I have had a ringside view of this security establishment for over three decades. I did most of my schooling at a Sainik School, which has contributed hundreds of officers to the military.

During our free time and even class hours in school, we were retold stories of their valour, and we basked in their glory. As a reporter, I mostly wrote about the security establishment. This includes the three military arms—army, navy, air force—and the coast guard; investigation agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Customs, Income Tax Department; and intelligence agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), the intelligence arms of other agencies; state police forces and the paramilitary forces.

I was very often overwhelmed by the courage and professionalism that I witnessed or heard of: the injured man who went back to the battlefield only to be killed; a young soldier who fell off an icy cliff as he fought on; a pilot who risked his life to save a city; an uncompromising eccentric who repeatedly challenged the lies of an entire establishment; a soft-spoken leader who tried to usher in grand reforms in the darkest corners of the intelligence network; an investigator whose obsession with detail unearthed some of India’s biggest unsolved crimes.

I spent the first two decades of my professional career among some of those inspiring professionals— military officers, spies, police officers, tax men and others.

However, these individuals are part of a larger whole. There is, equally, a dangerously unprofessional part of the security establishment that is willing to do the bidding of the political executive—and it is the role of these sections that we need to understand better if we are to save and protect this democracy.