The
Indian and Pakistani National Security Advisors are getting ready for a
strategic dialogue even as tensions across the Line of Control (LOC) and within
the Kashmir Valley are mounting. In this context, Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee’s role in establishing a peace between the two estranged neighbours
has become a subject of debate. The chief of India’s Research & Analysis
Wing (R&AW), Amarjit Singh Dulat, earlier the head of the Kashmir Group in
India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) and later dealing with the same subject in the
R&AW and then in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) from 2001 to 2004, has
provided a sympathetic if controversial account of Vajpayee’s role as a
peace-practitioner in his recently published autobiographical
narrative (‘Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years’, 2015). Dulat reported directly to the
Prime Minister and his National Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra.
The author praises Prime Minister Vajpayee’s perceived efforts in
particular to establish a peace process on Kashmir with President Parvez
Musharraf of Pakistan. He refers positively to Vajpayee’s Lahore visit and
discusses the Agra Summit of 2001in some detail. He tells us exactly what
happened at the Summit discussions drawing on accounts produced by key players:
the Indian leaders Vajpayee, Advani and Jaswant Singh, and the Pakistani
leaders President Musharraf and Abdul Sattar. He is critical of the tactical
mistakes made by the Pakistani leaders and the Indian leaders’ own clumsiness
and un-statesmanlike conduct. Abdul Sattar noted the sticking point as arising
on July 15 2001 when the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan exchanged
notes on the problems each faced with the other’s draft declaration. Basically,
while President Musharraf laid stress on Kashmir, the Indians were preoccupied
with tackling terror. The talks collapsed inevitably. President Musharraf left
in a huff without visiting Ajmer Sharif as he had wanted to do.
Scholars differ. Author Achin Vanaik has pointed out that Vajpayee’s
Lahore visit in February 1999 was no more than a diplomatic trip necessitated
by the Indo-Pak nuclear explosions earlier in May 1998. Further, Vajpayee’s
visit to Lahore did not prevent the Kargil conflict from taking place later in
1999. AG Noorani, on the other hand, has noted that the Indian Deputy Prime
Minister Lal Krishna Advani had made misplaced interventions during the talks
between the two heads of state and then during the talks between the two
foreign ministers. According to him this was the cause of the collapse of the
proposed Agra Declaration of July 16, 2001. Prime Minister Vajpayee admitted in
Parliament later on that his one-to-one meeting with Musharraf had gone on for
an “unusually for a long time,” which had led Advani to lose his cool and send
a messenger to find out what was happening. The Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant
Singh’s talks with the Pakistani Foreign Minister too had similarly been
disturbed by intrusive phone from Advani. Musharraf was reportedly denied facilities
to hold a press conference. Noorani opines that the Indian Prime Minister
should have invited the Pakistani President to stay a day longer, visit Ajmer
Sharif and then to resume his talks with the Indians to resolve differences.
This did not happen and a great opportunity was lost.
A closely related issue is the predominant and not always positive role
of the Indian intelligence agencies, the IB and the R&AW, which together
with the similar role of the Pakistani agencies, has contributed to making
Kashmir one of the most militarised zones in India not excluding the Northeast
of the country. The IB has always been central to government of India’s control
over Kashmir. Both the IB and the R&AW then headed by Dulat, are top-secret
and work without a legal framework or charter of duties. The reform
recommendations of the LP Singh Committee (1981) were never accepted. Why
should a top intelligence officer be entrusted with the task of supervising the
peaceful conduct of the critical State Assembly elections of 2002 in place of
the State Election Commission? Further, the free access to funds of the IB
available to Dulat to buy up politicians and militants in order to get them
involved in electoral processes raises questions. Dulat justifies such expenditure
saying that such things happen all over the world. Is this not an admission of
the subversion of the legitimate democratic electoral processes in a
conflict-affected state disputed between two major South Asian nations?
The inference that money has always played a big role in political
manipulation in Kashmir is damaging India’s political reputation. While one
must appreciate Dulat’s candour and his opposition to extrajudicial executions
his book does raise complicated questions about the accountability of his
actions and his scrupulousness.
The author raises interesting counter-factual questions: What would have
happened in Kashmir if Sheikh Abdullah had not been illegally arrested and kept
in prison for over 20 years? What would have happened if Chief Minister Farooq
Abdullah had not been dismissed in 1984? What would have happened if Shabir
Shah, a talented separatist leader had participated in the 1996 J&K
Assembly elections? And what would have happened if Prime Minister Vajpayee had
not lost the 2014 Parliament elections.
It may be understandable if an officer who has been given a
post-retirement assignment by the Prime Minister admires his benefactor. But
did the Prime Minister and his National Security Advisor act wisely in
entrusting the officer with an assignment knowing that he could potentially use
it to generate an avoidable controversy?
Kadayam Subramanian was Director General of Police in Northeast India.
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