Ex-J&K Bureaucrat Shah Faesal ‘Regrets’ Targeting Indian Govt on Abrogation of Article 370

Amid the controversy on American pop-icon Rihanna’s Twitter comment on the farm laws in India, Former J&K Bureaucrat Shah Faesal became the latest to join the #IndiaTogether campaign. The 2010 Civil Services topper in India, while commenting on Sachin Tendulkar’s tweet wrote, “Yes. Ghar ki baat ghar ke andar hi achi.” (Yes, internal matters should remain within the four walls of our home).

Responding further to a question by CNN-News18 on whether an old interview with a British broadcaster, where Faesal had hit out at the Indian Government after abrogation of Article 370 was a mistake and he regrets it, Faesal wrote, “Oh yes. One would have to be far more careful with words when talking about India’s internal matters to a global audience.”

On August 14, 2019, Shah Faesal had triggered a major controversy when during an interview with a British Broadcaster, he said, “I think it’s too early for all of us, I am not going to be a stooge. I think one clarity which this step has brought unto all of us, is that those people who believed that India would not betray this generation of Kashmiris, you know my grandfather’s generation, when in 1953, the Prime Minister of Jammu & Kashmir was handcuffed by a very small level police constable, my grandfather’s generation got alienated and they got betrayed. And my father’s generation in 1987, when the elections were held in the Jammu & Kashmir state, and the elections were rigged, my father’s generation they got betrayed that time, and that demolished, the democratic institutions and the democratic methodology, and we saw an eruption of militancy in Kashmir in 1988.”

“You know this new insult,” Faesal continues in the video interview, ‘this new phase if indignation that has begun on 5th August 2019 and it’s my generation which has now got the taste of betrayal and I don’t know how this is going to play out in next 50 to 70 years’.

Faesal was responding to a question by the anchor, “So, which is it for you, Mr. Faesal, are you going to be stooge or a separatist?”

Harvard-educated Faesal resigned from the Indian Civil services in January 2019 and wrote a critical Facebook post that went viral. Even as he began his political career that year in February with a speech in Kupwara in north Kashmir, in March he formally launched the Jammu & Kashmir People’s Movement. Yet in August 2020, merely a year after he began his political journey, Shah Faesal quit active politics.

The latest confession by the former bureaucrat and politician has given rise to fresh speculation on whether Faesal will return to bureaucracy. Rumour mills had indicated that he may be roped in as an advisor to the Lt. Governor of Ladakh, since Faesal wants to avoid living in Kashmir due to security concerns. Government sources have rejected these rumours as baseless.

Even as his official resignation from bureaucracy still remains pending before the DoPT, sources indicate that while the Government of India hasn’t taken any final call in the matter, the Government may not be completely averse to the idea in the months ahead with a final decision only left to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Home Ministry (MHA). The move however is likely to see stiff resistance from senior bureaucracy who see this as a move to bargain one’s commitment to Indian constitution and the law of the land which may set a bad precedent in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir which has recently seen constitutional changes.

Aditya Raj Kaul is Contributing Editor, News18 group with more than a decade long experience in covering Conflict, Foreign Policy and Internal Security. He can be reached at [email protected]

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