Former Kashmiri ‘Soft Separatist’ Shah Faesal has expressed immense gratitude towards Narendra Modi on the latter’s birthday. In his heartfelt post, the bureaucrat from Kashmir recalled how the Prime Minister forgave like a ‘Priest King’ would.
Shah Faesal said, “A time came in my life when I found myself at the bottom of a ditch, professionally and personally. My qualifications still mattered on paper, but the world had moved on. Friends had vanished, recognition had faded, and the future felt sealed shut.”
He added, “A true visionary recognized the worth in my modest beginnings and the struggles that had shaped me. He seemed to read the intent behind my journey, he forgave, the way a priest-king might, measuring not pedigree but purpose. It was a quiet gesture that restored my dignity.”
Who is Shah Faesal? His history with ‘Soft Separatism’ in Kashmir
Authorities placed Shah Faesal on preventive detention after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. The Public Safety Act (PSA) was slapped on him in February the next year. Earlier, he had quit the Indian Civil Services to become an activist full time. Later, he would launch his own political party, the Jammu & Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM).
The PSA dossier said about him, “The subject advocates the idea of soft separatism through his articles, tweets and social media posts, which on several occasions have attracted response, amounting to a potential threat to public order.”
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In January 2019, Shah Faesal resigned from the Civil Services citing “the unabated killings in Kashmir and the marginalisation and invisibilisation of around 200 million Muslims at the hand of Hindutva forces” as the reason.
The Indian Government reinstated Shah Faesal into the Civil Services in 2022. The IAS officer had requested the Government to withdraw his resignation. The Home Ministry announced in April 2022 that the Government had decided to accept his request.
