SUFIANA MUSIC OF KASHMIR
"The longstanding US position on Kashmir is that the whole of the former princely state is disputed territory. The whole issue must be resolved through negotiations between India and Pakistan, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people,"
[US Congressional Research Service (CRS)]
[US Congressional Research Service (CRS)]
If there is a paradise on earth it is this, it is this, it is this
Asked, as the seventeenth century Mughal Emperor Jahangir was; on breathing his last,
his wont with a sigh; said he, Kashmir and nothing else; is what I want!
his wont with a sigh; said he, Kashmir and nothing else; is what I want!
In the Vale of Kashmir the Indian Army reinforced the existing security police, notably the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), in imposing an increasingly severe regime of curfews and the usual measures of house searches, arbitrary arrests and retaliatory punishment of civil population, accompanied by rapes and looting common in such situations, as well as, the punitive destruction of houses, indeed of entire neighbourhoods.....an Indian military occupation of a conquered land.
[Alastair Lamb,(Kashmir, A Disputed Legacy, Page 338)]
[Alastair Lamb,(Kashmir, A Disputed Legacy, Page 338)]
One morning of Dec-Jan 1990, notorious Indian CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) knock at the door of Abdul Ahad Bhat of Batmaloo, Srinagar and demand the TV set to watch their favourite program "Ramayana". The lady of the house opens the door to find uniformed armed infantry men staring at her with the demand and the next minute she collapses and is rushed to the hospital to be declared dead. This can only happen in "incredible India" the land of practicing "Ahimsa".
Josef M. Pacholczyk in his book
The classical music of Kashmir writes: "In the 20th century social, political and economic changes in Kashmir have weakened the vitality of the sufiana musiqi traditions. In spite of many attempts on the part of Kashmir cultural institutions to revitalize it, sufiana musiqi is in a severe decline and its future seems uncertain."
Trifurcation of the State, following decades old Dixon Plan, some believe, can provide a lasting peace and a final solution to the vexed problem of Kashmir. India managed to do a huge damage to the very fabric of communal harmony and succeeded in dividing people sowing the seeds of regionalism. Kashmir has a long history of toleration, togetherness and hospitality irrespective of cast, colour or creed. Due to a different colour, language, features and culture; India found it difficult to change the demographic character of the valley and that is the reason India finally, in frustration, resorted to use of brute force to subjugate the people by hook or by crook. In the last twenty two years more than one hundred thousand people have been killed mercilessly, hundreds of women raped, thousands disappeared perished in Indian torture chambers and millions worth of property razed out of vengeance.