Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years by A. S. Dulat and Aditya Sinha

Until recently, most top officials in India who had dealt with very sensitive issues in government refrained from writing about them. The adage they followed was that what everyone wanted to know could not be written, and what could be written was something that no one was interested in. Not surprisingly, even when former civil servants have written anything, it has generally been a self-serving swansong of their accomplishments, which other than them no one really considers accomplishments. And with neither the government declassifying files nor officials penning detailed accounts of events, it has always been an uphill task for anyone interested in researching national security and related issues. In recent years, however, there have been at least two books that break the mould, one by Sanjaya Baru (Accidental Prime Minister) and the other book under review here, by the former R&AW chief A. S. Dulat.