Parvez Dewan is an Indian administrator, author and librettist (lyricist). He is an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre. He became Secretary of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in 2011, and also the chairman of the Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre (OIFC). In 2012 he was appointed India's Tourism Secretary.
Dewan has authored books on Jammu & Kashmir, religion (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism) as well as on Tibet.
Early life
Parvez Dewan was born on 13 October 1972 in Srinagar. His father was a Wing Commander who began his career in the Royal Air Force and grandfather an Army Brigadier, who later became the first Indian Inspector General of Police of Jammu and Kashmir.
Dewan was educated at St Joseph's, Allahabad; St. George's Grammar, Hyderabad; Stanes, Coimbatore; The Air Force Central School, Subroto Park, New Delhi and St. Stephen's College in Delhi. He was elected President of St. Stephen's College. He received his higher education at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Dewan was the Senior Treasurer of the CU (Cambridge University) Friends of the Earth; and active with the CU Greens and CU Mystical Society.
Dewan was later elected a visiting research fellow of Queen Elizabeth House at the University of Oxford. At Cambridge, he won the Jennings Prize for obtaining the highest marks, as well as a distinction, in the Development Studies class. At St. Stephen's he was awarded the L. Raghubir Singh History prize for ranking first in his class.
Career
Civil services
Dewan joined the IAS and was allotted the Jammu and Kashmir cadre.
During his first posting as Sub-Divisional Magistrate in Basohli, he revived its school of miniature painting.
Dewan was the Divisional commissioner of Kashmir from 2001 to 2003. and also chairman of the state co-operative bank between 2002 – 2003. Dewan was also the resident commissioner of Jammu & Kashmir before he took charge as the chairman and managing director of India Tourism Development Corporation in 2006. The company recorded its three highest-ever profits under him, and declared the only three dividends that it has since 1997.
Dewan was the Tourism Secretary of India (2012–14). He helped WoNoBo.com devise virtual walking tours of Indian cities, five in the first place, with almost fifty more to follow, making Incredible India the first national tourism authority anywhere to offer such a useful and entertaining facility.
In October 2014 Dewan asked for and was granted voluntary, premature retirement, in order to concentrate on his career as a writer, especially to work on his South Asian encyclopaedia, Indpaedia.com.
Advisor (minister)
In 2016 Dewan was appointed Jammu and Kashmir's Advisor (i.e. cabinet minister) for twelve departments including Education, Tourism, Public Works, Culture, Health & Medical Education, Consumer Affairs, Information Technology, Youth Services and Sports. (In India ministers are elected politicians. However, sometimes when state governments are between elected governments they appoint career civil servants as ministers and call them Advisors to the Governor.)
Writer
Dewan translated the Hanuman Chalisa into English, written The Names of Allah, and brought out Jesus Christ Superstar in Urdu. He has also converted Habba Khatun's songs into Urdu songs, set to the same tune.
Dewan is also the co-author of Tibet: fifty years after with Siddharth Shrivastava. Dalai Lama has written the foreword to this book. In the foreword, HE the Dalai lama advocates peace for Tibet and China, and states that violence is counter-productive and creates misery. Dewan and Shrivastava visited Tibet after the 2008 failed uprising of Tibetans against the Chinese rule, & documented the population figures and the socio-political situation in the region.
Dewan has researched into various caste and religious groups in India. He has focused on the biased projections that the media has created for minority religious and ethnic groups within the country—and tried to compare them with similar prejudices against internal ethnic groups in Pakistan (Punjabi and Urdu cinema; textbooks), the USA (including US cinema and TV), the UK, Turkey, Indonesia, Europe (French cinema; permission to wear religion-appropriate clothing) and Africa.
Books
Dewan has published twenty books till date, some of which are listed in the table below