the Naga peace talks as the Adviser (Northeast) besides overseeing negotiations with other militant and political groups in the region, including in Manipur.
Government sources indicate that Lal’s return reflects a preference for a quieter, negotiation-driven approach. His style, officials say, is oriented towards “resolution rather than confrontation” – a subtle contrast to the more combative tenor that came to define Ravi’s tenure as an interlocutor.
A 1974-batch IPS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, Lal spent the bulk of his career in the IB, where he worked closely with current National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, then a senior IB officer who became its director in 2004. Officials suggest Lal’s fresh appointment may have had Doval’s backing.
Lal’s intelligence career spanned some of the country’s most sensitive theatres. He served in Punjab during the militancy years, later in Jammu and Kashmir, and subsequently in the Northeast, where he would spend a considerable part of his professional life. Between 1999 and 2007, as the IB additional director heading the Northeast desk, he played a key role during a crucial phase of negotiations with the NSCN (IM).
At the time, former Union home secretary K Padmanabhaiah was serving as the government’s interlocutor. The two worked in close coordination as talks progressed from sustaining the ceasefire to exploratory political discussions, including meetings abroad and eventually the relocation of negotiations to the Indian soil. “Much of the steering from the MHA during that period was being done by Lal,” a former IB officer recalled.
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Even after being elevated to the IB special director’s post in 2008 with the charge of personnel and administration, Lal continued to oversee the Northeast affairs until 2011. He later served as the JIC chief until 2014. In all, officials estimate he has nearly two decades of experience in the region and close to a decade of direct engagement with the Naga issue.
“He (Lal) knows all the stakeholders, and they know him,” said a senior security establishment officer. “He carries weight, and even the NSCN (IM) holds him in regard. He understands their strengths, weaknesses and negotiating positions. He is methodical and focused on closure.”
The contrast with the Ravi years is glaring. In 2015, the Centre signed a high-profile Framework Agreement with the NSCN (IM) in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The agreement was projected as a breakthrough after nearly two decades of negotiations. Yet more than a decade later, a final settlement remains elusive.
The relations between Ravi and the NSCN (IM) turned openly acrimonious, with each side accusing the other of misinterpretation and bad faith. The wording of the Framework Agreement has since been described by officials as sufficiently elastic to allow competing interpretations. Some within the security establishment now privately argue that the very architecture of the agreement complicated, rather than expedited, the path to a final deal.
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Lal now inherits that complexity. Apart from reviving momentum in the Naga talks, he will also have to navigate negotiations with the Kuki-Zo militant groups in Manipur and help stabilise a region that continues to witness ethnic and political volatility. His success, officials acknowledge, will depend not only on his familiarity with the terrain but also on the degree of political space and flexibility he is granted by New Delhi.
Educated at St Xavier’s School in Patna and St Stephen’s College in Delhi, Lal began his IPS career with postings in Shimla and Kinnaur. More than four decades later, he returns to one of the most intricate assignments in India’s internal security landscape, tasked with closing a chapter that has remained open for far too long. He will know he again has some climbing to do.