Geelani, Andrabi oppose Gulmarg NY events as ‘cultural aggression’
scribing the New Year celebrations as an act of “cultural aggression” aimed to disconnect Kashmiris from religion, society and its rich heritage, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and another separatist Asiya Andrabi on Tuesday asked the Kashmiri people to stay away from year-end festivities.
The separatists were reacting to Jammu & Kashmir tourism department’s programme of taking a musical event to Gulmarg on December 31st. A Bollywood musical fest ‘Rooh-e-Saaz’ is being organized to kick off the New Year 2016, with some popular voices from the film industry chipping in.
The event itself has been planned to attract more tourists to Kashmir which faced a bad 2015 courtesy last year’s floods and its aftermath, said tourism secretary Farooq Shah.
Geelani appealed to the people, especially the youth, to uphold their religious, cultural and moral values and not show a “slavish mindset”.
In a statement to the press, Geelani said Western culture is “now a rejected culture and the people of New York and Washington too are fed up with the vulgar and horrific actions of this culture”. This so-called modern civilization, Geelani said, has destroyed social organization and reduced human beings to the level of animals.
Geelani said despite centuries of slavery, the Kashmiri nation has always upheld its rich cultural tradition and behaved like a civilized society.
Asyia Andrabi, chairperson of Dukhtaran-e-Millat, said New Year celebrations are being organised under an agenda devised by the RSS to thrust upon Kashmir the “shameless and lewd culture of India”.
“This programme is being sponsored by few Urdu and English dailies and TV channels. In this programme, in the name of art, music and comedy, shameless actors of Bollywood have been invited. These events are being branded as Kashmiriyat,” Andrabi said.
“In a clear attempt to counter the Islamic ideology of Kashmiris, the real culture of Kashmir is related to Islam and it has no place to celebrate events like New Year. These events can be important for the Brahman culture but they don’t have any connection with Islam,” she added.
Wajahat Rafiq, associated with the fest, said, “Our intention is to spread a positive message to the people of Kashmir and revive our economy, which is tourism. After 2014 floods, tourism suffered and we’re making every effort to get it back on track. Such events in the future could give a tremendous boost to jobs for the youth, who’ve always been keenly interested in music.”
