Now on bbc news, its hardtalk. Stephen sackur interviews the president of the Jammu And Kashmir peoples movement, shah faesal. Since recording this interview yesterday, there are reports today that mr shah has been detained by the authorities in delhi and prevented from leaving the country. Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. When the Indian Government revoked the special autonomous status ofJammu And Kashmir, it knew outrage would follow, which is why delhi has the muslim majority himalayan territory in a form of lockdown. Troops patrol the streets, hundreds of local politicians and activists have been detained, and communication links have been cut. My guest today is shah faesal, leader of the Jammu And Kashmir peoples movement. How will kashmiris channel their anger, and how much support will they get . Shah faesal, in delhi, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much. There you sit in indias capital, but im sure your thoughts are with the people of kashmir. What are the latest reports you are hearing of what is happening in your home territory in terms of the curfew and the lockdown . Because indian Authorities Say they have begun to gradually ease it. It is the eighth day of curfew, and the news that i am getting from kashmir is that it continues to be the same around 8 Million People continue to be under incarceration, roads are deserted, mosques are closed. It is very hard to move around, the Communication System is completely down. Telephone lines are not working, mobile phones. People living outside kashmir have been unable to talk to their families for the past eight days. There is a shortage of food materials, people are unable to figure out what is happening. There has been an absolute clampdown on the protests, and the presence of Security Forces has been unprecedented. People are unable to reach out to their political leaders. All political leaders the surprising side of this crackdown has been that all of them are under arrest at this time. It is a scene out of a partition novel. You say all local politicians in kashmir are under arrest orfacing intimidation, and yet you are speaking to me from delhi, and i happen to know that in the last week you have been able to go to srinagar and attend political meetings. It suggests to me that perhaps you are exaggerating the extent of the control from india just a little bit. Most of the political leaders who belong to my political party, and all other Political Parties, have been detained. I am the only person from my own Party Meeting which met in srinagar on august the fourth, who is free and freely speaking. I am ashamed of myself that i am free at a time where the entire administration of kashmir are in jail and have been imprisoned. Do you think in all honesty when this interview was done and perhaps over the next few days that you will try to go back to kashmir, do you think you will be free for long . Police have come to my home a couple of times after i left, and it is also a story in itself that we reached the airport and came to delhi. Because of communication breakdown, maybe people could not communicate to their higher ups about my escape from the airport. But i am very much apprehensive that soon after i leave from here i mayb be detained, like anyone else. You are the leader of the Jammu And Kashmir peoples movement. Obviously one of quite a number of different Political Parties in kashmir. What is your message both to your own Party Supporters and to the wider public . Do you want to see people take to the streets and try to resist what you have called indias occupation . If you look at what has happened on the fifth of august, the entire political mainstream, people like me who believed in electoral politics, and who saw some sort of resolution coming within the framework of the indian constitution, we people have been rendered without an argument. Most of the leaders, including two former chief ministers, are under arrest at this time. When you talk about the mobilisation, it has been impossible for people to mobilise protests in the last one week because of unprecedented security presence in kashmir. But i am aware that there are going to be spontaneous eruptions in kashmir the moment restrictions are relaxed a little bit, and people like me and the all entire leadership in kashmir, im not sure if anybodys call is going to be heeded or listened to. It seems you are calling for calm, because i saw this quote from you just the other day, you say, the government seems to be preparing for casualties numbering 8,000 10,000. Sanity demands that we dont give anyone a chance for a massacre. My appeal is that we should all stay alive and then we shall fight back. So, right now, youre telling people to stay home . I think this is a sign of the majority of the people. 