Kashmir needs statehood, Union govt needs to junk muscular policy: AS Dulat

kolkata: There was no need to abrogate Article 370 while strong arm tactics by the the incumbent Union government will never fetch any solution to the Kashmir problem which can only be solved through discussions, said former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and special director of Intelligence Bureau (IB), Amarjit Singh Dulat during his visit to Kolkata.

During the launch of his memoir ‘A Life in the Shadows’ at Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata, AS Dulat, who had headed the Kashmir Group during the 1990s during his years at the IB, said, “I was in Kashmir for two years. I feel there was no need to abrogate Article 370 which of course was part of the BJP manifesto, keeping in view the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.” Dulat said the boiling issue in Kashmir now is the grant of statehood. “The incumbent Union government is now using strong arm tactics. A muscular policy is apparent now but it is yet to be seen if this policy will at all lead to any solution” he said.

He said that there is no “full and final settlement” of the Kashmir problem and the only way to deal with it is to hold talks with the people of the Valley. “What has been killed in Kashmir is the spirit of India. After Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh tried his best but the idea of India is lost in Kashmir,” he opined. He advised that the only way the situation can be improved is by granting them statehood and promising to hold elections there in the next three months.

The spymaster said that insurgency can never be put down by force. “This is apparent since the problem of Naxalism still continues. It is a socio-economic problem. It is how my counterpart in Mossad, Efraim Halevy said that you can’t fight Hamas, you can only speak to it.”

Talking on intelligence failures in India, he told Millennium Post, “There is no foolproof intelligence. We try our best. Trouble with intelligence is that the good doesn’t get known. Failures get highlighted.”