Allow Meelad festival

Riyaz Masroor argues that the state should not restrict the festivity as Aurangzeb is no more and Sheikh Abdullah is long dead.

Much like the earliest times when the big towns and cities were central to the public life for being sacred or religious, Kashmir and its urban centers have all along been wearing mystical aura.
Eid-e-Meelad – birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) – that is celebrated across the Muslim lands is also an annual reinforcement of Kashmir’s, especially of the Srinagar city’s, spiritual essence.
Shrines of Muslim saints dotting the lengths and breadths of Kashmir are actually the hallmark of our cultural ethos spread over seven centuries. The remains of ancient Buddhist and medieval Hindu period, and of course the Shiv Temples of Kashmiri pandits, adorn this ethos on the frills to make Kashmir a more liberal and tolerant civilization than Gandhi’s India or Jinah’s Pakistan.
Central to this rich heritage has been the most venerated Hazratbal Shrine popularly known as Asar-e-Sharief or Dargah Sharief.
A little peep into history points to an interesting yet significant aspect of Muslim renaissance in Kashmir. The scholars fond of Mughal bashing would come to know that the building which is the most revered shrine today was actually built as Ishrat Mahal (Pleasure House) by Sadiq Khan, subedar of Shah Jahan in 1623. When Shah Jahan came to Kashmir in 1634, he decreed that the Ishrat Mahal be converted to a house of prayer.
Not only this, the Moi-e-Muqadas (the sacred strand of the Prophet’s hair) is also largely believed to have reached Kashmir during the rule of Aurangzeb in 1699.
Over two and a half centuries later Sheikh Abdullah –a Kashmiri Muslim ruler who had grabbed power by readjusting his own convictions in 1947 but lost it to New Delhi’s disease of getting second thoughts on Kashmir – rode on a charged wave, which was created by the mysterious theft of Moi-e-Muqadas, to dethrone his enemy number one : Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad. Few years after the Moi-e-Muqadas was dramatically recovered Sheikh launched a popular movement to rebuild the shrine along the lines of the Masjid-e-Nabvi (Mosque of the Prophet (SAW) in Medina, the promised Arab City where Muhammad (SAW) founded the Islamic state.
Earlier the design resembled the Central Asian religious architecture with a tinge of Buddhist monasteries. Sheikh was, perhaps, trying to reach out to the majority sentiment hence his eagerness to replicate Masjid-e-Nabvi rather than rehashing the existing style.
It took him a decade to accomplish the project and the new shrine complex was dedicated to people at the height of a political transition in entire South Asian region including New Delhi and Islamabad. While the erstwhile USSR was attempting a toehold in Afghanistan Iran was bursting with revolution; India had an uneasy brush with dictatorship under Indira Gandhi that had catapulted the rightists to the center stage and Pakistan was trying to reconcile the slicing of its eastern wing that had become Bangladesh.
Sheikh had been consolidating his popularity through the pulpits of the Hazratbal shrine until he bounced back to power with a reduced title – he was deposed as the Prime Minister of autonomous J&K and reinstated as the Chief Minister.
By the time Kashmiris would realize that Sheikh was concerned with power not the soul they had to be overwhelmed by yet another upheaval. Armed resistance started off in 1989, little over a decade after Sheikh traded his autonomy for power with New Delhi. Had Sheikh had even an inkling of statesmanship he would never accept a curtailed role.
When the armed young men of the hay days of our revolution attempted to replace the erstwhile unrivalled ‘pope’, Sheikh, they too did pull crowds but the magic proved short lived. The shrine was soon in flames, desecrated by the soldiers in 1993 and the purported freedom fighters in 1996.
The love and admiration for Prophet Muhammad (SAW) among Kashmiri population is so much endemic that they have not allowed these bitter memories to kill their enthusiasm, which they frequently display on occasions like Shab-e-Me’araaj or Eid-e-Meelad. They have been swarming around the splendid minarets of this sacred shrine.
For past several years, on this auspicious occasion the state government bans Meelad processions sparking protests and police action against the civilians. This is not just a blind negation to the popular culture, which had been acknowledged by even Mughal aggressors, but also the bad advertisement of government’s claims of being guided by secular ideals.
Mughals have ruled India longer than British; they have conquered India with scarcer resources than British. If this inherent Indian complex has crept into the minds of those handling J&K, it is unfortunate.
People in Kahsmir neither remember Aurangzeb nor Sheikh Abdullah; if something is indelibly etched in their hearts and minds it is the reverence and admiration for the beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW).
It seems that out of their prejudice toward Aurangzeb handlers of Kashmir policy have been winking at the J&K government to regulate and restrict the Meelad festivity. If it is so, it is really strange. They must understand that even in the neocolonialism it is the market and not the ideology that sustains an occupation. They must also be acutely conscious of the fact that masses are not sharp enough to discern that New Delhi or its mouthpieces in Srinagar have some ideological problem with Aurangzeb. And there are always vested interests that leave no chance to exploit the sentiments. Remember there is no B N Mulik around to douse the fires.
The government would do well by restoring the festive glory of Hazratbal Shrine. If there is no problem in subjecting the state’s precious resources at disposal for Amaranth Yatra there should be no inhibition in promoting Meelad festival, which should last longer to serve as a spiritual therapy for the bruised populace.


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