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bureaucracy

and invisibilisation 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 state and
growing culture of intolerance and
hate in mainland India in the name of
hyper-nationalism…I wish to remind
the regime of the day that subversion of
public institutions like RBI, CBI and NIA
has the potential to decimate the Con-
stitutional edifice of this Country and it
needs to be stopped. I wish to reiterate
that voices of reason in this country
cannot be muzzled for long and the
environment of siege will need to end if
we wish to usher in true democracy.”
Shah Faesal is blunt and lethal in his
criticism of the government of the day
and the unleash its wrecking on the
people of the country. In fact, this 35
year old bureaucrat has uttered what
honest bureaucrats ought to utter. After
all, the ground realities are out there.
And till the sarkari men do not take on
the sarkar of the day, nothing much can
be expected. We will continue to sit like
mute spectators even as the decay and
destruction and deterioration spreads
out to uncontrolled limits.
♦ ♦ ♦
In fact, soon after the Gujarat
pogrom of 2002 several civil servants • Leading from the front Shah Faesal is blunt sense of the term.
of the Gujarat cadre had taken on the in his criticism of the government of the day ♦ ♦ ♦
establishment of the day. One of the As an Indian Muslim, today I sit
first whistle blower cops of the Gujarat totally disillusioned and upset with
cadre, RB Sreekumar, has written the rot in the system. Four years back,
volume after volume exposing the then fence-sitters quipped, “What harm can
government’s role in that pogrom in According to Faesal, the Right — Wing rulers do; they have
Gujarat. He ripped off all those develop- his resignation was a got to work within a constitutional
ment theories that were flaunted when framework”, but see the manner in
Narendra Modi was the chief minister small act of defiance which the very running of institutions
of Gujarat. to remind the Centre has got affected and dented. These are
And around the same time, another dark days, where goon brigades have
civil servant, Harsh Mander, had re- of its duties towards been let loose, unleashed in our midst.
signed to work for the hundreds of Kashmiris. He now Today one sees tainted men ruling and
the pogrom affected. Mander has also over-ruling, even after being accused in
been writing…one volume after an- seeks to work at State conducted murders, done under
other, focusing on the ground realities the grassroots and the bogus set of alibis. Quite obviously
that we Indians have been witnessing these ‘developments’ are un-nerving,
in these recent years….There could few reimagine politics in nudging one to query and cry out .But
other civil servants who have dared to then even that isn’t allowed! One could
take on the political rulers. Mind you, the state by joining be threatened, to be hounded out.
only a handful of such brave coura- a political party
geous civil servants. Men in the actual letters@tehelka.com

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