200,000 Security Forces out to kill anybody who is going to raise a voice of dissent. So i think this is a sign of majority that people are not reacting that way. But im sure that kashmiris will give a more calibrated, more seasoned, long term, organic, sustainable response to what has been done by the indian state. This act of indignation which has been done to the people of kashmir, im sure this will not go unprotested. This decision by the Indian Government to revoke article 370, this decision by the Indian Government to revoke article 370, to end the special autonomous status of kashmir, it can hardly have been a surprise to you. After all, mr modis bjp party has put it into their manifesto for many elections, and after their thumping win in the last election it was speculated by many that this time they have a mandate to do it. The surprise is that india claims to be the greatest democracy in the world. In spite of mr modi being there in the country, we believe there are institutions of democracy that will protect the constitution. So the Biggest Surprise this time is the way it has been done. If you look at the constitutional history of the state, if you look at how article 370 has developed in the past 70 years, i think all the jurists in this country have been of one opinion that it is impossible to revoke these guarantees following the constitutional procedure. So today, what has been done is by resorting to complete illegality, by completely murdering the constitution in the house of people of this country, that is something that surprises us. Otherwise, we always knew that bjp wanted to abolish these protections as part of the larger agent of Akhand Bharat or maybe having a hindutva kind of philosophy in this country, but the way that it was done, broad daylight, constitution was murdered by these people, these two supermen who have come to rule this country, i think it is something that surprised everybody who had faith or who believed that india was the greatest democracy in the world. What about my point about a democratic mandate . After all, this Jammu And Kashmir reorganisation bill just sailed through the indian parliament. In the lower house, it won a majority of 370 72. And as you are a self professed democrat, surely that does represent a mandate. That does represent a mandate, but parliament is not there to demolish the principles of democracy, parliamentarians cannot become a voice for the majority. Thats our problem. Who will then represent the minority populations of this country . Its like when you talk about diversity in india, its tremendous. Its 1. 3 billion people being represented in that house of people. 0ur problem is that when parliament resorts to unconstitutional methods. What has been done to Jammu And Kashmir today can be done to any other state tomorrow, so if parliament is out to demolish the federal structure of this country, that is something which i believe the parliament doesnt have the mandate for. And you must also take notice that the Supreme Court of india has laid down a doctrine or basic structure of the constitution. There are certain things the parliament can also not change. We believe these articles, article 370, the Supreme Court has laid it down. These articles in itself are part of that basic structure that the parliament cannot change. I suppose the logic of the opposition is that this will end up in the Supreme Court and i know there are various legal challenges to the revocation decision, which are going to head towards the Supreme Court, but lets face it, the court today has issued a ruling saying it wont intervene in the decision of the curfew and the lockdown, saying that the government has every right to impose this policy and let things stabilise. It is not clear the court is going to be on your side. If the parliament represents the majoritarian sentiment, we hope the courts should represent the minority sentiment, thats our understanding. As of now, we are about to challenge these articles. Some of the Political Parties have already filed their petitions. I know its going to be a long battle. Its not going to be easy for the Supreme Court also to undo what the majoritarian government, a bully government, has done in this country. I know it will be hard for Supreme Court justices to stand for the cause of truth. You make your passionate points about the constitution, but is there not a way of looking at this which is much more pragmatic and technocratic . And you yourself i think pride yourself on being something of a technocrat. Mr modi makes the point that by imposing a form of direct rule lets face it, direct rule from delhi to Jammu And Kashmir he says there will be a lot more development. All citizens will be guaranteed their rights, but he says therell be new investment in infrastructure, the people ofJammu And Kashmir will have more opportunities, morejobs, and, in the long run, it will benefit the people. I think this is a completely mischievous narrative that has been built around abolishing article 370. If you look at india, which is now 28 states, jammu and Kashmir State has developmental indicators better than many other such states. If you look at the levels of equality inJammu And Kashmir this time, if you look at at longevity, if you look at gdp per capita, if you look at the total fertility rates and other demographic indicators, it might surprise the people that Jammu And Kashmir has better indicators than all many such states that do not have such protections. Article 370 was responsible. It was the protection, basically, for very successful land reforms that took place in the state of Jammu And Kashmir, and such land reforms have not been done anywhere else in the country. If i may also say, sorry to interrupt, but article 370 also in a sense ring fenced some deeply sexist policies and constitutional realities inJammu And Kashmir. And, as mr modi has said, he hopes that people will see that, for example, the kashmir permanent residence law, which jammu and Kashmir State had imposed, bars female residents from Property Rights in the event that they marry a person from outside the state. Mr modi makes the point that thats not right, and by imposing direct rule. That has been an evolving law, and there has been a conscious, constant debate that we need to give those protections and rights to women, and the high court ofJammu And Kashmir has settled that matter. And those protections, those rights, have been extended to women who marry