The Obscurantist Fate of GB!
Musataf Kamal
Two recent incidents in Ghizer district of GB should open our eyes. Our society is rapidly losing the good sense it had and now some of the unemployed frustrated youth have taken it as their ‘moral, ethical and religious duty’ to fix the society and protecting it from the “filthy influence of Judo-Christian and Indian culture”. Ironically, both incidents took place in the headquarter of the district, Gahkuch, where all the top heads of our bureaucracy are based.
The first incident took place when Building and Construction Improvement Program (BACIP), an initiative of the Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, was holding a rally to commemorate the ‘World Environment Day’. A gang of frustrated and unemployed youth appeared in the market to halt the procession and beat the organizers of the event. Their objection was that there culture was being polluted by mixing the opposite sexes, i.e. by bringing women in rallies the organizers had put their honor at greatest danger and stake.
Our culture is not in danger with all other bad practices like bribery in teacher recruiting process, highly paid bucks to the PWD officials for getting special electricity line, mass hunting of trout fish in the valleys of Phandar and Khalti lake to be presented to DHO, RE, SSP and DC sitting in Gahkuch as a gift and bribe for lower scale posts. But whenever the women and men get together to celebrate any event; the culture lost its value, its grace and its uniqueness. Pity on the youth and all those praising their stupidity on social
media.
It is how that youth are treating the issues now. Ironically, the name of the platform to which these youth belong is Town Youth Development Group. It is not at all a suitable name for such gangsters as development and violence have two opposite manifestations.
Reportedly, the second event was manhandling of a poet of Shina language, his crime being negation and condemnation of pseudo-scholars through his songs dedicated to peace, coexistence and harmony in the region. This time the attackers were, reportedly, from a religious seminary. They felt “offended” by some words in the song, in which the poet-singer had used the term “Banawati Aalim/Artificial Scholar”, asking him/her to not issue hateful fatwas.
We have more than enough of religiosity when our Mard-e Momin, Zia-ul Haq came to the power in Pakistan. But what is next? Killing Ustad Jan Ali for his peace songs, or beheading Malangi for his philosophical and mystical ghazals or excavating the graveyard of Khalifa Rehmat Malang for his mockery of seminaries and clergies?
Renowned Columnist of Dawn and the author of Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West, Irfan Husain is of opinion that “over the last quarter century, since Zia seized power, extremism has come to permeate every facet of society. In homes, schools, madressahs, offices, courts and TV studios, shrill and often violent manifestations of religiosity have taken hold. It seems that zealotry has taken the country by the jugular.”
Same is true for GB, where after Zia’s (un)holy power regime, we are continuously at the verge of sectarian strife.
Our region is gradually turning to be a more obscurantist region. If the state machinery is failed to take strict actions against such miscreants and gung-hoos, everybody everywhere will come out to decide the right and wrong, the honor and dishonor and as a result, we will be left with chaos and destruction only at the end.
i agree with the writer, recently we faced same issues when we planed to organize an event on health and hygiene. i dont think these events creat mess but the ignorance and gredy nature of persons make problems for the society. where wrere these guys /thekadars when an inocent girl was mrdered by two boys recently in Gahkuch. Please ask them to educate themseleves.