Notes From A Spy's Diary

Kashmir on his mind, Dulat speaks to Aditi Phadnis about the potential threats to India and his fractured relationship with an old friend — over a lunch meeting a day before the Pahalgam terror attack

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‘Courtly’ comes to mind when describing AS Dulat (85) as we negotiate the venue for lunch. We agree on Delhi’s Claridges hotel and opt for Chinese cuisine — not for any geopolitical reasons, simply because it is lighter on the tummy.

He gallantly turns vegetarian for the afternoon in deference to me. The menu, when it arrives, is fiendishly complicated, locked in some sort of tablet that asks for many personal details before it can be opened. We toss it aside, ask for hot and sour soup and a selection of dim sum. Then we go straight to the four or five lines on page 208 of his book The Chief Minister and The Spy, which the former chief of India’s foreign secret service, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), fears may have caused an irreparable breach between him and his friend of three decades, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah.

He tries to hide it but you can see Dulat is hurting and miserable. “He won’t take my calls. In the past, when that happened, I would get my wife to call him. He’s not taking her calls either,” he says quietly into his soup. “It is not just any other book. It’s special. I’ve known Farooq Saab for 37 years, almost as long as I’ve known Kashmir.”

He describes their relationship: “It was 2002. The National Conference (NC), led by Farooq Saab, had lost the elections. There was talk that I’d played a role in the defeat. It disturbed me. So, I went to see him: ‘Sir, everybody is saying you blame me.’ Farooq asked me who was saying this. ‘It’s not a question of who is saying it. The question is: Do you believe this?’ I said. Farooq looked at me. ‘Not at all,’ he said simply. ‘You’re like my younger brother.’”

Dulat is looking into the middle distance as he says this. His book records that the families were so close, he even knew the name of the Abdullahs’ khansamah (cook).