Reiterating his stand that long term peace on Jammu and Kashmir will be elusive even after abrogation of Article 370, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) AS Dulat Saturday said that New Delhi does not have any policy on how to deal with the Kashmir issue. Speaking at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival on his latest book, ‘The Chief Minister and the Spy’, in a discussion moderated by Jyoti Malhotra, Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune, Dulat made the point that the power-centres in New Delhi do have any roadmap for solution to the Kashmir imbroglio. “Delhi does not know what it wants in Kashmir. (Former Home Minister) Mr (P) Chidambaram is sitting here. He knows. Does Delhi have a Kashmir policy? It never has. We have a young CM who keeps going to Delhi.But Delhi is not interested in Omar Abdullah,” said Dulat. He went on to assert that Centre wants only their own person in Srinagar and they don’t believe that the Abdullahs can ever be their people. “Haven’t you heard the union minister say again and again that “humein ye teen khandan khatam karne hai — Adbullahs, Muftis and Gandhis,” he said. Heaping praise on former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah, Dulat called him the greatest politician in the country. “There there's nobody half his size in Kashmir and very few in India who can match him. Farooq was a great admirer of General Charles de Gaulle and there are similarities, which I have quoted in the book….Farooq is one person who can match Delhi’s skullduggery and therefore Delhi finds it difficult to deal with him,” he added. Answering a question on the abrogation of Article 370 and that it has now made Kashmir an integral part of the Indian Union, the former R&AW chief asserted it was always an integral part of India. “Sheikh Abdullah had said the accession (of J&K to India) was irrevocable. What more does Delhi want? Even in 2014, there were Kashmiri leaders who said they had great hope from the BJP government. But they did not realise it was not Atal ji’s government. (Narendra) Modi has his own way of dealing with Kashmir. I cannot fault him,” he said. Asked if it was not true that abrogation of Article 370 has delivered peace to Kashmir, Dulat said, “What you mean by peace is not what Kashmiri thinks of peace. He craves for peace but he lives on hope”. Stating that these was a lack of empathy for Kashmir, he said Delhi has forgotten Punjab too. He added that Mirwaiz Umar Farooq of the Hurriyat is waiting to be mainstreamed.
