Good Music At Wrong Time

Germany’s diplomatic initiative to use a grand cultural event in Kashmir as a decisive sign of solidarity with its emerging strategic and economic partner India, while maintaining its official position on the state as ‘disputed territory’  is a good move at a bad time, writes Padma Rao Sundarji.

To anyone organising an event of this scale, the mood on the ground should have been the only indicator. But it was not heeded. There’s no point force-feeding music to disgruntled people

On Saturday, Mumbai-born conductor Zubin Mehta is to perform in Srinagar with a 100-man team of Munich’s Bavarian State Orchestra. They will be flown in by special aircraft, stay, in all likelihood, in one of Srinagar’s two five-star hotels, and leave the morning after. That, in itself, is not going to devastate budgets, neither in recessive India nor in recuperating Germany. Big business names ranging from BMW to Reliance Industries to the Tata Group, to Deutsche Bank and Lufthansa are backing the event sponsored by the German foreign ministry and supported by New Delhi and Srinagar. It is not known on what basis the selection of the guests at the invitees-only concert was made (no green-eyed rant, this author is invited but can’t go) but by early September, 1,500 large cards announcing Ehsas-e-Kashmir had been sent out across the globe. It must be assumed that most are personal and business affiliates of the German embassy in New Delhi.

About three years ago and for the first time in decades, the Valley wore a fresh face. Tourist arrivals had broken records, infiltration was down, the State economy was up, curfews were relaxed and some Army bunkers were withdrawn from urban areas. It seemed as though Kashmiris finally had a reprieve to breathe, think, re-gather and plan for their lives and livelihoods. That would have been the perfect time for a concert by Zubin Mehta. It would have been lauded by music-loving Kashmiris and gone largely unnoticed by serial protestors.

Today, Army commanders on the Line of Control, security officials within the valley and sources in the Ministry for Home Affairs in New Delhi confirm increased infiltration from Pakistan, crackling tension since the killing of Indian troops and the resurgence, if still low-key, of terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba within the valley. 

To protest the Zubin Mehta concert on Saturday, hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani has called for a general strike. The Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Union has opposed the event as also has Kashmir’s Coalition of Civil Society. Indeed, the last is to organise a protest concert, Haqeeqat-e-Kashmir (the Reality of Kashmir) just hours ahead of the Mehta show. Outfits linked to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen have threatened strikes.

To anyone organising an event of this scale, the mood on the ground should have been the only indicator. But it was not heeded. Given India’s muscle-power and the formidable build-up of security in the valley, the concert will be held of course. But it raises several important questions.

What’s in it for Germany? 

Last year in Delhi, after a relaxing vacation, Zubin Mehta had declared that one day, he would love to perform there. But, of course, it would be silly to assume that Berlin is merely and fondly fulfilling his dream by holding the concert.

India-Germany trade relations could be an acceptable motive. But then, why not a venue less controversial than Kashmir, like, say the Taj by moonlight? The truth is, it is the political frisson that accompanies anything associated with Kashmir, that determined the venue.

Officially, both Germany and the European Union view Kashmir as the last and most dangerous ‘nuclear flashpoint’ in the world. But an ambassador is the official representative of his country in another. So is not the choice of Kashmir a tacit acceptance of the State of Jammu & Kashmir as a sovereign part of India by the Federal Republic of Germany? And does not that, logically, mean, that the routine references to Kashmir (by the German Foreign Office as well as the European Union, both champions at decrying the global abuse of human rights, not to mention the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other UN commissions strewn across Europe) as ‘disputed territory’, to the UN resolution of 1947, etc are mere lip-service?

According to the German Ambassador to India, Mr Michael Steiner’s, Press release last month, the Zubin Mehta concert is “for the people of Kashmir”. The truth is, that barbed wire and road blocks will keep ‘the people of Kashmir’ at least nine kilometers away from the venue of the concert. There is no explanation for why a second, ticketed concert with heavily subsidised tickets —or even a free one, if embassies are not allowed to hold ticketed events — could not have been held for the ‘people of Kashmir’. It is a small mercy that the organisers have not lamely hidden behind ‘a lack of funds’ as an excuse for that lacuna. Nor indeed, ‘security concerns’, because that would immediately red-flag the fact that Srinagar is far from the idyllic paradise that the telecast will convey to millions around the world.

In a manner reminiscent of the wife of Louis XIV directing the hungry to ‘eat cake instead’, supporters of the concert eagerly point out that all Kashmiris can watch the live telecast.

There is trouble in paradise: Tension and disgruntlement once again prevail in Kashmir. A beautiful evening of classical music could have been a diplomatic masterstroke. But when the last strains of Haydn by the moonlit lake have died out, the last of the parachuting VIPs have left and the first road barriers lifted to let Srinagar’s seething, weary citizens return to their daily routine, its awkward timing and not the music, is what will stick in memory. -Courtesy Pioneer

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