Apr 30 2025 to Apr 30 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

When the powers that be in Delhi think of Farooq Abdullah, they think of former R&AW chief A.S. Dulat, too. The Abdullah–Dulat connection – unlikely, even dangerous – has shaped Kashmir’s history in ways that few understand. One was India’s top intelligence officer, the other its most defiant Kashmiri leader. They should have been enemies. Instead, they built a quiet, complicated alliance that has outlasted governments, betrayals and shadow wars.

From the explosion of militancy in the 1990s to the hijacking of Air India’s IC-814 in 1999 and the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, their story is inseparable from Kashmir’s most turbulent moments. In this book, for the first time, Dulat turns to the man behind the legend. What is Farooq like when the cameras are off? How did 370 alter his place in Kashmir’s future? What divides him from his son and heir, Omar? And as Kashmir remains contentious, what cards does he still have to play?

The Chief Minister and the Spy is a collection of secrets, encounters and untold stories – some whispered, some explosive. With wit, candour and an insider’s eye, Dulat reveals ‘Doctor Sahib’ (as Farooq is popularly known) as only he can. Compelling and deeply human, this book offers a rare glimpse into an unlikely relationship forged in the heat of one of India’s most complex conflicts.

The author will be in conversation with Karthik Venkatesh. A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Speakers

A S Dulat
Author & Former Special Director, Intelligence Bureau (IB)
Amarjit Singh Dulat served as the head of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s spy agency, under Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. He later joined Vajpayee’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), where his job was to ‘monitor, manage and direct’ the Indian government’s peace initiative in Kashmir.

Dulat was born in Sialkot, Punjab, in December 1940. With India’s Partition, his father, Justice Shamsher Singh Dulat, relocated the family to Delhi. After schooling in Delhi, Shimla and Chandigarh, Dulat joined the Indian Police Service in 1965, and then the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in 1969, where he served for almost thirty years. At the IB, he headed the Kashmir Group during the turbulent 1990s until he joined and headed R&AW.

Since leaving government in 2004, Dulat has been active on the Track II circuit, and has visited Pakistan. His first book, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, was published in 2015. He co-authored two books with former Pakistan intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani – The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace (with Aditya Sinha) in 2018, and Covert: The Psychology of War and Peace (with Neil K. Aggarwal) in 2024. Dulat’s memoir, A Life in the Shadows, was published to acclaim in 2022.

Karthik Venkatesh
Executive Editor, Penguin Random House India
Karthik Venkatesh is Executive Editor with Penguin Random House India where he commissions and edits non-fiction and fiction. He is the author of two books for young adults: 10 Indian Languages and How They Came to Be and 10 Makers of the Indian Constitution. Karthik grew up in Bangalore, speaking Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, English, Dakhani and Hindi. He tried to learn French but failed. He did learn Punjabi though, not in Bangalore, but in another galaxy far, far away. On weekday mornings, he often runs. On weekends, he naps.