Kashmir is in grip of Cultural Aggression

Be it Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam no religion promotes the vulgarity that we are witnessing in today’s Kashmir. This is all cultural aggression

Tuesday December 24, 2024 3:11 PM, Raqif Makhdoomi

[International Pheran Day celebration in Srinagar on December 21. (Image: X)]

Kashmir is witnessing an unprecedented rise in musical and dance programs. These programs are labeled as “cultural” events. But these events have nothing that actually represent or reflect the culture of Kashmir.

A female dancing in-front of a huge crowed has never been the culture of Kashmir. Kashmir is known for its modesty but whatever happening in these events is nothing but “Cultural Aggression”, about which these so-called and self-acclaimed “Activists” don’t talk about.

To put it perfectly, these so called activists don’t know about our culture, leave alone the concept of “Cultural Aggression”. These self-proclaimed activists need are just eager to speak to media and get some publicity.

What’s Culture

It’s a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitude, and habits of the individuals in these groups.

Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies.

What’s Cultural Aggression

What is cultural aggression? The English synonym for culture is culture which comes from Latin colere which means agriculture or cultivation.

The word Bengali culture comes from reformation, which means to remove the faults and defects of a thing and to purify it properly. Economics is everyone's culture. People hold and taste it so its culture. Different countries have different cultures. Differences in culture occur from time to time.

The English equivalent of aggression is aggression which means attack without provocation. Aggression is the act of forcing or occupying something unjustly or unjustly.

Cultural aggression therefore means forcibly consuming, controlling or destroying a culture.

We can call it cultural aggression when a single culture of a country seeks to dominate by destroying other cultures and takes the place of another culture.

Cultural aggression is called cultural imperialism.

History of Cultural Aggression

The cultural aggression did not come suddenly. This type comes from the idea of capitalism. From the feudal society when people enter the capitalist social system. Then the capitalists thought.

Puji will not develop if everyone does not follow their culture. Because to think like them, to be consumerist like them. Different festivals have to be made product festivals, everything has to be left to the private sector for market growth. He has to hate his own culture and think that the culture of capitalists and imperialists is the best.

The cultural aggression is consumer centric, and starts mainly to increase the buyers of the products. And they have used the media, especially television, film, fashion, literature, books, newspapers, magazines, music, as tools for cultural aggression.

And in order to overcome this, they have used their subordinate non-governmental organizations (NGOs), various multinational companies for various purposes in the name of information technology, developmental activities.

It must be noted that most of the things happening today are nothing but causes of cultural aggression. Cultural aggression plays a big role in creating social problems. Divorce, distrust of family, free sex, homosexuality are all problems that come from the West. They have created these problems in the world.

We in Kashmir can’t claim that we aren’t victims of the aggression. Divorces have become a norm, distrust is almost in every family, free sex in Kashmir is no hidden reality. We almost every day come across an adult video regarding Kashmir.

The sense of shame has been taken away by the aggression we are facing.

And regarding homosexuality, we are sitting on a time bomb which will blast anytime. Things have started to happen in private, it’s just a matter of time before it happens in Kashmir just like it happens elsewhere.

What’s Kashmiri Culture

The culture of Kashmir encompasses the spoken language, written literature, cuisine, architecture, traditions, and history of the Kashmiri people native to the northern part of the Indian subcontinent.

The culture of Kashmir has been influenced by the Persian as well as Central Asian cultures after the Islamic rule of Kashmir. The Kashmiri culture is also influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and later by Islam.

Be it Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam no religion promotes the vulgarity that we are witnessing in today’s Kashmir. This is all cultural aggression. No religion or any race or culture promotes the vulgarity that we are witnessing today.

The whole of Kashmir has always been home to modesty but now the vulgarity has taken over Kashmir. The land of Sufis is now the land of vulgarity.

Unfortunately we have taken vulgarity as new normal, but remember this is just aggression and we don’t have to normalize it.

Aggression in the Name of Pheren Day

The Kashmir nowadays is witnessing aggression in the of “Pheren Day”.

The event of Pheren Day came under criticism when the “Models” walking on ramp without Pheren.

The organizers of the event speaking to media cleared the air about it saying we were just taking the audition and has nothing to with the main event.

The events having music and dance must be out-rightly called as aggression because both have nothing to with Kashmir culture.

A recent aggression that made people angry on social media is the video that has gone viral. An event organized in the name of “Pheren” had no Pheren included. A boy and a girl performing on stage is now, very sadly, culture in Kashmir.

People behind it are trying to normalize it in Kashmir and to a very large extend they have been able to do it. This despite meeting with huge criticism.

The basic target of any enemy is the youth, and this is happening in Kashmir.

The unfortunate thing is that, the organizers and the facilitators are the native Kashmiris. For the sake of money, they encourage girls to dance in front of unknown men in so called cultural programs.

The valley is doomed.

Vulgarity is seen as modernization and following religion is seen as backwardness.

If you have to destroy any nation without a war, make adultery and nudity common in the young generation - Salahuddin al-Ayyubi

Conclusion

Protection of culture doesn’t need events where vulgarity is at display. It needs awareness. The basic thing that is important in protecting any culture is the language spoken by the natives.

But, our Kashmiri language is being buried under soil each passing day.

Languages play a very important role in preserving culture of any nation. These so called cultural events won’t yield anything other than vulgarity.

[The writer, Raqif Makhdoomi, is a law student and a rights activist. Views are personal.]

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