IAS Officer Kannan Gopinathan Resigns Over Denial Of Fundamental Rights To People In Kashmir // 'It Felt Like George Orwell's 1984': Mehbooba Mufti’s Daughter Iltija
NEW DELHI—IAS Officer
Kannan Gopinathan resigned from government service on August 21 citing denial
of fundamental rights to residents of Jammu and Kashmir,
and his own inability to speak freely about it, The Hindu reported. “We got into the
service thinking that we can provide voice to people, but then we ended up with
our own voice being taken away from us. In a democracy, let’s say Hong Kong or
any other democracy, if the Government takes a decision, that is their right.
But the response to that decision is the people’s right. Here, we have taken a
decision and then we have detained everybody. They are not even allowed to respond
to that decision. That is dangerous,” the 33-year-old bureaucrat told the
newspaper on Saturday
In a separate interview to ieMalayalam.com the same day,
the 2012 batch IAS Officer from Kerala said, “I want my freedom of expression
back. I want to live like me, even if its for a day.”
Government servants
are prohibited by service rules to criticise government policies
publicly.
Further, in the same
interview, he explained at some length why resigning was an important moral
step for him. “If you ask me what you were doing, when one of the world’s
largest democracies announced a ban on the entire state, and even violated the
fundamental rights of the people, I should at least be able to reply that I
resigned my job,” he said.
In an other interview with NDTV, he clarified that, ”...Article
370 or its abrogation is not the issue, but denying citizens their right to
respond to it, is the main issue. They could welcome the move or protest it,
that’s their right.” The secretary of
Power, Urban Development and Town and Country Planning departments of the Dadra
and Nagar Haveli administration was also disturbed by a “lack of response” from
India’s civil society to the detention of IAS officer-turned activist from
Kashmir Shah Faesal. “Even when a former IAS officer was detained from the
airport, there was a complete lack of response from civil society. It seems
like most in this country are okay with this,” he rued..
read more
Forget Article 370,
there will be a debate about it for years and years to come — whether it was
legal, whether it was constitutional. I believe people have already filed
petitions in the Supreme Court. But what followed after that… this curfew is
unprecedented in terms of restrictions. Kashmir was not normal
to begin with and now you have taken away whatever semblance of normalcy
Kashmiris had. As I’m talking to you right now, it’s tough for me to decide
where I need to begin from.
You ask anyone from my
generation, Kashmiris have seen nothing but bloodshed for the past 30 years,
with these very short periods of peace. Our lives are broken but Kashmiris have
still tried to build a life. You have these entrepreneurs who have set up these
amazing restaurants, beautiful coffee shops, with books and libraries and
stuff. What’s going to happen to all that. I’ve never felt so repressed in my
life. We are being made to feel like outsiders in our own land. We are being
made to feel that Kashmir doesn’t belong to us. I came from the Valley,
yesterday… you are being stopped after every two minutes with the barricades
and spools of wire. It’s unprecedented, it’s inhuman and it’s infuriating. It
feels like collective punishment... read more:
