Liberals and left wingers should not support Muslim Right opposition to liquor shops and cinema halls in Kashmir

[Surely the brutalised Kashmiri's massively need human rights, democracy and a de-militarised daily life but while they struggle for those objectives what's the problem with having access to liquor and cinema halls. A recent statement by the former chief minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah has drawn the expected criticism from the Muslim right, but why are liberal and left opinion makers lending their support to the moral police?. See below report in The Hindu and an Editorial in Kashmir Times.]

The Hindu

SRINAGAR, December 10, 2011

Mirwaiz, Geelani call for religious decree against Farooq

Shujaat Bukhari

“His statement will boost immoral acts in the Valley”

Union Minister Farooq Abdullah's statement favouring the reopening of liquor shops and cinema halls in the Valley continues to draw flak from political and religious groups, even as he has reiterated his stand saying that Jammu and Kashmir was a secular and not an Islamic state.

On Friday, All-Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called for a religious decree against Dr. Abdullah for his “un-Islamic utterances.” Addressing the Friday congregation at the Jamia Masjid here, the Mirwaiz said Dr. Abdullah's statement was “aimed at boosting immoral acts in the Valley, and people should raise their voice against it.”

Supporting hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani's call for a religious decree against the former Chief Minister, the Mirwaiz said Dr. Abdullah had “lost his ability to distinguish between right and wrong”.

“Religious scholars should rise above their sectarian lines and give a tough fight to such elements who are bent upon eating the vitals of the society,” the Mirwaiz said.

The Mirwaiz, who heads the moderate faction of the Hurriyat, said it was true that Jammu and Kashmir was not an Islamic state but “that does not mean that you do not respect the sentiments of Muslims who are in majority in this State.” He said Quranic teachings prohibit liquor in society. He also maintained that tourists did not come to Kashmir for consuming liquor or indulging in any immoral activity. So the question of boosting tourism through these means did not arise.

Dr. Abdullah had on Monday said liquor shops and cinema halls in the State should be reopened as it would boost the economy and tourism in the Valley. Though a few shops and bars did operate, the alcohol business was mostly negligible. In the early 1990s, militant outfits banned liquor shops and cinema halls. Two cinema halls were later reopened, one of which closed down soon after, and the other musters little business.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary M.Y. Tarigami has said this was not the time to reopen liquor shops and cinemas. “Priority is to end corruption and restore honour and dignity of people.”

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Kashmir Times, Editorial, 10 December 2011

A toast at Sher-i-Kashmir’s mazar

By: BY ANURADHA BHASIN JAMWAL


Farooq Abdullah decided to pay a unique tribute to his illustrious father, resting in his grave – a promise to souse the Kashmir valley he had fought for, and later compromised on, in bottles of liquor and paint it bright with reels of glamour from Bollywood. He chose the occasion of Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah’s birth anniversary to announce, soon after he had offered his fateh prayers, that Kashmir should now have liquor bars and cinema halls. Leave alone, whether the resting Sheikh would be flattered by this toast of flamboyance from his apple of the eye, there is much that remains fluidly unknown and undecipherable. The locals may or may not get titillated by the entry of this newfound glamour of inebriated splendour, atleast high spirited people around them, and full 72 MM cinema screens to enthrall them with the gyrating Munnis, Jalebis and Sheelas of the tinsel town. But it is sure a jackpot winner if it can keep tourists hooked on to Kashmir, inspite of and despite its lagging tourism infrastructure, is what the Abdullahs believe.
There is no statistical evidence to prove whether tourism in Kashmir can or cannot sustain with or without liquor and cinema. Neither is there any tabulated data of how many locals would welcome this change and how many would be opposed to it. Personally, gulping down beer mugs and sipping goblets of wine is a matter of personal choice, if the levels of decency are maintained. So is watching films – good or bad ones. There is nothing rather devilish about them, nor something that should make hearts go rocking.
What punctuates the announcement with flaws is not just the choice of timing and venue but also lack of grasp about ground realities it betrays. That a former chief minister, a serving union minister and head of a party that rules Jammu and Kashmir should deem this as a matter of top priority in a place like Kashmir springs an ugly surprise. It requires both a sense of the present and the history of Abdullahs to grasp the foolishness of what senior Abdullah indeed said on his father’s birth anniversary.
Forgiving him for his follies of his very remote past, of days of his motorcycle rides with film stars and his Disco image, let’s start at the fresh beginning he made about a decade and a half back when he was re-crowned as the Crown Prince after winning an election with absolute majority. His first tears, at the swearing-in ceremony, were shed for Indian security agencies fighting insurgency. His first real contribution, joining hands with BJP led NDA government, the first real toast to his dad, who fought all his life the Sangh Parivar and its influence. His second major contribution was introducing his son via backdoor into the Indian political map, not of Kashmir. The son, of course, never let his father down, by sticking on loyally with BJP, as per his father’s honourable word to the party, remaining a faithful minister in its government even as the Gujarat carnage went on shocking everybody including Kashmiris to the hilt. Unlike the father, however, son Omar had a belated realisation, sadly only after he was ousted out of power, both from centre and the state, and was belatedly quick in tendering an apology and being man enough to condemn, after two years, what happened in Gujarat.
In power, Omar or Farooq, they rarely ever have wasted much words for expressing sympathy with the people, caught in the crucible of a complex and military conflict, hit badly both physically and psychologically. But they have oodles of ideas about how they can keep the incoming tourists happy or how they can boost the morale of the security personnel, neither of whom are their subjects. Last year, when 130 youth were gunned down during a period of five months of street protests, the younger Abdullah had genuine lines of worries on his forehead, his concern: the sagging tourism, or at best the education of children, whose safety or psychological health was not something he needed to deal with as chief minister of the state.
Even now, when locals continue to brave unpredictable curfews, crackdowns, arrests, torture, fake encounters and other kinds of influences of heavy militarism, when voices for justice – whether it is in seeking human rights or basic amenities like paani, sadak, bijli - remain stonewalled, the merry Abdullahs feel that all will be well with either their cacophony of Rap performance on AFSPA or with more happy and high spirited tourists coming to the Valley. And this is what makes Farooq Abdullah’s words so tragic. They betray a complete indifference and apathy for the major issues that bog the people of Kashmir and an exaggerated concern for the things that even tourists may deem trivial.
This issue, however, should not merit much brouhaha, and should only galvanize our ticklish bone, keeping us amused with a son’s toast at the mazar of the Lion of Kashmir. Cinema or no cinema, we already have the entertainer Abdullahs to quench our thirst for entertainment and ensure that our sense of humour doesn’t perish in an unpredictable world, where life remains too vulnerable, so that the wittiest, if not the fittest, may survive in the end. Atleast, the ‘ungrateful’ Kashmiris, opposing liquor bars and cinema halls, can be gracious enough to thanks him for that!