Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: Ruvaida Salam is perhaps the first ever Kashmiri woman to have qualified the Indian civil services exam.
Her relatives were happy that she had done her MBBS and insisted that she should now marry. But this young woman from the border district of Kupwara had set her eyes on the Indian civil service.
“My relatives made my marriage their top priority, but I resisted all pressures,” she says.
Ruvaida is among three women from the state of Jammu and Kashmir to have made it to the civil services this year, the other two being from the state’s Jammu region.
Kashmir valley, or for that matter the whole of J&K, has rarely figured in the civil services list until three years ago. The turning point came when Shah Faesal, a resident of the border district of Kupwara, topped in the civil services exam in 2010.
His outstanding success has inspired a large number of Kashmiri boys and girls. Now every year at least a few candidates from Jammu and Kashmir make it to the civil service. This year eleven candidates passed which is by far the largest number.
Syed Sehrish Asgar, who hails from the border district of Kishtwar in Jammu region, is a topper at the state level.
She says that with peace returning to the state after two decades of armed conflict more and more youngsters from the state will aspire to join the elite service.
“The scenario has changed. Women are also finding it conducive to aspire for big things.”
Behind this ‘we can do it’ sentiment are the efforts of an IPS officer, Abdul Gani Mir. A 1994 batch IPS officer, he was posted in the state of Jharkhand.
After returning to Kashmir in 2006 he noticed that the youth of his home state knew very little about the Indian civil service.
He along with a couple of friends organised seminars and workshops in colleges across the valley and assured the boys and girls that they could make it to the All India Civil Services.
“They had so many inhibitions. I told them if I could do it they could as well.”
Mir has since formed the Initiative for Competition Promotion in Jammu and Kashmir (ICPJK) which has been working relentlessly to encourage the Kashmiri youth for the big competition.
Shah Faesal owes him a debt of gratitude. Ruvaida Salam also says that Mir encouraged her a lot.
Ms Salam says that many girls were hesitant to join the all India civil service for fear of being posted outside their home state.
But she says she came out of this mindset after Ovaisa Iqbal a Muslim woman from state’s Ladakh region joined the civil services in 2011.
Ms Salam has made empowerment of women her first priority as a civil servant. “Wherever I may be posted, I can empathise with the women and will try to help them.”
She says corruption is a huge problem facing the Indian society. “It is very difficult to root out corruption from our society. But I will start with myself.”
(Translated from the BBC Hindi)
