Non-Kashmiri militants arrested in the past have often told their interrogators that they were driven to Kashmir by the propaganda in their countries. The major being that the government in Kashmir was so ruthless that it did not even allow the Kashmiri Muslims to offer prayers.
In early 1990’s, when some of these interviews were broadcast on state television, people would laugh at it. Though there were cases of extreme violations of human rights from all sides but never ever were people systematically prevented from going for prayers. But that was then.
Twenty years after the alleged propaganda blitzkrieg, when the situation has improved considerably, and militant violence and infiltration gone down, the propaganda seems to turn into a reality. Kashmir has started experiencing ban on prayers – at least in Kashmir’s grand mosque – the Jamia Masjid Srinagar. Since 2008, restrictions have been more frequent to prevent Friday prayers at the mosque. And now it has almost become a routine.
There may have been occasions, when restrictions were inevitable for preventing loss of life, but of late the government seems to use the safety of lives as an alibi for its restrictions.
There have been no Friday prayers in the grand mosque for nine weeks in a row. Already people have started drawing parallels between the ongoing restrictions and the ban on prayers in this 15th century mosque during Sikh rule. This can only add to the people’s alienation.
State’s new generation policy makers may not like the part of the politics that spills over to the streets and has roots in the religious platforms. An idea of acute secularism may not like the boundaries of politics and faith getting blurred. But history suggests that in Kashmir politics throughout has remained subservient to faith. In recent past, politicians made successful efforts to create their political support bases from religious institutions.
That has happened during the pre-partition monarchy and is happening in the post-monarchy democracy.
Street protests or stone pelting after Friday prayers at the Jamia mosque is nothing new. It has roots in the alienation, the people feel from the government, and has to be blamed more on the repressive measures used by the state to stifle the popular aspirations. Blaming Friday prayers for the protests is like blaming trees for the wind.
And then, even from the administration’s point of view, protests on Friday in old city have been a law and order issue, that were tackled locally without preventing prayers at the grand mosque. Why this hullabaloo now.
If the policy makers are patting their own backs for preventing small time trouble, what they are ignoring is that they may only be sowing seeds for a greater unrest.
