Dr Fai,‘ambassador’ for Kashmiri separatists

Soft-spoken and articulate,Fai has been taking a very nuanced stance that has hinged on a demand “for the right to self determination” while calling for a “peaceful settlement” on Kashmir. Groomed in the Jamat-e-Islami,he was close to various separatist groups in Kashmir.

Born in Wadwan,a remote village in central Kashmir’s Budgam district,Fai went on to found the Kashmir American Council in 1990,with its head office in Washington. He is its executive director. He has a doctorate in mass communications from Temple University,Pennsylvania.

He had graduated from Sri Pratap College in Srinagar in 1971,joined Aligarh Muslim University for a Masters course in Philosophy,then spent four years in Saudi Arabia,where he did a course in Islamic Studies at Umul Qura University.

As an active member of the Jamat-e-Islami,Fai grew very close to its founder Maulana Saad-ud-din and became his personal secretary. It was the Jamat founder who got him a scholarship to Saudi Arabia. When Fai left in 1979,with him was Dr Ayub Thakur,who would later found the World Kashmir Freedom Movement in the UK.

In 1983,Fai returned briefly to Kashmir and went back to Saudi Arabia to work as a teacher,again briefly. He went to the US and joined the Islamic Society of North America. After getting his doctorate,he taught mass communication at Temple University for four years.

In 1990,after getting a green card,Fai founded the Kashmir American Council,a “not-for-profit organisation dedicated to raising the level of awareness in the US about the struggle of Kashmir”. He is also director of the London-based Justice Foundation and a member of the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle,and was awarded the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom in 2005.

When he left for the US,Fai was married to a Kashmiri,who still lives in Wadwan. In the US,he married a Chinese Muslim,Qadar,and has a son and a daughter.

The J-K police say Fai first came on the radar of security agencies when he tried to organise a World Muslim Youth Conference during his student days,when he was with the Jamiat-ut-Tulba,student wing of the Jamat-e-Islami. An arrest warrant was issued against Fai,the conference did not take place,and he left for Saudi Arabia soon after. There is,however,no police case against him in Kashmir.

Global events

Fai was frequently invited to United Nations conferences and was elected chairman of the United Nations Unrepresented Peoples and Nations during the Vienna Conferences in 1993. He was also invited to address the UN Conference on Conflict Resolution at New York in 1992,and at the third Global Structures Convocation at Washington,besides being a guest speaker at the World Affairs Councils of 2001 and 2003.

He was invited by the European Parliament to present a paper for “Kashmir Round Table” in Brussels in 1993. In 1994,the Washington-based Institute of Peace invited him to submit a paper for a conference on Kashmir; the same year,he participated in the Kashmir Roundtable at Capitol Hill,organised by the Congressional Human Rights Foundation.

Fai also addressed the 61st session of United Nations Commission on Human Rights at Geneva. He was invited to attend the Summit of the Head of the States of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia in 1991,in Senegal in 1992,Morocco in 1994,Iran in 1997,Qatar in 2000 and Malaysia in 2003.

His conferences would be attended by journalists,policy analysts and rights activists worldwide.