Greater Kashmir, JK’s largest circulatedand most influential newspaper carried a story yesterday, “Abdullahs, AltafBukhari, PDP, Congress, JKPM greet people on Ramadhan” on one of the insidepages. Given the importance of Ramadhan in the religious life, especially inthe valley, a story on the local political leaders greeting the people on thestart of the holy month of Ramadhan is an important story.
By any standards of newsworthiness, itshould have been on the front page. But by carrying it on the inside page whatGK is telling its readers, not in words and visuals but as subtext, is that thelocal political leadership is not so important. To emphasise, this is implicitin the where the story is placed and how it has been treated by the news desk.What the local leadership says doesn’t really matter much, is the underlyingmessage. Not at least for now. It has been placed there for the record, if notas an obligation!
If you see the front page, you will get toread Ramadhan greeting from the Prime Minister; that too as a part of theall-important package announcing the sighting of the moon. Very significant.The newspaper is now telling you, that it is not the greeting per se that isnewsworthy but who greets makes it important. Not to labour the obvious point,this is a reflection of the ground realities in Kashmir; local politicians arenow fringe players. The narrative isdominated by the national leadership.
In the coverage on Ramadhan greetings, thecivil administration is conspicuous by its absence. This tells the reader whorules the roost. But wait. The Divisional Commissioner does find a place on thebottom of page 5! Tucked in the lefthand side corner of the page. It is headlined “Stay home, stay safe”. Thegreeting are buried in the text, almost as an afterthought.
How the headline of the story, “Abdullahs,Altaf Bukhari, PDP, Congress, JKPM greet people on Ramadhan” mixes people andparties is enlightening!
Abdullahs and Altaf Bukhari, though theyrepresent political parties — the old doyen National Conference and the newkid on the block, J&K Apni Party respectively – they are evidently moreimportant than their parties. This is perhaps justified by the fact that whenthe leadership of the mainstream parties was incarcerated, there was not a wimpout a well-rooted party like National Conference. Or for that matter the PDP,which has been given a royal snub in the story.
It might be reasoned, by the news desk thatAbdullahs and Bukhari are the face of their parties; hence the mention in theheadline. Fair enough. In which case is it being suggested that PDP, Congressand J&K People’s Movement are faceless parties? This damning indictment ofall the mainstream parties is probably emanating from the fact that no down theline leadership that has been built over the years. Their rank and file is non-existentin the absence of the leadership. The larger than life leader-centric politicalstructures seem to have cannibalised grass roots political activism. This iswhat is getting reflected in news reportage; the real crisis in the mainstreampolitical parties.
It cannot be without meaning that AltafBukari has been placed right after Abdullahs, arguably the first family ofKashmir! GK news desk seems to suggest that he is in their league now. Has hereplaced someone one else? That is for the readers to guess!
This prominence is reinforced byphotographs used. Only three mug shots have been used in the story. No prizesfor guessing who those three are. Thatsums up the story that GK is telling its readers.
Now, it is also interesting what GK is nottelling its readers. GK hasn’t carried the greeting of the Lieutenant GovernorGirish Murmu. Nor does, for that matter,any other newspaper. This is strange. It seems to suggest that the LG forgot orchose not to wish on the eve of Ramadhan. Either way it is a story which shouldhave been done.
Nor have his Advisors wished the people. Nogreetings from them too? Is there a reason? Past precedent would suggest thatthe head of the state, who is also the head of the government right now shouldhave wished the people. This is routine.
The way the system works is that the PROreleases the standard template of greeting without really even seekingapproval. So more than anything else, what the absence of a greeting from theLG and his team of advisors shows is the indifference of the presentadministrative setup, in particular the information department.
Even the pretence of respecting peoples’ sensibilities has been done away with. In a way this is good. As I write this, the “LG has wished the people on the commencement of the holy month of Ramadhan”. But as the popular saying in Kashmiris goes, “Eid Salam chae eid dohai shubaan”!.
To wish people on the eve of Ramadhan in aMuslim majority state is neither political appeasement not is it tantamount tovote bank politics. It is about sensibility and sensitivity. It is just commoncourtesy. At best a social outreach, not a political concession. Not doing so,is to shun a decades old government tradition.
True, that iftaar parties are politicalstunts. Those get-togethers are nothing more than annual tokenism for acommunity that in reality has been excluded from the development agenda of thecountry for the last 70 years. But a greeting is just an acknowledgment oftheir presence; an indicator, howsoever illusory, of acceptance andacceptability, by and within the echelons of power.
May be this is also for the better; it willput the relationship between government and people on a real keel. Theblind-siding that the greeting and parties would do will now be over. Theonly flip side is that with such an attitude, religious fault lines which arebecoming wide, will now become wide open.
Tail piece:
Growing up in Srinagar in the 1960s and70s, I don’t recollect people greeting each other with Ramzan Mubarak on theeve of “mah-i-ramazan”, as it was called then. Or for that matter with a “chandmubarak” on sighting the moon. From what I remember of it, it was a veryprivate and personal matter. A spiritual time of reflection and repentance andnot a community affair. The only community practice was the tarawih prayers.What I also do remember very vividly is how on the last few days, starting withthe “aekher jumah”, people would actually cry that “mah-i-ramzan” is gettingover! This I have not seen elsewhere.
As such, I must confess that I used to findthis “Ramadhan Mubarak” and “Ramadhan Kareem” very alien. I felt this importfrom outside was contrary to our culture. But then you see how the dynamics of mixed culturesand globalization have interacted with Islamic beliefs, rituals and behavioursall over the world. In many Islamic societies, these have been modified so thatlocal rituals fit with modern milieu and values. Even Ramadhan has beenreinvented, modified and reinterpreted, largely in the consumerist marketplace.All this is not tantamount to an act of cultural imperialism nor even aninstance of post-modem disorder. These are just new and evolving expressions ofexisting practices.