Finally, someone who makes RaGa look like an overachiever.
Although he's not entirely wrong about many issues facing the Indian state and its lack of imagination over the years, his insistence on continuing with a policy that has only yielded catastrophic failures has done significant damage to India's prospects in the valley.
A proper accounting of Mr Dulat's mistakes — along with others in the security establishment — as well as the long term consequences of his flawed approach (followed by many governments to different degrees) is long due, and hopefully will follow in the coming years.
And while there's nothing wrong in his advocacy of reaching political settlement (the obvious endgame, understood by most people), he's also someone who has unintentionally and sometimes intentionally enabled separatists elements to such an extent that it has...
directly or indirectly led to Pakistan embedding itself further in the social and political institutions of the valley, while also creating dependencies which ensure that Pindi has enough pull to not just keep the pot boiling, but also adjust the temperature as per it's wishes.
This borderline dogmatic "co-option" strategy, went to such maddening levels in the late 90s and early 2000s at times, that Pak was able to consolidate its position within K to undermine the very process that Mr Dulat thought was the only way and was going to solve the problem.
In his quest to prove his grand theory/approach — that stems from an overarching worldview where binaries of carrot and stick matter most — he has continued to give too many carrots while also blunting the stick, or ensuring using it becomes too costly, even when the need arises.
And he has perpetuated this thinking or what is often referred to his "doctrine" long after his retirement, through very public backing (intellectually and otherwise) of some very problematic initiatives, that were a product of wishful thinking more than anything else.
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