Storm brews in Kashmir over Dulat’s book: ‘A friend can’t write like this,’ says Farooq Abdullah on Article 370 claims

The book, The Chief Minister and the Spy, has largely showered praise on Abdullah’s leadership and even his personality, calling him “brilliant”, “great” and always “two steps ahead of Delhi’s best games”.

But at a time when the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference government has faced allegations from Opposition parties in the Union Territory of compromising on the issue of restoration of Article 370, the claims have come as an embarrassment to the Abdullahs.

Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday dismissed the claims as inaccurate. “It is unfortunate that he calls me a friend, a friend can’t write like this… He has written such things which are not true… A book was written about the Royal family of England, by one of their family members. (Queen) Elizabeth used only one word – ‘recollections may vary’,” he said in Srinagar. “He has written that we (NC) were ready to join hands with the BJP. This is inaccurate… If we had to betray (Article) 370, why would Farooq Abdullah (pass a resolution on autonomy) with a two-thirds majority in the Assembly?”

Dulat, when contacted, told The Indian Express: “I would request Doctor Sahab (Farooq Abdullah) to read the book and not pay attention to controversies in the press. This book is an appreciation of Dr Farooq Abdullah and not his critique. And Doctor Sahab will always be my friend. I am sure when he comes to Delhi day after tomorrow, he will visit my sister who is bedridden for three weeks.”

In a chapter on events leading to the August 5, 2019 decisions and its aftermath, the book talks about a conversation between Abdullah and Dulat while the former was under house arrest after abrogation of Article 370. “Maybe, he (Abdullah) said, the NC could even have had the proposal passed in the Legislative Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir. ‘We would have helped,’ he told me when I met him in 2020. ‘Why were we not taken into confidence?’,” Dulat claims in his book.

He claims that Abdullah was most shattered by his house arrest in the run-up to and post abrogation of Article 370 as he had always stood by Delhi. “When he spoke to me about the abrogation later, he was forthright, ‘Kar lo agar karna hai,’ he said, somewhat bitterly. ‘Par yeh arrest kyu karna tha?’ (Do it if you must, but why arrest us?),” Dulat writes.

The former R&AW chief, who was a key backroom negotiator on Kashmir during the reign of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, claims in the book that he was sent by Delhi in 2020 to meet Abdullah and convince him not speak on Article 370 upon release.

“Farooq knew that a call would come to me, at some point. ‘They will need you again,’ he told me, shortly before the abrogation. ‘Keep your doors open.’,” Dulat writes. “And sure enough, Delhi did call me again in the winter of 2020… I could tell that Delhi was thinking of releasing Farooq from detention. They wanted someone to gauge his mood upon release, but at the same time, the obvious concern was that Farooq should not talk publicly either about the abrogation or about Pakistan.”

Dulat claims in the book that he was told by Delhi to tell Abdullah that he was not to speak to the media, nor was he to mention the abrogation or anything on Pakistan. He claims when he mentioned this to Abdullah, the latter agreed and said, “No, I won’t speak to the media. Whatever I say, I will say in Parliament. The matter is sub judice now. Let the court decide. I have confidence in the courts.”

The book repeatedly describes the Abdullahs as patriotic and nationalistic. To illustrate this, Dulat quotes Abdullah as having told him once: “I’m not my father. Please understand that. I have not joined politics to spend 12 years in jail. I will always be with whoever is in power in Delhi.”

The book goes on to say that Abdullah was acutely aware that he was seen as a stooge of Delhi by people in Kashmir in the 90s.

On his proximity with Abdullah, Dulat claims that when the NC swept the polls in 1996 in J&K, the former depended on him for choosing his Cabinet and bureaucrats. “He was leaning on my advice for even the formation of his Cabinet at the time… Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah gave him a slip containing two or three names, and suggested that these names might be suitable for Farooq as the state’s new chief secretary. Farooq gave me the slip of paper. ‘What is this, sir?’ I asked. ‘Your home secretary gave it to me,’ he said. ‘See what you think.’”

On this claim, Abdullah said Wednesday, “He says I (Dulat) told him to make a small cabinet. There were 25 ministers in my cabinet; why should I ask him?”