Shams Irfan

Politics always comes to us mediated, transformed, and interpreted through the mass media. Under the New Order, ‘reading between the lines’

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s trusted lieutenant Davinder Singh Rana made his debut in political briefing this week, as he came out defending the allegations against his boss.

The moment the allegation was levied, it was not the moral self of Kashmir that was lost; it was the ethical self. It is not a personal cleansing which is required, but a political one.

Dr. Bashir A. Dabla

It is generally believed that the traditional society of Kashmir about 60 years back was absolutely crime-free. The dominant majority of population had neither witnessed nor heard of any major crimes committed by its members. But, today, the same society stands at its opposite extreme. We all are first-hand witness to the emergence of minor and major crimes, especially violence against women, in Kashmiri society. This has happened in a brief period of three to four decades in a particular social context with specific factors contributing to its dynamics and continuity.
Broadly speaking, this alarming situation has emerged in the valley in the background of two distinctive processes of modernization and militancy-militarization.  The first set of factors are directly related to the process of modernization, particularly urbanization, industrialization, cultural-media exposure, migration, education, secularization, materialistic orientation, value-free environment, moral degradation  and so on.