Ten years after he quit the Prime Minister’s Office, India’s one time spy chief Amarjit Singh Dulat, a 1965 batch officer of the Indian Police Service, has spilled the beans, in the style of raconteur who has seen things and has been to places. Now retired from government service, he is confident that no harm shall come to him, if he calls a spade a spade. This is bravado by hindsight. But he is entitled to tell his tales. That is the life has lived, and no one should have any problem, if he tells his story.
In the process he has dug up some very embarrassing moments from the past. The Amritsar fiasco at the time of the IC-814 hijack has been bothering everyone for quite a long time. It was perplexing that the Indian government could not fashion a response for such a long time. The hijack was known some time in mid-flight after the ill-fated Indian Airlines aircraft departed Kathmandu, and then was parked at the Amritsar airport for nearly 50 minutes. ”How could we allow a hijacked aircraft to leave our territory after it had landed?” — was the question upper most in everyone’s mind. Now the spy chief tells us that there was no political leadership. They didn’t have the confidence to launch an operation and were apprehensive that it could backfire, and perhaps in the process also jeopardise the fate of passengers. It is a strong indictment of the BJP leadership, and particularly the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. They have also boasted of being a strong state as compared to the Congress-led governments which they have been accusing of being soft on terrorists. As it is the exchange of the safe release of the passengers in lieu of three Pakistani terrorists lodged in Indian jails is a heavy cross for the BJP to bear. Now Dulat has pointed to the root cause of the problem — lack of political leadership. He has used an interesting expression ‘goof-up.’ This suggests that it was a doable task at Amritsar. It is no doubt a bad miss. Something that rankles us till date.
However, Dulat has talked of not just the IC-814 hijack, but he has really waxed eloquent about the Kashmir affairs. He became the Vajpayee government’s advisor for Kashmir in 2000, and though he left the PMO in 2004, his engagement with Kashmir and the Kashmiris has continued even after his retirement, indeed with added vigour and warmth. He has been talking to them every day, and indeed so frequent have been the phone calls that his wife Paran has coined interesting nicknames for them like Gingersnap, ‘Sidekick’, Drone etc.
The book is about his Kashmir years and logically the juice lies in that story. We have only the details that have been released in the pre-publication interviews, and though the book is now available in the market, it has not been as yet thoroughly scanned. However, Dulat as the conventional spy can be expected to have told the truth when writing his memoirs. People like Dulat who possess sensitive information due to their position either decide not to tell their story, but when they do take the plunge, then there is nothing that is left behind. So, he candidly tells us that the only thing straight about Kashmir is the poplars, a fact first mentioned to him by the IFS officer Brajesh Mishra who was the country’s first National Security Adviser and the principal secretary in the prime minister’s office during the Vajpayee years. He also tells us that Kashmiris do not trust the Kashmiris. Besides, when he tells us that Kashmiris of all hues used to come his house in South Delhi for talks, there is no reason to disbelieve him.
The point is even if we question the motives of a spymaster in revealing his story, there is the larger issue of facing the facts. Can we come to terms with the mess that is Kashmir? Or can we really concede that IC-814 was a major goof-up? Or we shall remain locked in endless futile debates? So, even if Dulat is looking for some post-retirement benefit, or his aim is to merely sell his book, this need not cloud our response to the facts that he reveals. So, let us accept that the J&K chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has a love for the ‘bottle’, or for that matter that Syed Salahuddin, the chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, was favoured by the authorities and his son was granted admission to a medical college. These are the human realities of life, and such concerns have to be taken in the stride.
In this context, Dulat has laid bare facts that may appear politically uncomfortable, but there is no getting away from these. The politicians in Kashmir do have links with the militants, and whatever protests the People’s Democratic Party may lodge after these disclosures it is Dulat’s word that carries weight in the final analysis. After all, even after the recent assembly elections in J&K, the Mufti did thank the extremists and the people on the other side for the smooth conduct of the polls. Dulat also confirms something that has been known very widely. It is the cooperation among the intelligence agencies across the borders. It is well-known that despite open intense rivalries, these agencies keep the channels of communication open without sacrificing their national interests.
The only thing odd about the Dulat disclosures is that these have been put out in the first place. Normally, spymasters do not tell their stories, but it should also be reasoned that considering that they are a closed knit community who keep their contacts alive, this would not come as a surprise to the community itself. Indeed, this could well be a considered and well thought out decision by the entire community that it is time to tell this story. We as readers must always keep this in mind. Nothing in the intelligence community comes as a surprise.
