Musical Jihad? What an idea Sir ji!

Dr Omar Akhtar
“But there are, among men, those who purchase idle tales, without knowledge (or meaning), to mislead (men) from the path of Allah and throw ridicule (on the path). For such there will be a humiliating penalty.” Holy Qur’an, XXXI:6 (Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 1936) The Institute of Kashmir Studies (IKS) started with a bang, or so we are made to believe. The rock star, Dr Salman Ahmed, of Junoon, the Pakistani rock band of ‘Sayonee’ fame, came to Kashmir, to appeal to our better senses. He mentioned, quite laconically, an appeal to the militants waging an armed struggle, to leave their weapons and join him in his ‘Musical Jihad.’ Great Idea! Obviously, Dr Salman Ahmed has a cluttered mind, filled with pointless thoughts and unfounded ideas. Ideas which have neither logical basis, nor religious sanction. The very term, ‘Musical Jihad,’ has an element of sarcasm, contradiction, and pun in its structure. How can Jihad be musical, when Jihad is a struggle against the temptations of Shaytaan, one of which is music? What exactly was Dr Salman trying to tell the youth of Kashmir, who apparently swung to his beat for two hours, and held the whole programme up to listen to him again and again?
No doubt, Kashmiri youth lack the icons, stars, and heroes that many other lands possess, but that is because many of the true heroes are buried six feet under and the people above the ground cannot care less for them. Adolescent psychology, which Dr Salman Ahmed must have studied in his medical college days when he was free from his musicalpursuits, teaches us that youth tend to identify with, and look up to, certain famous people as their ideals and model themselves on their lines. Almost 90% of youth tend to identify themselves with a group.
(Palmonari,1989). Exactly what ideal does Dr Salman set for the youth of Kashmir, and what different set of ideals does he offer to them? Or for that matter, as a general symptom of the pervasive anti-Islam malaise that has set in Kashmiri society, do any of the youth of Kashmir have a true Kashmiri Muslim icon on whom they can model themselves and look up to as their ideal?
Exactly what was Dr Salman trying to tell the Kashmiris?
Give up weapons. Don’t fight a useless war. Let’s sing and dance together and everything will be alright. Come join me, I’ll take you to heaven, where we’ll taste the fruits of our Musical Jihad. My Musical Jihad is better than your violent Jihad, because, you see, I can make all your politicians dance to my tune, and listen to my voice, while you are raising hell and killing each other, and they are still not listening to you. Great Ideas. Except that Dr Salman forgot something. He forgot that this Jihad is not only about Kashmiris who have taken to violence as a means of achieving their goals of an independent, Islamic nation. It is also about removing the filth, dirt, and vice on our land, that is being actively spread by the powers that be in Delhi, and encouraged by inept rulers who do not fear Allah. The Jihad in Kashmir, was also a Jihad against the temptations of Shaytaan. (Have we forgotten the way in which cinemas and bars were shut down and burnt?) By being part of a group of performers who performed for an audience of famous leaders, politicians, and socialites, Dr Salman has voluntarily or involuntarily, become an active participant and important policy tool in the policy of the Indian Central Government to work against the interests of the Kashmiri youth. If you control the youth of the nation, you control the future of the nation, you control the future army of the nation, and you have the future loyalty of the nation. After Dr Salman’s performance, where do you think the loyalties of the Kashmiri youth lie?
The war in Kashmir is not only a war of a few people against a mighty army, it is not a war for land, people, or oil. It is a war of ideas. On the one hand, the idea of a Kashmiri Islamic nation. And on the other hand, the concept of India, the world’s “largest democracy.”
The Islamic nation offers its residents perpetual peace, comfort and the rule of the law of Allah, a place where women are safe, respected members of society, where adolescent boys spend their time delving on religion, sports, and sciences, where old men are looked after and looked up to, where people are forced to live an honest existence, and where, most of all, there is social accountability. In an Islamic nation, one dreams not for one’s own self, but for the whole community, one struggles not for one’s own self, but for the whole community. The idea of an Islamic nation is that of freedom, not the freedom that will only mean a change of rulers, but freedom that will fundamentally alter the way people rule themselves.
The model of Indian democracy, is a model of silent murder of social values, where people are carved into political circles, based on caste and creed, and used according to their loyalties, where women are killed before they are born, where adolescents are enjoying the vices of youth in abundance, where people are forced to live a dishonest existence, and where nationhood is gauged by one’s ability to abuse neighbouring countries. In Indian democracy, one dreams for one’s own self, and struggles for one’s own survival. There are positives in the Indian nation too, like the single-minded culture of ‘success at all costs,’ which the Indian environment promotes in its youth, much in contrary to the easy, dishonest, money which many Kashmiri families have laid their hands on. It is this battle for the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people which the Indian government has been waging and it is this single front that Kashmiri leaders need to concentrate their energies (by‘Kashmiri leaders,’ I mean those who have the true interest of Kashmir in their hearts). What happened when Dr Salman was playing was not only a simple musical concert in a land where hundreds of thousands of people once took to the streets demanding Nizam-e-Mustafa,’ it was also symbolic of the victory of the forces against Islam. It was a symbol of defeat of the Kashmiris. If the Kashmiri youth are rocking to a Pakistani rock star in Srinagar, where is the fight?
The Kashmiri youth are should be aware of the tremendous responsibility that is astride their shoulders. It is a responsibility to carry the battle of ideas forward, to its logical conclusion. It is a responsibility to see justice being done for the hundreds and thousands who laid their lives down for an ideal. It is a responsibility to fulfill the commandments of Allah, and establish on this land, the rule of law of Allah. The youth of Kashmir can be above the rest of the world, if they are superior in their ideas, dreams and efforts.
Few nations in this world have been the target of such moral destruction as the Kashmiri nation, and few nations have been bestowed upon by fate such a great responsibility. It is upon the Kashmiri youth to decide whether they want this fight to continue or not, because it is now a battle for their own survival, and the survival for the Kashmiri nation as we know it. It is a choice they will have to make, to either watch the Kashmiri nation melt away into Hell with its goals and ambitions unrealised, or to see the Kashmiri nation stand out in this world as the greatest society the world has known since Madina in the time of the Prophet (SAW)…