SOME TIME in 2016, a series of dialogues took place which set out to find a meeting ground, even if only an illusion, between A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani. One was a former chief of RAW, India s external intelligence agency, the other of ISI, its Pakistani counterpart. As they could not meet in their home countries, the conversations, guided by journalist Aditya Sinha, took place in cities like Istanbul, Bangkok and Kathmandu. On the table were subjects that have long haunted South Asia, flashpoints that take lives regularly. It was in all ways a deep dive into the politics of the subcontinent, as seen through the eyes of two spymasters. Among the subjects: Kashmir, and a missed opportunity for peace; Hafiz Saeed and 26/11; Kulbhushan Jadhav; surgical strikes; the deal for Osama bin Laden; how the US and Russia feature in the India-Pakistan relationship; and how terror undermines the two countries attempts at talks. When the project was first mooted, General Durrani laughed and said nobody would believe it even if it was written as fiction. At a time of fraught relations, this unlikely dialogue between two former spy chiefs from opposite sides a project that is the first of its kind may well provide some answers.

2016年的某个时候，发生了一系列对话，旨在为A.S. Dulat和Asad Durrani之间找到一个交汇点，哪怕只是一个假象。一个是印度对外情报机构RAW的前负责人，另一个是巴基斯坦对应机构ISI的负责人。由于他们不能在本国见面，因此在记者阿迪雅-辛哈的引导下，他们的谈话在伊斯坦布尔、曼谷和加德满都等城市进行。摆在桌面上的是长期困扰南亚的话题，以及经常夺走生命的爆发点。从各方面来看，这是一次对次大陆政治的深度挖掘，通过两位间谍大师的眼睛看到了这一点。在这些主题中。克什米尔和错失的和平机会；哈菲兹-赛义德和26/11事件；库尔布尚-贾达夫；外科手术式打击；关于本-拉登的交易；美国和俄罗斯在印巴关系中的作用；以及恐怖主义如何破坏两国的谈判尝试。当这个项目第一次被提出时，杜拉尼将军笑着说，即使把它写成小说，也不会有人相信。在两国关系紧张的时候，两个来自对立面的前间谍头子之间的这种不太可能的对话，是第一个这样的项目，很可能提供一些答案。