by A. G. NOORANI
IMAGE/Amazon
book reveals all too clearly that India will continue to rig elections to the Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir for as long as the Kashmir dispute is not settled with Pakistan with the consent of the people of the State. Until then, it will arrange matters to ensure two things. First, that no one occupies the office of Chief Minister without its approval. The second is commonly overlooked in the entire discourse, namely, that no Legislative Assembly that is likely to cross the well-known red lines set by New Delhi, ever since 1951, gets elected.
The book is a record of the doings of an intelligence man. The game has undergone a radical change. It began as an exercise in collecting intelligence, graduated to conducting covert operations and offered a doctorate to its officials who were assigned to conduct diplomacy. Rajiv Gandhi sent the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Director to Sri Lanka to parley with President J.R. Jayawardene behind the back of High Commissioner J.N. Dixit. It became “a political factor directly influencing policy in Sri Lanka since 1990”. The operatives became self-important, set their own agenda, developed personal interests and personal attachments—and lost objectivity. In Kashmir and in north-eastern India, the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) and RAW went much further. They subverted the democratic process with intrigue, the electoral process with bribery, and debased the quality of political life.
The author describes their role in Kashmir with great gusto and bravado and thus reveals authoritatively the modus operandi by which the Centre keeps a tight grip on the direction of Kashmir’s politics. In doing so, he has exposed those unionists and separatists who were ready and willing to sell their souls and their people’s rights and interests for thirty pieces of silver.
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