INDIA
A senior officer with the Indian Administrative Service has caused a storm by resigning in protest at his country’s clampdown in Jammu and Kashmir.
Kannan Gopinathan (pictured) went public with his reasons, saying he wanted to “get his voice back” on the issue.
In an interview, he stressed that his resignation had nothing to do with the original decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status, “but it has a lot to do with the subsequent denial of the right of the people to respond to that decision”.
“I believe it is the right of any Government to take a decision, but it is equally the right of the people to react and respond to that decision of the Government,” 33-year-old Mr Gopinathan, who hails from Kerala, said.
“If I were part of the Government, I, as a Civil Servant, would have gone with the Government’s order, but when the people are denied their constitutional right to respond and even protest, then it is no more a democratic way.”
He said a Government could do whatever it wanted within the legal framework, but it did not have the right to withdraw fundamental rights unless a State of Emergency was declared.
“An emergency is declared only in the case of situations like grave external aggression, but even then the right to life and liberty cannot be suspended,” Mr Gopinathan said.
He is already well known in India, having volunteered for hands-on help to Kerala’s flood victims before his identity was accidentally revealed.
Mr Gopinathan had arrived as a Government official delivering Federal support for the Chief Minister’s relief fund but stayed on as an anonymous volunteer, doing odd jobs at the relief camps such as unloading relief material from trucks.
No one noticed him until one of his staff accidentally revealed his identity, turning him into an overnight celebrity.
New Delhi, 27 August 2019
