With the opposition Congress party earlier stalling the parliament and later Senior Congress Rahul Gandhi asking four questions linking the rise in the business fortunes of billionaire Gautam Adani to the BJP government coming to power in 2014, top IAS officer from Kashmir Shah Faesal has joined the debate saying, “I respect Gautam Adani.”
Faesal, who has been posted deputy secretary in the Ministry of Culture, said, “I wish him the best as he and his family face this trial by fire.”
Last year Faesal returned to the civil services after he said he was leaving behind the ‘shadows of the past'.
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“I respect @gautam_adani for the way he has refused to let adversity get the better of him. I know him as a great human being who is deeply respectful of diversity in society and wants to see India at the top. I wish him the best as he and his family face this trial by fire,” Faesal tweeted.
In April 2022, he called his eight months (Jan 2019-Aug 2019) of political activism “chasing a chimera.” “I lost almost everything that I had built over the years. Job. Friends. Reputation. Public goodwill. But I never lost hope. My idealism had let me down,” Faesal had written on Facebook.
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“But I had faith in myself. That I would undo the mistakes I had made. That life would give me another chance. A part of me is exhausted with the memory of those eight months and wants to erase that legacy. Much of it is already gone. Time will mop off the rest I believe.”
Shah Faesal topped IAS in 2010 and became an inspiration for thousands of Kashmiri youth who wanted to compete in the civil service exams.
In 2018 Faesal got enrolled in the Mid-Career MPA program at Harvard Kennedy School as a Fulbright Scholar.
However, on his return to J&K, he quit civil services and launched a political party, Jammu Kashmir People’s Movement. But all along the government didn’t accept his resignation. Faesal was aiming high as a political leader and a number of youngsters had joined his political party. It was presumed by many analysts here his party would give an alternative political discourse in the region and compete with other regional and national parties in J&K.
However, on August 5, 2019, the government amid a communication blockade and arrest of thousands of people including three former chief ministers revoked Article 370, and Article 35A, bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into Union Territories, Jammu, and Kashmir, and Ladakh and changed politics of Kashmir forever. Union Home Minister Amit Shah in October 2022, held India's first Prime Minister responsible for “creating a mess in Kashmir” and credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for solving it by removing Article 370.
Faesal had expressed his resentment against the removal of Article 370.
He was also arrested on August 14, 2019, at the Delhi international airport when he was about to board a flight to the United States to complete his research study at the prestigious Harvard University. He was put in preventive custody under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
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Later in mid-February 2020, preventive detention law, Public Safety Act (PSA) was imposed on him. The government in its PSA dossier accused Faesal of “supporting soft separatism” through social media posts.
However, after his release, Faesal in August 2020 stepped down from the chairmanship of his party, JKPM, saying he is not in a position to continue with political activities and wants to be freed from the responsibilities of the organization.
Faesal later broke his long silence in 2021 and since then has been praising the government on various issues.
