In 2019, when Delhi revoked Kashmir’s autonomy under Article 370, Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference publicly condemned the move as a “betrayal.” But privately, he struck a different note, writes A.S. Dulat, the former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing in his new book, The Chief Minister and the Spy.
“We would have helped (pass the proposal). Why were we not taken into confidence?” he asked Dulat, according to the book, published by Juggernaut.
Days before the abrogation, writes Dulat, Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “What transpired…nobody will ever know,” he writes. After the abrogation, Abdullah was detained for seven months. During this period, Delhi discreetly probed his stance. “They wanted him to accept the new reality,” Dulat notes.
Farooq Abdullah could not be reached for comments on the matter.
What emerges from Dulat’s candid book is a complex tale of conflict and violence, personal relationships and betrayals, pragmatism and realpolitik. And dominating every aspect is a larger-than-life Abdullah.
There’s Indira Gandhi’s dismissal of Abdullah’s government in 1984, “a betrayal, he (Abdullah) would always carry in his heart”, according to Dulat.
There’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s plan to replace Abdullah with his son Omar Abdullah. “Vajpayee became more of a father figure to Omar than his own father,” Dulat writes. Omar was thrust into prominence: accompanying Vajpayee abroad, appointed junior foreign minister, and positioned as Kashmir’s “new face.” Abdullah, meanwhile, was coaxed with the promise of a vice-presidential nomination. “It was a bait,” Dulat admits. “Farooq saw it as a path to Rashtrapati Bhavan [the presidency].
The nomination never came, though, one more betrayal.
But through it all, New Delhi continued to talk to and manage Abdullah, Dulat suggests. ““You had to understand his history, his legacy… to navigate him,” Dulat reflects. Abdullah’s pride in Kashmir’s autonomy made overt betrayal “unthinkable”, yet Delhi learned to exploit his pragmatism — and his grudging grasp of realpolitik — to extract compliance. As Dulat concludes: “Once you factored all this in, it became easier to navigate for your own ends.”
But not always.
In early 2020, after his release, Abdullah refused to publicly endorse Delhi’s move. “Whatever I say, I will say in Parliament,” he told Dulat. Yet he quietly forged the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), uniting rivals like Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP to demand a restoration of the region’s autonomy and statehood. That’s a demand that still continues.
But there’s a deeper, and more worrying , insight in Dulat’s book, an admission that perhaps the region’s most enduring conflicts were shaped not by vast ideological differences, but by fractured trust and missed chances, and by leaders who were sometimes too principled for their own good, and at other times, too pragmatic. And, as the message between the lines clearly suggests, every misstep only added context to the deepening divide. Dulat quotes Abdullah as once telling him: “You people in Delhi think you’re playing chess, but this is a game where even the pawns have memories.”
(Hindustan Times)
