What Dulat said about the IB and Pandits in his memoir

 

As Asad Durrani and Amarjit Singh Dulat, former spymasters of Pakistan and India respectively, are releasing their much awaited co-authored book THE SPY CHRONICLES: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace, written by journalist Aditya Sinha, in New Delhi, here is a recollection of what A.S. Dulat in his memoir Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years had documented about the Intelligence Bureau (IB) operations in Kashmir and the association of Kashmiri Pandits with the IB.

“If anyone in Kashmir had to abuse a political opponent, they would call him an IB agent,” A S Dulat wrote in his memoir (page 205).

On page 61, he noted that “the IB was most active, most feared and most denounced in Kashmir. The ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), itself being an intelligence agency and emboldened at having recently defeated the mighty Soviet Union in Afghanistan, knew exactly how key the IB was to the central government’s hold on Kashmir; it told the militants to target the IB.”

About the association of Kashmiri Pandits with the IB, Mr Dulat wrote that “Most of our officers on the ground were Kashmiri Pandits, who lived among the ordinary Kashmiri folk, and they made for easy targets.”

According to Dulat’s account, “The first IB officer shot was a Bihari, though: R.N.P. Singh. He was killed in Anantnag (south Kashmir), in broad daylight.”

Dulat argued that the Abdullah family was not fond of Kashmiri Pandits.

“The Abdullah family also felt that a lot of their problems were due to Kashmiri Pandits, who held disproportionately powerful positions in the government under Nehru and Indira Gandhi; the Abdullahs felt that Kashmiri Pandits carried lots of tales back to Delhi, and were thus highly untrustworthy. The IB, in J&K, had a fair amount of Kashmiri Pandits. One should not forget that when Sheikh Abdullah was arrested a conspiracy case was filed against him. It was put together by the IB…,” he wrote. (page 205)

 

About the association of Kashmiri Pandits with the IB, Mr Dulat wrote that “Most of our officers on the ground were Kashmiri Pandits, who lived among the ordinary Kashmiri folk, and they made for easy targets.”

Quoting Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Dulat wrote that “Sheikh Saheb even said once, I will see to it that these guys are packed off from here.”

Khalid Bashir Ahmad, a Kashmiri historian, author and former civil servant, in his book Kashmir: Exposing The Myth Behind The Narrative lends credibility to Dulat’s assertions.

Ahmad also while quoting Sheikh Abdullah in chapter four titled Power noted that “Towards his last days, while reflecting on his life and experiences, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah described Kashmiri Pandits as ‘The Fifth Columnists’ and ‘The Instruments of Tyranny’.

Though the Kashmiri author Ahmad said that “The sweeping portrayal of a community by a person accused of having handed over Kashmir to India on a platter to answer the wishes of this miniscule minority looks incredible.”

In a candid admission in his memoir, Dulat also wrote that “As an IB/R&AW officer I knew I could never be trusted totally trusted by Kashmiri. Once, though, at a wedding in Srinagar, Sajad Lone and I came out together and he said that being invited to a wedding was the epitome of social acceptability in Kashmir. I passed that test on more than one occasion.”

Once formally released, the joint account of two D’s from arch-rival nation states, Durrani and Dulat, is expected to generate a lot of heat and create new controversies for sure.

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