“A.M. Watali’s ‘Guns Under My Chinar: Kashmir’s Covert Wars’ traces the roots of insurgency but consistently bails out National Conference and Farooq Abdullah”
Book Review: “Guns Under My Chinar: Covert Wars in Kashmir” by AM Watali
Saleem Rashid Shah*
The roots of insurgency in Kashmir go back to 1966 when a young man named Ghulam Rasool Zahgir, a resident of Dabtal in downtown Srinagar, led a group of six members in executing the first militant attack in Kashmir. These six young Kashmiris comprised the ‘Students Revolutionary Council’ (SRC), a small underground group that drew its inspiration from ‘Operation Gibraltar’ initiated by Pakistan in August 1965.
Image is representational.On the night of 3 February 1967, Zahgir and his group attacked a sentry at Nawa Kadal Bridge on the river Jhelum and also took away his .303 rifle. This was the first militant action by a small group in the violent resistance history of the state.
AM Watali, a retired IPS Officer who served as a top police official in Kashmir from the 1960s until the late 1980s, played a pivotal role in leading the Indian State’s efforts to combat militant related activities in the region. His book ‘Guns Under My Chinar: Kashmir’s Covert Wars’ presents a collection of captivating stories drawn from his sharp memory and extensive research.
These stories offer insights into the challenges encountered and strategies employed during his tenure, providing a compelling account of Kashmir’s complex dynamics during that era.
Contrary to the popular belief that militancy in Kashmir emerged primarily after the controversial elections of 1987 and escalated thereafter, AM Watali’s book offers a comprehensive exploration of the region’s militant activities dating back to the early 1960s.
Watali provides a thorough and detailed account of the events and circumstances surrounding militancy in Kashmir, shedding light on its origins, evolution, and various factors contributing to its development over several decades.
One of the several gripping stories told in the book is of the first bank robbery that took place in Kashmir on January 2, 1971. A group of youngsters dressed in police uniforms had arrived in a taxi and looted the Hazratbal branch of Jammu and Kashmir Bank.
Initially, when Watali and his team began investigating, they presumed it to be a typical robbery driven by monetary motives, likely carried out by seasoned criminals. However, as the investigation progressed, Watali uncovered a more elaborate scheme behind the robbery, revealing that it was not just a simple act of theft but had broader security implications.
He writes, “None of us in our wildest dreams could have imagined what we discovered. We came to realize that the bank robbery was not committed by ordinary criminals for personal gain but by a group of highly dedicated, educated, trained and ideologically motivated youth with the aim and objective of launching organized guerilla warfare against the Indian state as per a well-drafted and exhaustive written action plan.”
Ghulam Rasool Zahgir was the mind behind this entire episode and the police were successful in uncovering this whole module and putting an end to the complete organizational set-up of Al Fatah.
As far as the 1987 election rigging is concerned, Watali presents a novel take on the whole fiasco by shifting the blame entirely from Farooq Abdullah and National Conference, instead placing it on the doorstep of the Congress and their leaders in the valley.
After the 1987 pre-electoral alliance between the National Conference and the Congress, Watali admits being called by a senior Congress leader at the Broadway Hotel in Srinagar, offering him a suitcase filled with money to make them win the Anantnag assembly seat.
Watali states that on the counting day, the results for the Anantnag seat were repeatedly deferred because of the ruckus created by the Congress workers present there.
He was deputed by Farooq Abdullah to go to Anantnag and get the counting expedited where to his surprise he discovered that the returning officer admitted that he was being pressurised by the principal private secretary (PPS) of Farooq Abdullah to announce the result in favour of the Congress candidate.
The PPS, according to Watali, was misusing his position and rigging the election in favour of the Congress party to secure a post-retirement extension of his career. Despite the CM being ignorant about his private secretary’s misdeeds, his name was dragged into the public domain for being a party to the rigging, writes Watali.
In all the stories presented in the book, AM Watali consistently bails out Farooq Abdullah and National Conference from the turmoil that unfolded over the years in the state. The narrative thus comes across as lopsided, favouring a particular political party and fails to put Farooq Abdullah in the dock.
On the whole, the book offers a detailed insider’s perspective on the clandestine strategies executed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police under AM Watali’s guidance to suppress militant activities in Kashmir.
The book mentions an incident. During the then Director of Intelligence Bureau, M.K Narayanan’s first visit to Kashmir in 1989, he expressed satisfaction with the police operations. When the then DGP Jeelani Pandit requested for an additional fleet of jeeps, Narayanan is reported to have said, “You require more Watalis than Jeeps”, highlighting the crucial role AM Watali played for the Indian State in Kashmir.
*Saleem Rashid Shah is a book critic and an independent writer based in Kashmir and can be reached at: i.shahsaleem@gmail.com
—–
