New Delhi, December 20, 2022 (PPI-OT):Former head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing A.S. Dulat in a detailed interview talks about India’s present National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s role in the launch of anti-Sikh operation and the formulation of ruthless policy in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The interview with the web portal, The Wire, was conducted by famous Indian journalist Karen Thapar and it was basically about A.S. Dulat’s new memoir, A Life in the Shadows. The book covers Dulat’s interactions with multiple senior leaders and important members of India’s security establishment – including current NSA Ajit Doval. Doval’s ambition and drive, Dulat said, was clear from the very start.

The interview covers Dulat’s impressions of Doval, his opinions on the Kashmir issue and how it has been handled by successive Indian governments and treatment of the Sikhs and Ajit Doval’s role in it, and more. About Ajit Doval, Dulat says: “I feel around ‘87, by which time the ‘Doval Legend’ was just beginning to grow. He had come back from Pakistan and [MK] Narayanan had just been appointed IB head”. “Ironically, when I joined the bureau [IB], three years before Ajit, during my first posting I shared a room with the great man and for two years, Mr Narayanan was very good to me, very kind to me always, but I could never claim to be his blue-eyed boy in the manner that I saw Ajit Doval was in the mid or late 80’s.”

“Let me take you back to 1996. Dr Farooq Abdullah was coming back as Chief Minister for the third time. Coincidentally it was a time when Ajit was being posted to Srinagar and Farooq had invited me for his swearing-in so I suggested to Ajit that he come along. I said this would be a good time to meet the Chief Minister. So he came and I took him straight from the airport to Farooq’s residence and I said this is one of our finest Intelligence Officers. So there were very cordial hellos and smiles and it was a great photo opportunity, except that there was no photographer.” “But what happened was that the chemistry didn’t work and Ajit gradually drifted away to the other side, to Mufti Sahab, and then the story is, one of the stories attributed to him, is that he played a role in creating the PDP. So these are the stories. Whether Ajit admits it or not, but this is talked about.”

“…if he could shift from, so easily, from the man in power to the man hoping to be in power. And I could say that if today, let’s say, the Government of India needed Farooq, Ajit would again be his best friend.” “I’ll come to Black Thunder in a moment, or I can start with Black Thunder. You know, we worked together in Kashmir, Ajit and me. And as I said earlier we thought differently, different types of people. But when we were working in Kashmir, I knew that he would employ his own tactics and that didn’t bother me. I said “do it your way. I want results”, and he produced results. He always produced results. So on the question of Black Thunder, well as the legend goes, he was masquerading at that time as a rickshaw puller, around the Golden Temple, and he entered the golden temple pretending to be an ISI agent now whether that …”

“I have no doubt that he produced exceptional intelligence from within the Golden Temple, which was crucial for the success of Black Thunder.” “The muscular policy that we’ve been hearing about in Kashmir is his idea…” “Ajit is very good at sniffing power and yeah he tries to stay on the right side. He would stay on the right side. But I won’t say that he doesn’t have his preferences. That’s why I said he has never possibly been happier in his career than he is today because he and Modi are just made for each other.”

“I’ll tell you what MK [former IB head] once said that if he needed to wield the stick in Kashmir, he would depute Doval. And if he needed, if he wanted to offer a carrot he would send me. So that’s the type, that’s the difference that there is between the two of us.” When asked that he wrote in his book that “the Kashmiri has learned over the years to be devious. It is for them the key to survival. They will not trust you easily. They will not trust each other at all”. Is this the reason why Kashmiris are so often misunderstood by the rest of India, Dulat said, “I’ve said this before, that it could take more than a lifetime to understand Kashmir and Kashmiris?

You take any Kashmiri, you’ll find there are layers and layers and layers within him. He doesn’t let you get into him, you know. And you’ve got to sit down on the ground and partake of his food and eat with them, and then maybe they sort of start talking to you. They don’t trust you easily and the Mirwaiz explained this to me once, you know. He said, “You say we lie, and we do lie. But who taught us how to lie? Because you never speak the truth to us.” Therefore, I mean it comes naturally. There is a deviousness in the Kashmiri and you can’t make out the Kashmiri.

“I would say that Delhi thinks differently than Bengal or South India does. In Delhi, people think of Kashmir only in terms of a holiday in Gulmarg or skiing in Gulmarg or going to Pahalgam. There are very few people who go to Kashmir and try and understand the Kashmiri. You know we come back with stories that the Kashmiri says, “Aap Hindustan se aaye. [You’ve come from India.]” I mean that’s how the Kashmiri feels. That’s how the Kashmiri thinks. What’s the big deal? But in Bengal or in South India there’s a lot more empathy for the Kashmiris. There’s a lot more sensitivity and feeling for the Kashmiri. This is a Delhi problem, or a North Indian problem, I would say.”

“I think they [Kashmiris] have good reason to feel betrayed. Yes, yes, yes. Let me take you back to where it actually all starts and this is part of the narrative that you’ll hear all the time in Kashmir. It goes back to Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest in August 1953, and, you know, there was a foreign secretary, the last one that Jawaharlal Nehru had, who continued as foreign secretary in Shastri’s time, YD Gundevia. In his memoir, I think it’s called Outside the Archives, Gundevia says, “Democracy died the day Sheikh was arrested. Democracy in Kashmir died the day Sheikh was arrested.” And another person B.N. Mullik, Former head of IB, wrote three books on the Nehru years. He says when he went to Madras after the Sheikh’s arrest and he met Rajaji – C. Rajagopalachari. Rajaji said to him, “Why did we need to slam the door on the Sheikh? Now you’ll never have peace in Kashmir.”

“When I talk about 1984, I think in some ways it also led to 1988, 1989. Everybody talks about the rigging in the 1987 elections…” “These killings which are happening now sir, these killings which are happening. These targeted killings which happen from time to time are out of that same fear of demographic change.” “The Kashmiri now feels, or particularly, since 2019 and what’s been happening there, that there is no expectation left from Delhi, and it’s a sad story. It’s a very sad story. And talking of kids going to school, who used to take great pride in carrying these paper national flags and singing the national anthem on Independence Day, on Republic Day. It doesn’t happen anymore, and it’s become an issue. “Why do we need to carry these flags?”

“I’ll tell you what is happening and how it has happened, because, in the Kashmiri mind, there is no expectation left. We are finished. The India that we knew doesn’t exist. In fact, when 2019 also happened one of the questions that the Kashmiris asked, they said, “We’ve always had problems with Delhi, but why have the people of India turned against us?” This is new. So in that way, the same way, we are defeating the idea of India and that is why Mehbooba says from time to time that there’ll be nobody left to hoist the national [Indian] flag.”

“Well Amit Shah said we are willing to talk to the Kashmiri youth, but we won’t talk to Pakistan. Now that doesn’t go down well in Kashmir.” About the sensitivity missing in the Modi government, Dulat said, “Absolutely it is missing today. Unfortunately, it is missing…”

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