nonstate subjects from Jammu And Kashmir. I can guarantee that we have been telling the government of india to leave it to the government of Jammu And Kashmir, leave it to the state assembly. The state assembly is going to correct all of those anomalies if they are there. I can tell you with complete confidence that all these excuses are being now raised, because of the larger agenda of assailing the special identity of the state, changing the demographics of the state, attacking the constitutional protections, which were always part of the bjps idea, which is that we only want one constitution, one flag, one symbol, one president , one Prime Minister in this country. That is an idea of monochromatic lack of diversity of the bjp, where it doesnt respect minorities or multiple cultures. It mainly has extreme contempt for anything that is related to muslims. I think that is something that was being used. Well, my question then is where do you go from here . As i say, you had a reputation that when you formed your party of being a pragmatist, a technocrat, you had worked as a Senior Member of the Indian Civil Service. You argued against separatism and in creating a space for dialogue. That space seems to have disappeared. That space has disappeared not for us but for everybody else. And people like me, who wanted to find some meaning in electoral politics, who believed some sort of resolution to this dispute is Still Available within the framing of the constitution, i think all those people have been slapped on 5th of august. And people like me now understand theres only two ways to do politics in kashmir you will either have to be a stooge or you will have to be a separatist. Everybody who now wants to champion the larger Political Rights of kashmiri people, im sure the trajectory, the path for them has changed, and the methodology has changed. Now i think if people have been asking for the right to self determination, that framework is the only framework people will be ready to listen to. They will not be ready to listen to anything within the framework of the constitution. So which is it for you, mr faesal, are you going to be stooge or separatist . I think its too early for all of us. Im not going to be a stooge. I think one clarity which this has brought to all of us is those people who believed india would not betray this generation of kashmiris. You know, my grandfathers generation in 1953, the Prime Minister of Jammu And Kashmir was handcuffed by a very small level police constable. My grandfathers generation got alienated and got betrayed. And my fathers generation in 1987, when elections were held in the jammu and Kashmir State, and the elections were rigged, my fathers generation, they got betrayed that time, and that demolished the Democratic Institutions and the democratic methodology, and we saw an eruption of militancy in kashmir in 1988. This new insult, this new phase of indignation began on the fifth of august, 2019, and its my generation that has now got the taste of betrayal. I dont know how this is going to play out in the next 50 70 years. Its going to be a new phase. Yeah. You said something very interesting earlier, you said you felt something of a sense of shame that you were not arrested, youre still free when so many of your fellow kashmiris, certainly in politics, have been detained. Do you also feel a sense of shame that for so many years you were an insider inside the Indian Civil Service arguing it was less important to pursue a path of separatism and more important to concentrate on things like supplying clean water, infrastructure, development. Do you think you got it wrong . Do you think ultimately youre part of the problem . I do. I have to confess today before the world that we were trying to sell a wrong product to people of kashmir, and we have been snubbed on 5th of august 2019, when this unilateral assault on the constitutional identity of the state was done without taking any of the stakeholders on board, by resorting to complete military might and suppressing the voices of the people in kashmir. And, you know, modi just got his way through. Just bulldozed his way through into kashmir without caring for what kashmiris would think about this. So whats it going to be now, mr faesal . If youre no longer prepared to be, in your own word, a stooge, and moderation appears to be impossible in the kashmir of today, are you going to back the militants . Weve already seen key militant players who have strong links in pakistan. Im thinking of Maulana Abdul aziz, the guy who was a prayer leader in the red mosque in islamabad, hes now said jihad is obligatory for muslims in pakistan because our kashmiri brothers and sisters are waiting for our help. Is that the sort of language you can now identify with . The way voices of political moderation have been silenced in kashmir, im extremely worried it will give credence to the extremist elements and extreme ideologies are going to flourish in our part of the world. But when it comes to myself, i believe that a sustained non violent political Mass Movement will have to be lodged in kashmir. It may take a lot of time, but my belief in non violence stems from the fact most of the political movements in the rest of the world have succeeded as long as theyve been non violent, and i believe that we are going to fight for the rights of the people. Its going to take time, but kashmiris have now found clarity in their politics, and i think were going to make it one day. Butjust to be clear with me, would you today, despite everything weve discussed of your history, describe yourself as a kashmiri separatist . I think i woul