Shah Faesal’s exit from politics is yet another indication of the Central government finding itself up the creek and without a paddle in Jammu and Kashmir. Its attempt at in vitro fertilisation of a ‘new’ politics in J&K, minus the ‘three dynastic parties’ – (the Congress, the National Conference and the Peoples’ Democratic Party) has failed yet again.
Smart, articulate, topper of the All-India Civil Services examination, a Fulbright Scholar and a Harvard-returned scholar to boot, Faesal was misled into thinking he could be the new leader that J&K never had – perhaps, one day, even the chief minister of the (now erstwhile) state. However, from being head of a political party in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), he will perhaps now go back to being a bureaucrat once again.