The Farooq Abdullah – Amarjit Dulat dosti

Book review by Ajai Shukla

 

Title                :           The Chief Minister and the Spy

Author             :           Amarjit Singh Dulat

Publisher         :           Juggernaut Books, 2025 

Pages               :           289 pages

Price                :           Rs 799/-

 

Amarjit Singh Dulat, former chief of India’s premier spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), is far removed from the conventional spymaster. As those who know him say, his twinkling eyes, mischievous smile and ready sense of humour in diplomatic soirees mark him out more as a party animal. Only after the passage of time does he become recognisable as the captain of one side of a malignant contest (India versus Pakistan) that had played out for decades with the remorseless shedding of each other’s blood.

 

This book, given its clickbait title, was always intended to be a spicy read. A title such as “The Chief Minister and the Spy” would have effortlessly met even the racy standards of the British tabloid media. Dulat, however, has gone beyond that, triggering a controversy even before the book’s release. Dulat has make the deeply controversial suggestion that the National Conference Party – deeply Kashmiri in its outlook and philosophy – would have been ready to work with Indian mainstream political parties in smoothly implementing the abrogation of Article 370 in the Jammu and Kashmir constitution. Such a public position would have been political suicide for any of the Jammu and Kashmir based parties. According to Dulat, Farooq Abdullah had conveyed his readiness to assist in the smooth political rearrangement of Kashmiri politics, despite his private conviction, which was a staunch opposition to the abrogation of Article 370. Farooq Abdullah also indicated that he would have found ways to implement, without unmanageable backlash, the division of Jammu & Kashmir state into a different arrangement of union territories.

 

Pressed on this issue in a pre-release interview with a television journalist, Dulat said that the National Conference would have found ways of overcoming the Kashmir opposition to political rearrangement. Farooq indicated that he could have found ways of overcoming Kashmiri opposition without sending in extra troops into Kashmir and creating a politically charged environment, and without the imprisonment of large numbers of political activists.

 

A central theme that the author weaves his narrative around and repeats time and again is Farooq Abdullah’s readiness to work with, and to help, the government of India. In this respect, all three generations of male Abdullahs are remarkably different from each other – something that took New Delhi a long time to grasp. The family patriarch, Sheikh Abdullah – a grassroots Kashmiri leader -- spoke a different language in his public speeches in Kashmir and another language when he spoke in Delhi – he had no pretentions to being anything other than a Kashmiri Muslim leader. His son, Farooq Abdullah, on the other hand was as comfortable in Urdu, Hindi and English as he was in Kashmiri; which was one of the reasons why Farooq has always harboured ambitions of being a national level official. 

 

Dulat recounts Farooq’s approach to power. Farooq has chosen to swim with the tide rather than against it. Talking to party workers at Lal Chowk in June 1989, Farooq was only half quipping when he said “if you have in mind someone who ends up in jail, you can count me out. I am the last person to like being jailed. I like to play golf. What am I going to do in jail? You may suggest that I read books to while away the time, but I would not like to do that because reading puts pressure on my eyes.” Farooq’s quest to be appointed vice-president of India is still an open chapter. 

 

The youngest of the three Abdullahs, Omar, is a different kettle of fish altogether, combining proficiency in English and Hindi/Urdu with an understanding of the thinking and speaking processes of India’s young, urban elite. This comes from having rubbed shoulders with them for many years while schooling in one of the country’s elite boarding schools near Shimla – the Lawrence School, Sanawar – in which he demonstrated his leadership qualities by being appointed Head Boy.

 

Dulat ends his book by comparing Farooq Abdullah with the great French leader, Charles de Gaul, who Farooq has always admired. “The theatre will not end as long as he is alive, leaving people to wonder if he is the play or the playwright. But his heart will always beat for India,” says veteran journalist, Harinder Baweja.

 

Farooq’s heart will always be with India, writes Dulat. His saga will not end in a whimper because Farooq is not an ordinary man. Delhi cannot afford to give up on Farooq because, without the singer, the song of Kashmir is not complete.

 

This is Dulat’s fifth book. His first, “The Vajpayee Years”, published in 2015, recounted events from the period 1999 – 2000 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was prime minister and Dulat ran R&AW as his chief. Then, from 2000 to 2004, Dulat worked as Special Advisor on Jammu & Kashmir in the prime minister’s office.

 

Dulat’s second book, a veritable coup d’etat by Indian standards of transparency, was co-authored in 2018 with Asad Durrani, Dulat’s opposite number in Pakistan as the director-general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). That book was the informative and eminently readable: “The Spy Chronicles: R&AW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace”. Following this came “Covert: The Psychology of War and Peace.” His fourth and most recent publication, a memoir titled “A Life in the Shadows”, was published in 2022.

 

Dulat’s book is very well produced and is indexed and bookmarked in detail. Dulat’s light and self-effacing writing style offers a welcome contrast from the turgid prose that is apparently the writing style for senior officers’ biographies. Meanwhile, this book will hopefully find a place in the bookshelves of followers of Indian politics, security and intelligence.