‘We must never give up on India-Pakistan peace,’ says Dulat

Dulat responded, “Absolutely, we must never give up on peace. It’s something that should be natural to our two countries…I can tell you, being a Punjabi and a Sikh, that if you go to Punjab, there is a very strong feeling that we should open up with Pakistan. So it’s not as if nobody wants peace with Pakistan. And even if we go to Kashmir…”

Dulat also said that he would “advise the Prime Minister in the same way that he had advised former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee” and added, “He (Vajpayee) himself believed that this permanent confrontation with Pakistan had to end and he did his very best.”

The ex-R&AW chief further said peace efforts from Vajpayee’s era continued under Manmohan Singh, who was “even more committed to peace with Pakistan.”

“He tried his best but somehow, the best was not good enough. There was a huge window of opportunity in 2007 and I think we missed out on that. Because, let me say this very clearly, that no other Pakistani leader was as reasonable as Pervez Musharraf (then Pakistan President), in spite of Kargil (war). He said, not once, but repeatedly, that whatever was acceptable to Kashmir and Kashmiris would be acceptable to Pakistan. And he was waiting for Dr Manmohan Singh.”

“…And every time I met the PM, I got the same impression that Dr Manmohan Singh was very keen. And as you know, while demitting office, he said it was almost done,” Dulat added.

He said Musharraf’s four-point formula had one key point, “… There is no full and final settlement. It will never happen. But there is a way to settle and that settlement is on the Line of Control (LoC). You settle on the LoC, you’ll have peace for the next 15 years.”

Durrani claimed it was not easy to make peace as “changing status quo requires a huge amount of price” and “peace has a cost.”

Tharoor also said that the peace talks could not be proceed “because 26/11 attacks happened in 2008.”

Dulat further said it’s been almost seven years since abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and “we keep saying there is normalcy in Kashmir.”

He said, “But what kind of normalcy do you have in Kashmir when every 100 yards in Srinagar you need a policeman?.. I agree it is because of Pakistan, but why don’t we listen to what the Kashmiri leaders have to say. Farooq Abdullah has said emphatically that terror will not go away unless we engage with Pakistan. Terror and dialogues cannot go together. So, what is the problem in just talking about terror to your neighbour?”

Responding to a question on resuming non-political contacts including cricket and visas for Pakistani artistes to “create constituency of peace,” Dulat said, “I’m all for it.”

“Visas is the easier way. It’s been long overdue. We should get high commissioners back, open up a bit. Cricket is more difficult. What is the point of playing cricket if you can’t shake hands? So we shouldn’t play cricket at all. It’s better not to play than not to shake hands. It’s not cricket,” Dulat said.