Controversial IAS officer Shah Faesal has finally resigned

Controversial bureaucrat officer from Jammu and Kashmir, Shah Faesal, has resigned from IAS. He resigned in order “To protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Union Government; the marginalization and invisibilization of around 200 million Indian Muslims at the hands of Hindutva forces reducing them to second-class citizens; insidious attacks on the special identity of the J&K state and growing culture of intolerance and hate in the mainland India in the name of hyper-nationalism, I have decided to resign from Indian Administrative service.”

https://twitter.com/shahfaesal/status/1082938765918785536

National Conference vice-president and former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah welcomed Faesal’s decision. He tweeted, “The bureaucracy’s loss is politics’ gain. Welcome to the fold @shahfaesal.”

He later on clarified, “Actually I welcomed him to the fold of politicians. His future political plans are his to announce.”

The DNA has quoted its sources claiming that Shah Faesal was likely to join the National Conference and eyeing to contest the Lok Sabha election from Baramulla constituency in the Kashmir Valley.

Faesal recently returned to India from the US after completing his Fulbright fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Now, it seems that the controversial IAS officer wants to try his luck in politics as it is clearly evident from the tweet in which he has penned down his resignation letter. He left no stone unturned to demonize the Modi government. He showed his secessionist tendency in his detailed statement when he said, “insidious attacks on the special identity of the J&K state and growing culture of intolerance and hate in the mainland India in the name of hyper-nationalism.”

 A Twitter user pointed the contradictions of Shah Faesal’s bogus claims. He asked, “How’re you so visible & all over the place if what you say about the invisiblization and marginalisation is true.” He also said if Faesal wants to join politics then he is welcome to do so but why is he starting on such a low?

https://twitter.com/AbidWani/status/1082951948981190657

While he worked for Indian administrative services, he constantly ranted against India.

https://twitter.com/AsYouNotWish/status/1082951830261223424

Last year, he had posted a tweet saying, “saying, “Population +patriarchy +illiteracy +alcohol +porn +technology +anarchy = rapistan”.

https://twitter.com/shahfaesal/status/988043951767568385

https://twitter.com/p7eiades/status/988390035853459457

As a result of this tweet, the Jammu and Kashmir government had initiated disciplinary action against him for not abiding by the service rules.

The notice against Shah Faesal for his aforementioned controversial tweets read, “You have allegedly failed to maintain absolute honesty and integrity in the discharge of official duty and thus acted in a manner unbecoming of a public servant.” The notice further added, “The Centre’s Department of Personnel and Training has requested the state government to initiate an action against you.”

Shah Faesal later on clarified that his tweet was against rape-culture in South-Asia and not just India. However, as it is clearly evident in the aforementioned twitter links, one of the two tweets that he posted on this controversial issue refers to an incident which happened in India.

Reacting to the J&K government’s notice, the controversial IAS officer went one step ahead and posted the notice served by J&K government on twitter- which is violation of All India Service rules. He posted the letter with some rudimentary editing to mask the identity of the issuer. Shah Faesal tweeted, “Love letter from my boss for my sarcastic tweet against rape-culture in South Asia. The irony here is that service rules with a colonial spirit are invoked in a democratic India to stifle the freedom of conscience.”

https://twitter.com/shahfaesal/status/1016683369004982272

Shah Faesal is particularly fond of playing the victim card citing the violation of his freedom of speech.  But his case was not about the freedom of speech, it was about making a factually incorrect statement, peddling propaganda, subtly insulting the nation of which he is a public servant. It seems that he resigned in order to spread propaganda freely without any interference from the concerned authorities. There were already rumors that he might contest 2019 General Elections.

According to media reports, elections are going to be held in Jammu and Kashmir at around the same time as the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Looking for political future, it is pretty clear, this is why Shah Faesal has resigned.