Farooq Abdullah: A victim of mistrust and betrayals

Anyone who knows A S Dulat will know that there cannot be a more unlikely spy: He is amiable, friendly, and operates on trust.

- Aditi Phadnis

His book about his friendship with one of Kashmir's tallest leaders, Farooq Abdullah, is as much a window into some of the most tumultuous and defining decades in the politics of the state as it is a gentle and non-judgemental appraisal of a complex and unpredictable political personality.

Sheikh Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah have been the subject of many fascinating studies, including an outstanding biography of the Sheikh by Chitralekha Zutshi (though Mr Dulat differs with Zutshi on some facts and interpretations of events). The relationship between the father and son is important as it is part of Farooq's political inheritance: A mistrust of Delhi and a perennially thorny relationship with Pakistan which never forgave the father or the son for siding with India. The book explores Farooq's relationship with New Delhi under different dispensations. But on one point it is unequivocal—that he never, ever considered independence of Kashmir as a solution.

The book describes his meeting with secessionist leader Yaseen Malik of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) at which Farooq lambasted him for violence against Kashmiris and about the JKLF's dreams of "azaadi", telling him he was naive and living in a fool's paradise.