Kashmir’s IAS craze going wild

SRINAGAR: The fever for civil services is so rife among Kashmiri youth that the state government has initiated “Science Award” for both teachers as well students, to encourage studies in various sciences. Once a status symbol, medicine and engineering are now giving way to civil services as a career choice for the conflict-bred youth from Kashmir. The  trend is so overwhelming that local boys and girls have already climbed the ladder of  the most sought after Indian Administrative Service. More than forty youth from Jammu and Kashmir have qualified IAS exam in past few years.  

Many here frowned upon the state authorities when the first Muslim woman IAS from Jammu and Kashmir Ruveda Salam was allocated to the Tamil Nadu cadre.

More and more youth are taking the civil services route in the state after Shah Faisal, who had set his eyes to become a doctor, created history by topping the All India merit list in 2010. Coupled with the new initiative taken by serving bureaucrats and police officers to coach local youth, the civil services have become a fashionable career choice in Kashmir.

The daughter of a former Deputy Director General, Ms Ruveda comes from the far-flung Farkin village in the border district of Kupwara. She had qualified for MBBS before she cracked the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) in 2009. In 2013, she was one of the 11 people who qualified for the civil services from Jammu and Kashmir. Apart from Ruveda, two other women — Sehrish Asgar and Anchita Pandoh both from Jammu region — were among last year’s qualifiers from the state. Ruveda was allotted the police services, and joined the police academy in Hyderabad for training. But after she completed her training, the lone Kashmiri Muslim policewoman was put in the Tamil Nadu cadre.

Reports quoted Jammu and Kashmir’s minister of state for Home Affairs, Sajad Ahmad Kitchloo, as saying, “the cadre allotment for the civil services qualifiers is done by the Centre” and that the state plays no role in the decision. 

”I will check if there were posts available (to allot the home cadre to the J&K qualifiers). We will talk to the chief minister and then write to the government of India,” said Kitchloo. “There is already a shortfall (of officers) here. I do not know what is the present status? How many posts are vacant?”

 Representing the fast growing trend is Afaq Ahmad, now an IAS officer. Ahmad wants to contribute to society in a more meaningful way. An engineer at Nokia Siemens in Gurgaon before his decision to try his luck in civil services, Ahmad advocates a “grassroots-level approach” to identify the problems faced by the people.

“The top-down approach of solving problems does not work,” says Ahmad. “Every region and area has its specific problems. We should talk to the people about their problems and then accordingly set our priorities, particularly in the health and education sector,” says Ahmad, recalling growing up in Banihal in the troubled 1990s and witnessing nine houses in a village being razed to the ground. “I want everyone to talk about the great natural beauty of the state. I want J&K to become the tourist hub once again.”

Other candidates have their own stories to tell about the troubled situation in the state. But in their case, they have come to grips with it in their own ways and forged their respective paths. And this is also what gives their achievement its significance. There are three candidates Owais Rana, Mehtab Ahmad Jagal and Qamar-uz-Zaman — from Poonch. Abhishek Mahajan and Vikrant Bhushan are from Jammu and Reasi, respectively. And Abid Hussain Sadiq Bhat, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Raja Yaqoob Farooq and Shakeel Maqbool Yatoo are from the Valley.

“The state’s growing IAS success,” says senior journalist Riyaz Wani, “ derives its relevance from its peculiar context. Until 2008, only a few youth tried their luck at IAS, it is because many of them come from a society that sees Indian civil services as taboo. In Kashmir, IAS is not just a competitive examination, but those who crack it are seen to make a significant ideological statement. And this dichotomy of their achievement is something that some find difficult to straddle.”

As it happened with Dr Faisal, who has been the subject of the most truculent scrutiny of all. There is a tendency to cast his actions as a bureaucrat in ideological terms. He has been the subject of debate on social media sites and in newspaper articles. The joy over his success in 2010 was restrained, with separatists choosing to ignore it and the mainstream parties celebrating it.

“But his achievement, nevertheless, began a trend that is only getting stronger by the year,” Wani says.  So far, the number of candidates from the state who have passed the examination over the past five years is close to 40, with 11 candidates each qualifying in 2013 and 2012. And they represent a generation, particularly in the Valley, which is bred in the political conflict but is trying to override it to pursue and realize their aspirations.

Abid Bhat, who figures among the top 30 in the IAS merit list, privileges the political neutrality of a bureaucrat. “A bureaucrat has to be politically neutral,” says Bhat. “This enables him to implement the policies of any political incumbent.”

But for Maqbool, another qualifier, growing up amidst the conflict made him the person that he is. “It made me more interested in politics,” he says. “And this could explain why I chose political science and international relations as my optionals.”

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