Meher Qadri / Fizala Khan
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue.
-David Hume
History is filled with people who made difficult choices. The tussle between the good and the evil. Conquering our inner evil and choosing the right thing to do. Some we remember as heroes and some otherwise. The conflict between Good and Evil is a concept that has been there since the beginning of time. The dilemma is understood and recognized across civilizations. It takes selflessness and a deep understanding of suffering and empathy to sacrifice your safety and goals for others. Throughout history, a few such Altruists have fought against conformity and helped change the order of the world. What if they had all chosen self-preservation and kept quiet? The one chance they took made a difference.
We all have a choice. Since the time of Cain and Abel. In his “Biblical Series V: The Hostile Brothers” and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson provides a rich interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel. The archetypal brothers both suffer, but their radically different responses to their suffering represent perennial human options. Spurred by social comparison, Cain and Abel represent rival responses to the suffering inherent in the human condition following the rise of self-consciousness. Abel’s suffering leads to his self-development as a warrior. Cain’s suffering leads to envy, malevolence, and murder.
People choose different paths for reasons only known best to them and to be only judged by God. The last few weeks have left netizens and people across the spectrum surprised, angry and disappointed by the actions of our very own ‘messiah’ – the poster boy of Administrative Services, Shah Faesal. While most people are disheartened by the changing stances of this bureaucrat. A few happen to find their lack of faith vindicated. A political purist extols as the power corrupts, very well explained by William. H. Duckey in his poetic work ‘The Egoist’.
– ‘Coextensive with the world, his hands become the hands, his mouth the mouth, his dingus – the dingus.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely said Lord Acton.
Absolute corruption set in: a foot revolted’.
Duckey talks about power corrupting the sense and morality of a ‘dingus’ who later absolves all his morality and ideals based on his framework of betterment and good.
William ends his poem with what makes perfect sense of the diabolical dingus –
‘Replicated and replicated an oblique hysteria. The absolute corruption of self is community. The absolute corruption of the mouth is to taste its tongue over and over, to be continually filled’.
Another name that pops up across social media platforms around the same time and events as Faesal, is of a fellow IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan.
The journey of both men is your modern-day Jesus – Judas saga.
Here is a brief look at their journeys :
Born in the Sogam area of Lolab Valley, located in the Kupwara district of Jammu Kashmir, Shah Faesal’s father, Ghulam Rasool Shah, who was a teacher was killed by militants in 2002 when Faesal was 19 years – old.
Faesal holds an MBBS degree from Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Srinagar as well as has a master’s degree in Urdu. He was the first Kashmiri who cleared and topped the Indian Administrative Service competitive exam in 2009. After multiple transfers, Faesal on 26th March 2016 was temporarily given the additional charge of the vice-chairman of JK Lakes and Waterways Development Authority (LAWDA) along with his additional duties when he was serving as the Director of School Education during the 2016 – Kashmir unrest.
In May 2018 Faesal received the Fulbright-Nehru Masters’ Fellowship to study at the Harvard Kennedy School. He resigned from the IAS on the 9th of January in 2019 parroting the “unabated killings” and announced his resignation through a Facebook post.
On the 16th of March, 2019 Faesal announced through Facebook that he would be launching his own political party on 17 March, the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Movement (JKPM). On the 21st of March in 2019, Shah Faesal launched his political career as the Chairman of Jammu Kashmir People’s Party stating it would provide a political platform to the youth as well as veteran politicians with a clean image. He later announced that it will not contest the 2019 Indian general election to focus more on outreach, and encouraged people to vote for the right politicians. He also said the party would focus on safeguarding Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution of India. On the 18th of June, along with Engineer Rashid, Faesal announced that their parties, JKPM and Awami Ittehad Party, will be entering into a political alliance called Peoples United Front.
In an interview with Stephen Sackur for BBC, on 14th August in 2019, Shah Faesal said, “People like me, now understand, that there are only two ways to do politics in Kashmir, you will either have to be a stooge or a separatist”.
Faesal quit his political rendezvous and the party on 10th of August in 2020, shortly after India celebrated the abrogation of article 370.
Faesal was one of the political leaders detained after the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. As he tried to take a flight to Turkey on 14th August 2019, he was stopped and later taken into preventive detention, where he spent the next six months.
He was booked under the Public Safety Act in February 2020, being accused of subtly advocating separatism. The detention under PSA was extended by three months on 13 May. On 3 June, PSA against Faesal was revoked and he was released after a detention of 10 months. He was however put under house arrest on the very next day.
Shah Faesal had deleted all his social media posts after quitting politics in August 2020 and went silent.
Recently Faesal’s tweet caught the attention of users on social media. In a tweet, Faisal mentioned that India is on a global leadership program while calling India – ‘Jagat Guru’ and praised Narendra Modi in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ speech. Faesal asserted that his speech was like 1.3 Billion people coming together as a family.
Faesal’s tweet was celebrated, liked, and shared by BJP leaders and a JK BJP leader, who won DDC polls from Valley. Who later commented that “Shah Faesal might have changed for his own good?”
Shah Faesal’s praise for India after severely criticizing Article 370 revocation and terming it as the “murder of democracy” has led to speculation that he may have mended his relationship with the government and may make a comeback in a different role.
Kannan Gopinathan was born in – Kottayam, Kerala and started his career by working as a VLSI design engineer in Nodi. After four years, Kannan resigned from his post to prepare and study for Indian Administrative Services. During the period he was actively involved in teaching kids in a slum as a volunteer with Association for India’s Development Noida chapter. He was also an active participant in India Against Corruption movement in its initial phases.
Kannan joined the services in 2012 and first came to the limelight for his rather unusual letter to the then State Bank of India chairperson requesting an ATM in the remote subdivision of Hnahthial, in Mizoram.
The 32-year-old IAS officer, Kannan Gopinathan worked at relief camps in flood-hit Kerala for eight days until he was recognized by a senior, during the 2018 Kerala floods. News of his volunteering efforts in various camps without revealing his identity as an IAS officer surfaced and was widely reported.
Kannan Gopinathan, resigned after the Government implemented the CAA – and then proposed the NRC act in 2019. Kannan has since raised questions on the democratic nature and on the violation of fundamental rights in Jammu Kashmir.
He became one of the leading figures in the Citizenship Amendment Act protests that erupted across India against the citizenship amendment act. He was detained at multiple places including Mumbai, Agra and Prayagraj, preventing him from taking part in protests and delivering talks.
In April of 2020, the government asked Gopinathan to report for duty again in which he refused by saying that he is ready to volunteer for the COVID-19 crisis, but will not be joining IAS again. Later, an FIR was registered against him under various sections of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, and Indian Penal Code on the basis of Government complaints about his refusal to working on duty.
The government also initiated disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Kannan Gopinathan for service rule violations including his interactions with media.
The similarities and distinctions between these two stories are one for us to take stock of. What does the will of a person contribute to his life? Are we capable of doing what is right even at the cost of our self? Kant equates evil with having a will that is not fully good. According to Kant, we have moral goodwill only if we choose to perform morally right actions because they are morally right. He calls them Three grades of evil which can be seen as stages of corruption in the will.
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Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Kant’s ‘radical evil’ is one that is done for humanly understandable motives such as self-interest, but merely to reinforce totalitarian control.
As Richard Bach says in The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah “your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness, listen to it carefully”.