M.K. Narayanan ( also known as MK or Mike) and I were contemporaries in college, but we had not known each other as students. I met him for the first time in July, 1967, when I joined the Intelligence Bureau (IB) as a Joint Assistant Director (JAD). MK, six years senior to me in the Indian Police Service, had joined the IB some years earlier and was working as an Assistant Director ( AD) in a division dealing with communism. Though very young in the intelligence profession, he had already made a name as a brilliant analyst and was held in great respect by his seniors and other colleagues.
He used to share a room with another officer in the South Block. All the young officers of the IB religiously used to gather in his room every day for a shared lunch. It used to be an uproarious gathering discussing men, matters and memories in a humorous manner. MK had always been known for his keen-- and often debunking-- sense of humour and he used to keep everybody laughing. His humour endeared him to many, but caused misunderstandings with others who could not appreciate the humour in his remarks.
R.N. Kao was a Joint Director then and occupied a room two rooms after MK's. He used to regularly go home for lunch, but often, before going home, he would peep into MK's lunch club as we used to call it, greet all of us and leave.
MK used to talk to Kao as freely and as humorously as he used to talk to me and other juniors without the least sign of nervousness. If I am asked to name three qualities of MK, which I valued most, I would mention his sense of personal dignity, his high standards of personal integrity and his human relationships.
MK had the privilege of serving under or with titans of the intelligence profession such as B.N. Mallick, Kao, M.M.L.Hooja, A.K. Dave, K.Sankaran Nair and G.C.Saxena. I had seen him in the company of all these officers except Mallick. He used to show great respect to them and treated them with deference, but I had never seen him exhibit servility or submissiveness to any of them. Even though he was years junior to them, he would talk to them on equal terms and would not hesitate to give his views right or wrong--firmly, but politely.
I could cite many instances of his personal integrity, but would confine myself to two. As the head of the IB, he rarely used special aircraft. He invariably chose to travel by the commercial flights of the Indian Airlines. In 2000-2001, he and I served as members of the National Security Advisory Board. The rules permitted the outstation members of the NSAB to stay in a comfortable hotel approved by the government. MK, who used to come from Chennai, often preferred staying in a small guest house of the IB.
His human relationships were and are legendary. He was easily accessible in his office to anyone wanting to see him. He never stood on formalities in meeting people. He knew everyone working in his divisions by name, by face and by family background. He took keen interest in their personal problems and never hesitated to help them. His staff even at the lowest of the lower levels worshipped him and could cite instances when they took their problems to MK, he found the time to help them. Over the years, the IB has built up excellent traditions of human relationships that are retained even today. MK's contribution to these traditions was immense.
I have often seen sections of the media writing that he owed his appointment as the National Security Adviser to his contacts with Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. I never believed such stories. MK has never been known to curry favour with political leaders in order to secure an official position. He was a great networker and maintained excellent relations with many people on both sides of the political spectrum. He got along as famously with V.P. Singh and Chandrasekhar as he did with Rajiv Gandhi. He got along as famously with Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani as he did with Narasimha Rao. He believed that good relations with political leaders helped him in his profession, but he did not look upon such relationships as a means of advancing his career. He was definitely not a careerist, who kept calculating how to go up the ladder.
MK is a religious, God-fearing man though in his personal conversations he hardly ever talks of religion or God. I had heard it from reliable sources that when in Delhi he never fails to spend a few minutes every day worshipping in a particular Hanuman temple to which he is attached and that every day he never goes to bed without doing pooja at home however late in the night it might be.
In the IB, he had held a large variety of responsibilities before becoming its chief-- as an expert on national and international communism and Dravidian politics, counter-intelligence, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. His role in dealing with the tribal insurgency in Tripura was highly commended. His contribution to counter-terrorism in J&K and Punjab was very significant. One knows a senior professional by the number of juniors he trained and made them shine. Outstanding IB officers such as A.S. Dulat (J&K) and Ajit Doval (counter-terrorism) greatly benefited from their training under MK. You name any outstanding officer of the IB, you would find that MK was his mentor at some stage or the other. You will also find that excellent inter-personal relationships was a strong quality of all protégés of MK. He made them imbibe the importance of good team work for success in the intelligence profession.
There has been a number of articles on MK's contribution as the NSA. Nobody can talk knowledgeably and authoritatively on this except Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The NSA reports directly to the PM, who uses him as a sounding-board for new ideas and initiatives. The relationship between a Prime Minister and his NSA is often more informal than formal. It has to be that way. Nobody can claim to know the kind of close informal relationship that prevailed and continues to prevail between Dr Manmohan Singh and MK.
Even without much direct access to reliable information, one could have a good sense of MK's style of functioning as the NSA. Some examples of MK's initiatives: