“I have no desire to either live or work in J&K anymore”

Senior IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer SONALI KUMAR was the FIRST “outsider” “non-state subject” lady IAS officer to be allotted to J&K cadre with a batch of 1979. She has thus worked in the J&K cadre for 36 and a half years and has spent another year watching events unfold as Arun Kumar, her husband, was still in the IAS there.
During this period, Sonali has held in both Government of India as well as in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir assignments related to industry and commerce (including PSUs), textiles (handlooms & handicrafts), education, welfare, forests and environment, agriculture, horticulture, co-operatives, rural and urban development, health and medical education, anti-drought prone and anti-desert area development programmes, revenue, judicial, and even disaster relief operations.
In a chat with Daily Excelsior Correspondent she shares her experiences on a variety of subjects.
Excerpts of the interview
Q: Sonali ji, welcome to Daily Excelsior, the number one daily newspaper of J&K.
A: Thank you for having me over.
Q: Sonali ji, by now you have written two books on this outsider-insider or state subject-non state subject theme in J&K. First, your memoir called The Outsider’s Curse/Unmasking Kashmir and now your collection of short stories called The Outsider’s Tales. Could you please tell our readers why you wrote the first book: your memoir? And also, why that book had two titles?
A: The memoir was first put out as an eBook on platforms like Kindle, Google Play, Apple, Kobo etc., and then abroad in print, and was called The Outsider’s Curse: A Memoir of the First “Outsider” Lady IAS Officer of Jammu & Kashmir.
When the South Asian print version was negotiated, my Indian publishers insisted on renaming the book as Unmasking Kashmir: A Bureaucrat Reveals. That’s why my memoir now has two names: one for India and another for abroad!
As for why I wrote this book, I have an exact chapter called “Why I Wrote This Book”! In that, I have explained that my primary intention was to give voice to “what an outsider Indian Administrative Service (IAS), or for that matter, any officer belonging to any All-India Service (AIS) like IPS (Indian Police Service) or IFoS (Indian Forest Service), goes through while serving in J&K…… For me, writing this book was a cathartic experience where all my pent-up feelings could finally find some expression. I expect little, but only hope this book proves useful both in understanding what the IAS does in J&K and in helping frame some national policies for dealing with the problems there.”
That should explain, I hope.
Q. How was the response to your memoir?
A. The exact sales number would be known only to my publishers, but from the number of readers who have contacted me shows that the response has simply been overwhelming. Almost all my All-India Service colleagues in J&K have been able to read it, I think, which is mind-boggling. And many of them, I’m told, found it difficult to control their emotions after reading it. Obviously, they found many incidents which they could empathise with. And that I think is quite touching.
Q. And now your short stories The Outsider’s Tales? Why did you come up with this compilation?
A. Because I realised that not only All-India Service officers, but so many other ordinary, full-blooded Indian, citizens suffer from the same curse of being an outsider, non-state subject. Their stories also need retelling. And that is what I have tried to do through the short stories that comprise THE OUTSIDER’S TALES.
Q. So are these stories inspired by real characters?
A. Oh yes. Anyone can readily relate to them because they are all-around you in J&K. For example, the first story describes how the wife of an IAS officer fights loneliness and keeps her sanity when her husband goes to the office every day.
The second story tries to peep into the mind of an ordinary CRPF constable who is ordered to stand guard at places that the J&K Police won’t touch with a barge pole.
The third narrates the dilemma of actually a local, Kashmiri, state subject Personal Security Officer of a senior officer who can’t ensure the safety and security of his own family in the Kashmir village he lives in.
And the fourth talks of the experience of a barber from Uttar Pradesh, who has the high and mighty of Kashmir as his loyal clients, but when he needs help after the floods of 2014 his outsider status becomes an albatross around his neck.
The stories are poignant and make you wonder what Kashmiris have really gained by continuing to follow this old apartheid policy of the Maharaja of Kashmir.
Q. Coming back to your stint in J&K, how has been your experience as a top woman IAS officer?
A: I have worked in the J&K cadre for 36 and a half years and have spent another year watching events unfold as Arun Kumar, my husband, was still serving in the IAS there.
During this period, I had an opportunity to hold, both in the Government of India and in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, many assignments related to industry and commerce (including PSUs), textiles (handlooms and handicrafts), education, welfare, forests and environment, agriculture, horticulture, co-operatives, rural and urban development, health and medical education, anti-drought prone and anti-desert area development programmes, revenue, judicial, and even disaster relief operations.
It is difficult to narrate all such experiences in the short space of this interview. But suffice to say, that my myriad experiences did equip me with the powers of ideation, problem-solving, out-of-the-box thinking, and strategic policy insights that only a long stint in IAS probably can endow someone with. This is the experience I thought I needed to share in the background of this constant national and international focus on the Kashmir Problem.
Q. There are reports that women officers are constantly harassed at work. Have you personally come across any such incident?
A: I have narrated one such episode in some detail in my memoir in the chapter “The Biryani Episode” where I have discussed how several women officers were harassed in J&K House New Delhi by a lowly officer having patronage of powerful people in J&K. Funnily, that officer, who got into Govt. service through the back-door, still remains the darling of so many in J&K even today.
Separately, everyone in Kashmir would know about how an IAS sexual predator was arrested by the CBI, jailed, then released because all witnesses and victims turned “hostile”, and lo-and-behold, became the Chief Secretary with no one even writing a line in protest in any newspaper in J&K.
So, harassment of women and women officers, I’d say, is rather common place in J&K.
Q. You have said that all IAS officers from outside JK suffer from ‘Outsiders Curse’. Can you talk a bit more about this phenomenon?
A: As I have outlined in my memoir’s introductory chapter “Why I Wrote This Book”, IAS officers get a step-motherly treatment in J&K because unlike any other state, in J&K, an ‘outsider’ or a ‘non-state subject’ can’t buy property, can’t educate her children in any technical-medical or engineering college, can’t get her spouse or children to find employment with the State Government, can neither vote in nor stand for any state-level elections even after retirement, can’t even get her son married to a local girl because that will immediately extinguish that girl’s/her offsprings’ state-subject status, and so on.
I consider this a blatant trampling of those officers’ fundamental right to property, employment or franchise guaranteed to them under the Indian Constitution for no fault of theirs. And why, because a law passed by the Maharaja in 1927 basically to keep out the British said so?
I am highlighting this point because I want every state-subject of J&K to understand that if he is welcome to study, settle, work or vote in any part of India, it is time he reciprocated that courtesy by allowing at least the J&K cadre outsider All-India Service officers to have the same rights in J&K. Incidentally, the Maharaja always extended this courtesy to his officers who were from outside J&K, and that’s why you had so many Dewans, Chopras, Mitras, Katochs, and even a Pestonjee owning properties and living happily in the Valley once upon a time.
Q. You have talked about the transfer industry in JK bureaucracy. Could you please explain how this works?
A: In my memoir, I have discussed why in J&K we have this phenomenon of one Government department being considered more important than the other because, ridiculous as it may sound to others, the importance arises from the number of persons you can transfer!
This is because each transferee has to pay speed-money to get a posting of his/her choice. So, if you charged, say Rupees 20,000 on an average, for transferring a teacher to a capital city like Jammu or Srinagar, and you took out a list of 50 such transfers, you could earn 20,000 x 50= Rupees 10 lakhs! And you could do this every 3-month sharing part of the booty with your bosses and keep everyone happy.
You can substitute teacher with doctor, engineer, patwari or whosoever you desire, fill in the going transfer rate for that department, and the economics would more or less be on the same lines as I have mentioned above. No wonder, the only industry that can still thrive in J&K is the “transfer industry!” And it involves everyone from top in this sordid business.
The other source of “earning” under-the-table is the commission you could earn on getting construction projects executed through contractors. This is more prevalent in the engineering departments (like Roads and Buildings, Power Development, Irrigation or Public Health Engineering), where no one needs to break in to a sweat for getting the routine 10% “commission,” which is often considered your right.
Many such examples I have discussed in the chapter “Moving To Industries,” and “In the Quagmire of Health and Medical Education.”
