Career
M. K. Narayanan joined the Indian Police Service in 1955 and passed out as the best all-round officer of his batch. After a brief stint as Sub-Divisional Police Officer in the erstwhile State of Madras, he went on deputation to the Intelligence Bureau in February 1959. The rest of his service career was spent under the Government of India, mainly in the Intelligence Bureau during which he dealt with a whole range of issues concerning internal and national security.
He headed the Intelligence Bureau (IB) from 1987 to 1990, before heading the Joint Intelligence Committee. He became Chief of the IB again in 1991, before retiring in 1992. He was the Special Advisor for Internal Security to the Prime Minister of India beginning in May 2004.
He is alleged to plant his staunch supporters as RAW and IB chiefs. He grew infamous when he wanted to sack the then RAW chief C. D. Sahay. He began systematically undermining Sahay; he planted his own man, Hormis Tharakan, former Kerala police chief who was occasionally deputed to RAW, as Sahay’s eventual successor. The then NSA, J. N. Dixit, countered that Narayanan himself had not been sacked when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated (Narayanan was the IB chief), and that no intelligence heads rolled after the Kargil intrusions were discovered
He presided over a post-Rabindra Singh(a RAW joint secretary suspected of being a double agent, defected in 2004. Singh was handing RAW secrets over to the USA, to where he fled from Kathmandu via Vienna once he was discovered) defection enquiry that has not damaged a single officer’s career; in some cases, the opposite has happened. Shashi Bhushan Tomar, the last man to see Rabindra Singh after the latter’s car was searched as he left RAW HQ in Delhi on April 19, 2004. Tomar, suspect colleagues, tipped Singh off that he was under RAW surveillance, enabling the double agent to evade his stake-out and escaped and Tomar is now posted in New York.
On 24th Jan 2010 he became the governor of West Bengal. He took over from Gopalkrishna Gandhi who had a few disagreements with the CPM-ruled West Bengal on critical issues like violence in Nandigram and Singur. He was awarded with the Gusi Peace Prize 2011.
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