Moharram processions stopped with day one of militancy in Kashmir

Srinagar: Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed on behalf of a religious organisation of Kashmir's Shia Muslims on Wednesday, a Division Bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has on Wednesday directed the Union Territory government to consider the demand of permission to the traditional Moharram processions in the valley, particularly those taken out on 8th and 10th of the month of mourning in the capital city of Srinagar.
However, the DB has expressed its inability to assess the law and order and security situation which in no way could be ignored or compromised while allowing a massive religious procession in a territory devastated by violence, gun culture and insurgency for over three decades. The DB has rightly left this job of the assessment of situation to the government's Police, security and intelligence paraphernalia.
Since the DB has tagged the matter as urgent in view of the month of Moharram having already commenced and the government, through Principal Secretary Home, has been directed to take a decision in the next three days -- before Saturday evening -- authorities are believed to have started their exercise. Until a decision is taken at the highest level, nobody knows whether the traditional Moharram processions would resume this month or remain suspended continuously.
This year's Moharram has fallen between the Kashmiri calendar's crucial dates of 5th and 15th August. This is the time when Pakistan's agencies-- at least the rogue elements within them-- could go to any extent to disrupt peace in Kashmir. Pakistan has been proactively playing up across the world that the people of Kashmir have fully rejected the BJP Government's actions of 5 August 2019, including the abrogation of the Article 370 which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. On the same day, the erstwhile State was broken into the separate UTs of J&K and Ladakh.
While New Delhi is asserting that abrogation of Article 370 has been accepted as fait accompli by the people in Jammu and Kashmir, Islamabad has dismissed it as "Indian aggression" and claimed through the international media and diplomacy that none of the August 2019 interventions was acceptable to the Kashmiris. While India's stake is in calm and peace, Pakistan's interest is obviously in turmoil and turbulence. Because of this, the authorities imposed restrictions on the people's movement and suspended internet for several months after 5 August 2019.
In the last three years, authorities have succeeded to gain complete control on the situation as there has been no major incident of violence, clashes or stone pelting.
The Indian Independence Day of 15th August has been the year's most crucial date in Kashmir after the eruption of insurgency in 1989. Until 2019, separatists and militants used to enforce total shutdown in the valley on this day. They used to call it "Kashmir's voluntary protest against the Indian military occupation".
Now it is for the authorities to assess whether that old era of turbulence had been upended permanently or there were apprehensions of a fresh trouble in a mass congregation.
Taking out religious processions in the entire Kashmir valley was a routine till 1989 when curfew was imposed and the Moharram processions were banned after the Pakistani military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq's death in a plane crash. Outbreak of insurgency on a large scale made these processions impossible in 1990 and thereafter.
On 8th of Moharram, Kashmir's biggest Alam procession used to originate at Guruvazar Shaheed Gunj. It used to pass through Maulana Azad Road and end in the evening at Dalgate.
The State's largest Zuljanah procession used to begin on Ashura, the 10th of Moharram, at Abi Guzar near Lalchowk. It would pass through the narrow lanes and streets of downtown Srinagar and culminate into Majlisi Sham-e-Gareebaan at the historic Imambara of Zadibal.
Both these major processions have remained suspended in the last 33 years, even as some alternative routes have been adopted and all other Moharram processions are being allowed as usual in Srinagar and across the valley.
Now that the government has been claiming credit for peace and asserting that the people of Kashmir have dumped the era of violence and turmoil, many in the valley are hopeful of the restoration of all religious processions, including the Moharram processions, in the near future if not this month.

Updated On 8/6/2022 11:56:20 AM

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