Now, if transfers are made on such pernicious considerations, your quality of governance will suffer irreparably which is what we see in J&K in every department.
Q. You have said that some JK bureaucrats indulge in anti-national activities. Can you explain what do you mean by anti-national activities?
A: By anti-national activities, I mean all activities that are against the Constitution of India as well as the interests of the people of J&K and India. And I am firmly of the view that anyone wishing to indulge in any such activity for whatever reason has no business to continue in government service.
To understand this “principle”, just imagine what will happen if a salaried employee of a publication like yours criticises the editor, or owner. He will be thrown out the next day, won’t he, notwithstanding the Freedom of Expression guaranteed to him under the Constitution?
In my book, I have discussed the case of a Chief Secretary who used to host Hurriyat meetings at his official residence and was indulging in sundry other anti-national activities openly. Fortunately, he was caught and retired forcibly eight months before his scheduled date of superannuation.
Q. In your memoir, you have also mentioned several outsider officers who have happily played along the politicians to harass upright officers like you? What do you think was their motivation in doing that?
A. Yes, I have mentioned several instances where the so-called outsider officers too had gone all-out to please their political masters. I suppose, the motivation was the same as for insider officers: to get a “good posting”, to remain on the right side of their benefactors, to make money, to get a suitable post-retirement sinecure, etc.
Q. Some people have raised questions on the timeliness of your memoir. They have said that your book has come at a time when some right-wing elements in India are building public opinion to revoke Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution. What is your take on this?
A: I vehemently deny this allegation as I am NOT affiliated with any political party. In fact, those who have read my book, would realise that I have criticised all politicians, regardless of whether they are right or left wing.
I started writing this book from December 2015 the moment I retired from the IAS. It was finally published internationally in May 2017, i.e. 18 months later which is the normal time it takes to finish and publish any book. If that made it “time” with the current Supreme Court hearings related to Article 35-A, they are purely coincidental.
Q: But may we know what is your personal stand about Article 370 and Article 35-A? And why?
A: Look, I don’t want to quibble about the constitutional propriety or desirability of these articles because the Honourable Supreme Court is already looking into the matter. But to paraphrase late Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s sentiments, I want everyone to look into this ‘problem’ in the daera or lens of insaniyat or humanity. And then you would realise how inhuman these provisions are for those officers who have given the best part of their lives working for the people of J&K.
I have no other axe to grind. I’m already retired and settled elsewhere. I’ve no desire to either live or work in J&K anymore. But look at my junior colleagues?
When you drag them away from their stable, more prestigious postings in Delhi where they may have gone also to educate their children or look after their parents or make their houses, do you realise the disruption you cause to their lives in the name of national integration? Why can’t you show them a little consideration, a little magnanimity, in letting them grow their roots in J&K, if they wish to do so? Mind you, a good deal may not, considering the disturbed conditions in J&K, but that would be another matter. At least you would have made the gesture, taken the initiative, to sound human.
And not selfish or superior because you belong to a superior religion, a superior region, eat superior food, speak a superior language or anything of the sort which makes you sound only conceited, inconsiderate, and inhuman.
So, if you ask me. My views are clear: the sooner these articles are scrapped from the Indian Constitution, the better it would be for everyone. Then only you will have in J&K better industrial climate, more investment opportunities, better prices for your property, less ghettoization by particular cultural, linguistic, and religious groups, and so on.
Q. But Sonali ji, there are restrictions elsewhere too in India and the world on owning properties in tribal or ecologically fragile areas. Aren’t they?
A. Yes, there are but then they apply to everyone. Tell me, if you wish to restrict construction activities in say Gulmarg, because it is an ecologically sensitive area, will you achieve your objectives if you allow insiders only and ban all outsiders? Or, if you wish to sell a property say in Gulmarg, what would be more important to you? To get a good price or to let the property be acquired by a so-called insider at dirt cheap rates?
Similarly, if you want that in a forested area tribal people be not exploited, would you contemplate permitting insiders only to exploit them? Does it make any sense?
What I’m saying is that if you wish to restrict anything in any area for any valid reason, do it for all, uniformly, and without indulging in to this pernicious game of insider vs. outsider.

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