The Abdullahs can refute former spy chief’s claims – if they stand up to the Modi government

Last week, India’s former spy chief Amarjit Singh Dulat made a startling revelation. In his new book, The Chief Minister and the Spy, Dulat claimed that Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir’s seniormost politician and president of National Conference, had suggested that he could have helped the Narendra Modi government in scrapping Jammu and Kashmir’s special status if it had taken him into confidence.

“We would have helped (pass the proposal),” Abdullah told Dulat, an old friend, when he met him in early 2020, claims the book. At the time, Abdullah, like most political leaders of Kashmir, was detained under the Public Safety Act, after the Centre read down Article 370 and split the erstwhile state into two union territories. “Why were we not taken into confidence?” Abdullah allegedly asked Dulat. The purported secret meeting between the two, according to the book, was one of the first attempts by the Centre to engage with the Kashmiri mainstream leadership after the events of August 5, 2019.

Abdullah and his party were swift in denying Dulat’s assertions. “If we had to betray (Article) 370, why would Farooq Abdullah (pass a resolution on autonomy) with a two-thirds majority in the Assembly?” the three-time chief minister and Member of Parliament, Farooq Abdullah...

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