I know the value of word; when there was nothing, it was word. To play with words is to strike the strings of violin, to exude the honey of melody.
This was the ideology and narrative of Shah Faesal until he tweeted labeling India as Rapistan in 2018.
In 2016, Shah Faesal strongly suggested that Kashmir should stay with India. Dr Shah Faesal further said that India is the only country in the world, where a culturally diverse and politically disparate entity like Jammu and Kashmir can find an anchor.
In his article titled, Kashmiris trapped in deadly politics of grief, must abandon macabre heroism published in The Indian Express, Dr Faesal has built his argument around the post-1990s phase of the Kashmir-conflict to censure the 5-month-long unrest the Kashmir Valley witnessed in 2016.
Every new agitation in Kashmir has had this familiar trend of eruption, hope, bereavement, and despair. By the time the first stone was pelted in the July uprising of 2016, the outcome was already known to everyone. It is this predictability which has begun to worry Kashmiris now, reads his article.
Referring to 2016 unrest, Dr Faesal said that revolution cannot be an annual summer carnival while claiming that Kashmir was the most unlikely new nation to enter the world map due to the flawed fundamental design of the Kashmir project.
He goes on saying that the indiscipline the valley witnessed during the recent unrest has the potential to criminalise society forever.
It was not the state as much as people to people violence, the humiliation of bystanders, vandalism against schools, damage to public property by misguided teenagers that exhausted Kashmiris, reducing a mass movement to a movement of mass from one corner of the street to the other corner, he said.
Dr Faesal also claimed that it was hard to frame the Kashmir question properly and thus the region cannot be compared with Palestine or East Timor of Kosovo.
Is it separation from India, annexation with Pakistan, the search for an Islamic Caliphate or a secular democracy? Has it factored in sub-regional and diverse ethnic aspirations? If it is self-determination, then who are these people queued up outside polling stations? If the slogan is Azadi, why is the Pakistani flag raised? Is it class-neutral or only a proletariat dream? Is it territory or ideology, economics or politics? Today, in Kashmir, it is hard to ask these questions because there are no answers. And because there are no answers, every such question is seen as a provocation or obfuscation of the truth about Kashmir, the article reads.
Finally, in his article the then MD JKSPDC Shah Faesal , in conclusion, suggests Kashmiris to stay with India since the country is an emerging superpower.
Looking at the crisis in the Muslim world, it will serve us well if we help ourselves out of the time warp we are stuck in, abandon false hope and macabre heroism and work towards a dignified exit from the conflict. One possibility is to accept that in spite of all its infirmities, India is the only country in the world with which a culturally diverse and politically disparate entity like Jammu and Kashmir can find anchor, he concluded.
On the 17th of March 2019, Mr Faesal launched his party in Srinagar, with the slogan Ab Hawa Badlegi. Mr Faesal, in a slightly different avatar, wearing white salwar and black coat, along with former JNU students leader, Shehla Rashid, unfurled his vision and ideology.
His vision and sagacity is unique, and the partys manifesto talks about reviving the old Silk Route and creating a strategic center for Central Asia. But, it is a puzzle to imagine these ideas manifesting with the Centres permission.
Whether Dr Shah Faesal will emerge victorious with his party to end all the woes of this God forsaken country, is for time to tell. The people of Kashmir will realize the abilities and inabilities of the party as it starts functioning across the state.
Politics is a field full of hurdles and Dr Shah Faesal will have a lot to fight for, before he can establish a strong ground of supporters and followers for his party.
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