Keen to rejoin IAS: Faesal in touch with the Centre

The development which is currently undercurrent may further bolster the Union Government’s claim that it moves and decisions were correct and judicious in Jammu and Kashmir.

Early in 2019, Dr Shah Faesal announced his resignation from the IAS and became a vocal critic of the government terming few incidents in violations of the right to freedom speech and human rights. Now he is keen to rejoin IAS. Probably the Centre knew that Faesal should/would go through self-realization against his decision of quitting IAS.

Faesal acknowledged that he has been in touch with officials in New Delhi. Faesal suggested that he is not opposed to rejoining the service and there is talk that he could be reinstated.

Dr Shah Faesal, bureaucrat-turned-politician last week indicated his intent of quit politics only after making contact with top officials in the Union government. Faesal had a talk with National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval before informing his party colleagues in the Jammu & Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) that he was leaving. He left the party that he himself founded.

Faesal views, too, have changed, “I think we need to understand that in 1949 national consensus was about incorporating Article 370 and the 2019 national consensus is about scrapping it. We have to understand the mood of the nation and come to terms with reality.”

Jammu & Kashmir was stripped of its special status in August last year, and at the time, he tweeted: “Kashmir will need a long, sustained non-violent political mass movement for the restoration of political rights. The abolition of Art 370 has finished the mainstream. Constitutionalists are gone. So you can either be a stooge or a separatist now. No shades of grey.”

On being asked to explain the stooge-and-separatist comment, he said: “I was talking about the political grey zone in which electoral politics operated. I said that once the grey zone is over now people will call you stooge or separatist. [And] I said I’m neither of the two.”