Kashmir: The Religious Landscape

Alexander Evans, a Research Associate at King's College London, is a regular commentator on Kashmir for BBC World Television, Reuters, AFP, and others, and is the author of numerous articles on contemporary politics in Jammu and Kashmir.

What, if anything, is belief-based about the Kashmir conflict? Many people suggest that Hindus and Muslims are exploiting religion, but that the issue is basically a political one.

My own view is that most of the conflict in Kashmir is actually a conflict over real estate and over symbolism, and religion doesn't play a great part in it. But that's probably unfair for me to say in totality because the only people who have been fighting Indian rule have been Muslims.

Obviously the temple situation is an issue in India as a whole. In one case, Hindu nationalists are insisting that a temple be built on the site of a mosque that was razed during Hindu-Muslim riots. Do shrines or sacred spaces play a role in Kashmir specifically?

Kashmir has always had a fairly good track record of Hindu-Muslim relations, particularly in the fabled Kashmir valley, the beautiful part of the state. Muslims will, in a sense, often engage in Hindu practices. Examples relate to marriage ceremonies, where they do the same things Hindus do. They're cultural things, not necessarily things that would indicate a willingness to embrace Hinduism as a whole.

Many Hindus also attend Muslim shrines, such as the Sufi shrines in Kashmir, like Chrar-i-Sharif. Particular forms of Islam have emerged in the last few hundred years in the Kashmir valley that are quite syncretic, and that many people of a fundamentalist persuasion would describe as heretical. Those traditions have survived even through violence. You still see Hindu families visiting Muslim shrines, and Muslims engaging in activities that would not be considered orthodox for Muslims.

Hindu nationalists see the temple-mosque issues as an affront to the Hindu integrity of India. There's been a sustained campaign by Hindu nationalists going back to 1950s arguing that Muslims have sought to undermine Hindu India--with its strong roots, old roots. They see the activity of militants in Kashmir as one sign of that attempt to undo India. It's not a very accurate perception, but it's very powerful.

Do the two groups hold any saints in common?

Yes. For example, there's a woman saint called Lalla-Ded. Again, it's not orthodox behavior. The group would be considered modernizing Muslims, and equally a group of modernizing Hindus would reject this behavior. They'd consider it inaccurate, a corruption of religion.

Recently there was a news report of Kashmiri Muslims joining Kashmiri Hindus in praying for peace.

It's quite possible. Sometimes people want to eulogize [shared Hindu-Muslim traditions] and turn it into a parable about how great relations are between the two different communities. One has to be careful, because it isn't that great and things deteriorated quite rapidly in the 1990s.

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