A Zubin Mehta concert in Kashmir, “though a privilege, cannot be used to further India’s Kashmir narrative”—that’s the common refrain among prominent civil society members here. They were reacting to news of the master conductor’s scheduled performance in Srinagar’s Shalimar Bagh Mughal Gardens, on the banks of the Dal lake, on September 7.
Zubin brings with him one of the best orchestras of the world, the Bavarian State Orchestra from Munich, and as he told Outlook in an exclusive interview last week, will perform Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Haydn before an audience of 1,500 people. The event, ‘Ehsas-e-Kashmir’ (Feelings of Kashmir), sponsored by the German embassy in India, will be watched live in over 50 nations. German ambassador Michael Steiner calls it a “wonderful cultural tribute to Kashmir and its warm-hearted people. We want to reach the hearts of the Kashmiris with a message of hope and encouragement”. He says the concert is apolitical.
Advertisement
However, the event is already mired in politics, and its most vocal opponents—apart from the habitual separatist groups and a self-styled grand mufti—have been from the educated Kashmiri elite. Their reasoning is that it amounts to legitimising Indian rule in Kashmir via a concert and that the event itself is an attempt to portray “normalcy” to the West.
What also appears to have stoked suspicions is the German envoy’s many visits to the Valley (seven this year alone). Journalist Hilal Mir writes in the Greater Kashmir paper: “Mr Steiner, scan the laptops of Kashmiri students and you will find the works of all the geniuses of western classical music there. Why should Germany lend a great musical tradition to the service of (India)? For markets?” The secrecy surrounding the concert’s handpicked invitees list is another bone of contention. “Zubin Mehta is performing in Mumbai also, but the tickets were to be bought over the counter. The Srinagar concert is totally on invitee basis, hence defeats the very purpose of it,” a youth wrote on Facebook.
Advertisement
Many are questioning the concert for entirely different reasons. Says Kashmir’s ex-tourism director-general M. Ashraf, “Zubin Mehta will be playing Beethoven in Shalimar on the banks of the dying Dal. It’s a brilliant idea by our so-called rulers, get Beethoven to sound the death knell of a Dal plagued by pollution.”
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the Hurriyat’s moderate faction, says the funds would have been better spent on a “Kashmir-German friendship hospital” or on education. “Germany has to understand that Kashmir is an active conflict zone,” he says. The hardline Jamaat-e-Islami chose to bring in Mehta’s Israeli connection (he is music-director-for-life of the Israel Philharmonic) and the inevitable “massacre of Palestinians”.
The Omar Abdullah government’s failure to clear the air spiced up the story. Top state functionaries distanced themselves from the event. Tourism director Talat Parvez, whose department is event partner, even begged off saying “the German embassy is doing everything, right from sending invitations to other arrangements. We aren’t in the loop”.
Amid this cacophony are also some feeble voices in favour of the concert. Says ex-tourism director Saleem Beg, “Zubin and his brother are doing great work with Palestinian children in the occupied territories of Israel. We hope it (the concert) will present the feelings of Kashmir through the medium of music. “How is a Zubin Mehta concert a challenge to the separatist leadership?” asks youngster Tawqeer Hussain. German Carin Jodha Fischer, an activist involved in village development projects here for many years, says “it’s a non-political cultural event”. But then can anything remain non-political in the Valley?