The search for history and practices related to Sufiyana Mousiqi reveals a troubling gap between Kashmir’s rich cultural inheritance and the institutions meant to study it, writes M Saleem Beg
Kashmir is often described through its mountains, lakes, gardens and snow-covered landscapes. Yet its identity extends far beyond its geography. Its cultural memory, preserved in poetry, music, crafts and traditions, has evolved over centuries through encounters with Central Asia, Persia and the Indian subcontinent.
Among these traditions, Sufiyana Mousiqi occupies a special place. It is not merely a form of music but a cultural journey shaped by poetry, spirituality and centuries of interaction between Kashmir and the wider Persianate and Central Asian world.
Seeking Details
It was this understanding that led us to search for material on Sufiyana Mousiqi while preparing a dossier for its proposed inscription on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The process requires documentation of the tradition’s origins, evolution, cultural significance, practitioners, transmission and contemporary relevance.
Our search soon became an inquiry into a larger question: where is knowledge about Kashmir being created, preserved and studied? The obvious place to begin was the University of Kashmir.
Established in the early years after Independence, the University emerged at a time of great hope. It was expected not merely to produce graduates but to become a centre of intellectual life, where Kashmir’s history, society, culture and natural environment would be studied seriously and new knowledge generated.
Its early teachers included scholars from established universities elsewhere in India, who helped lay the foundations of higher education in Jammu and Kashmir. Over the decades, the University expanded considerably. Yet, when one looks for sustained and substantial scholarship on Kashmir’s own cultural heritage, an uncomfortable question arises: has the institution fulfilled the aspirations with which it was established? This is not a criticism of individual teachers, many of whom have made valuable contributions. It is a question about the wider research culture and the institutional environment in which scholarship is produced.
An Interaction
Nearly a decade ago, during an interaction at the Institute of Kashmir Studies at the University of Kashmir, I had a conversation with Professor Dhruv Raina, a historian of science at Jawaharlal Nehru University. I asked him why the University had not generated a more substantial body of scholarship on Kashmir. His response was thought-provoking. He pointed to a problem common to many state universities: scholars often obtain their degrees from the same institutions in which they later teach, remaining within familiar environments for much of their careers. The danger, he suggested, was intellectual insulation.
The observation has stayed with me because it touches the very purpose of a university. Teaching is essential, but a university cannot thrive by merely transmitting existing knowledge. It must question, investigate and generate new understanding.
The limited documentation of Sufiyana Mousiqi is not an isolated case. Across Kashmir, valuable knowledge about crafts, architecture, manuscripts, folklore, performing arts, religious traditions, festivals, oral histories have been preserved by individuals and practitioners rather than systematically documented by academic institutions.
Resident chroniclers, writers, musicians, craftsmen and knowledgeable members of communities have carried this knowledge across generations. Their work may not always follow formal academic process, but it often contains information that institutional histories have overlooked or never recorded.
Informal History
The problem is not the existence of these non-academic sources but the absence of a sustained institutional effort to identify, collect, verify and build upon them. Universities and cultural institutions must engage seriously with this existing body of knowledge. Academic research should also critically examine and preserve what already exists within society. Otherwise, we risk losing both the traditions themselves and the historical memory that explains their evolution. Our search extended beyond Sufiyana Mousiqi to other subjects central to Kashmir’s cultural and economic history, including crafts, trade, artistic traditions and cultural exchanges.
Kashmir was never culturally isolated. For centuries, people, objects and ideas travelled across the mountains, connecting the Valley with Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent. This led us to the Centre for Central Asian Studies at the University of Kashmir, established in the 1950s and seemingly well placed to explore these connections. Its academic mandate, as described in its mandate, encompasses ‘Central Asian history and culture, Islamic studies, Sufism, mysticism, religious and ideological movements, migration and the cultural impact of Sufi practitioners’. Such a framework could throw light on the development of Kashmir’s music, crafts, commerce and artistic traditions.
Yet our search did not readily reveal the depth and breadth of scholarship one might expect from an institution with such a mandate. The reasons may be complex and cannot be reduced to the efforts of individual scholars. Sustained research requires fieldwork, access to archives and interdisciplinary collaboration. Without these elements, even a well-established institution risks falling short of its potential.
The Discovery
Our search for Sufiyana Mousiqi eventually produced an encouraging discovery: a considerable body of material did exist, much of it created outside the formal university system.
Poets, writers, musicians, practitioners and independent researchers had undertaken the task of documenting a tradition that deserved far greater institutional attention. Working with limited resources, often without research grants, organised archives or academic infrastructure, they collected information, studied texts, consulted practitioners and recorded musical traditions. Their efforts preserved knowledge that might otherwise have disappeared.
Among those who made important contributions to Kashmir’s music and cultural traditions were Amin Kamil, Syed Qaisar Qalandar, Ghulam Rasool Bhat, Noor Mohammad Bhat, Motilal Saqi, Avtar Krishen Razdan, Muhammad Abdullah Tibetbaqal and Ghulam Mohammad Saznawaz, among many others. Their work reminds us that knowledge does not emerge from universities alone. It can also grow out of passion, memory, lived experience and a deep commitment to preserving what is in danger of disappearing.
Such people are not merely performers or sources of information. They are knowledge keepers. Their experience must be documented and preserved. Universities can contribute research and scholarly rigour; practitioners bring lived experience and technical knowledge; independent writers preserve historical memory. The future of cultural research depends on bringing these different sources of knowledge together.
The urgency is particularly evident in the case of Sufiyana Mousiqi. Its history cannot be understood simply by cataloguing instruments or documenting compositions. It is connected with the movement of people and ideas between Kashmir, Persia and Central Asia, revealing how traditions travelled, were received and transformed within a distinct cultural environment.
The Documentation
Preparing the UNESCO dossier has therefore become much more than an exercise in assembling references and completing documentation. It has compelled us to confront a larger question: how well have we documented our own heritage?
The answer is not entirely reassuring. Kashmir possesses a remarkable but scattered body of cultural knowledge. Writers, musicians, practitioners and independent researchers have made important contributions, yet much of their work remains dispersed and insufficiently integrated into mainstream scholarship. It survives in personal collections, old publications, unpublished notes, family records and oral traditions.
Time is working against us. The generation that carries much of this knowledge is ageing. With every musician, craftsman, storyteller or scholar who dies without having recorded their experience, an irreplaceable part of Kashmir’s cultural memory risks disappearing.
The documentation of Sufiyana Mousiqi must therefore be seen as part of a wider cultural responsibility, not simply as a means of securing UNESCO recognition. An inscription may bring international visibility, but it cannot substitute for sustained research, documentation, preservation and transmission. We must undertake this task for ourselves and for future generations.
The University of Kashmir could become a principal centre for preserving and studying this knowledge. It also calls for systematic documentation, accessible archives, interdisciplinary research and sustained engagement with independent scholars and practitioners.
We need a research environment that encourages critical inquiry and connects scholarship with the cultural life of society.
Kashmir’s cultural inheritance cannot be preserved by admiration alone. It must be studied, documented and transmitted. The search for Sufiyana Mousiqi has exposed a wider gap in our understanding of us. Unless our institutions recognise the urgency of this task and work with those who have preserved this knowledge, centuries of cultural memory may be lost, not because the knowledge never existed, but because we failed to document it in time.
(The writer is convener INTACH and former Director General Tourism, J&K)
