Backlash in Kashmir over proposal for uniform Friday sermons across mosques

Political and religious critics accuse India’s Modi government of curbing Kashmir’s freedom of religion and expression. Save Share A proposed move by the Waqf Board in Indian-administered Kashmir to introduce uniform Friday sermons at mosques across the region has drawn backlash from politicians and religious leaders, who have accused the government of trying to assert control over Muslim religious spaces. The Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board is headed by Darakshan Andrabi, a local leader associated with the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government stripped the region of its previous semi-autonomous status in 2019. Jammu and Kashmir was also partitioned into two federally governed territories, instead of functioning as a full-fledged state as it used to. The board, which oversees Muslim religious endowments as mandated by Islamic laws, announced the controversial move last weekend, prompting a political controversy as the region’s top Muslim scholars slammed the proposal as “irresponsible interference into the religious affairs of Kashmiri Muslims”. While defending the imposition of the uniform sermons, Andrabi told a leading Indian newspaper that a proposed committee formed under the board’s auspices “will be solely responsible for identifying the issue regarding the uniform sermon … [This step] is necessary to deal with issues in the [region], especially social evils, including drug abuse.” Andrabi told the media that religious scholars will approve Friday sermons with no role for any government official in the decision. On Sunday, the Waqf Board had summoned about 1500 top scholars and preachers from the Kashmir region. While some leaders were present at the venue, others from remote areas attended the meeting virtually. A scholar from the mountainous Rajouri district, some 180km (110 miles) from the region’s biggest city of Srinagar, who had attended the meeting online, told Al Jazeera that Andrabi had passed instructions stating that only a pre-approved sermon drafted by a committee of senior-most scholars would be uniformly recited at the mosque pulpits on Fridays. He said they were not told exactly who would be part of this committee....