*New Delhi: *As the firing along the Line of Control and the internationalborder between India and Pakistan costs lives each day, former Indianintelligence chief AS Dulat has said that New Delhi should invite PakistanArmy chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for a dialogue to reduce tension andtalk peace. Mr Dulat said General Bajwa was making all the “right noises”,referring to his April remarks that disputes, including Kashmir, betweenIndia and Pakistan can be solved only through peace talks.
“We should invite General Bajwa, the army chief. He has been talking peaceand also a lot of our frustration in our dialogue with Pakistan is becausewe feel frustrated by the armed forces or what we call the ‘deep state’ –the ISI or the army. Therefore, why not talk to the army chief directly? Heis talking reasonably now. Why not invite the army chief, just an idea,” MrDulat told news agency IANS in an interview.
India has maintained that it will talk only to the elected civilianleadership in Pakistan and has shunned talking to the Pakistani military,which however controls key decision-making on foreign policy – particularlywith respect to India – and security in the Pakistani establishment.
Mr Dulat served as chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)link>,the country’s external intelligence agency, from 1999 to 2000 and was aclose aide to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Kashmir affairsfrom 2001 to 2004.
He recently participated in an unique book of dialogues, “The SpyChronicles – RAW ISI And The Illusion Of Peace” with his once-rival, formerPakistani spy chief Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani (retd).
Mr Dulat said “not talking to Pakistan is a sort of a handicap” more so ata time when geo-political landscape was witnessing a new churn.
Asked if it was wise to extend an invitation to the Pakistani army chief,particularly at a time when ceasefire violations across the frontier havekilled scores of civilians and over 40,000 residents were forced to fleetheir homes from the border areas in Jammu, the former intelligence chiefreplied: “Isn’t it more reason that we should talk?””You are presuming that all these cease-fire violations happen only fromthe Pakistani side and only our people are suffering,” he added.
“There is a their side of the story also, it can’t be one-sided. If thereis firing from one side, the army or the BSF is bound to respond.”
The former spymaster also said there was no space for big-brotherlyattitude in bilateral relations, suggesting that Prime Minister NarendraModi should revisit his “hardline stance” against Pakistan.
“The trouble with Modi is, because India is a big country (there is nodoubt about it), we want things on our terms but bilateral relationships donot work in this way. We should not ask ‘*isme mere liye kya hai*’ (Whatdoes it hold for us?),” he said.