If not within us then who is the enemy of our state’s development, progress, of the people who are dependent on tourism and pilgrimage?
Whenever some opportunity seems coming to us (the pople of Jammu and Kashmir, especially, Kashmir Valley), we pose threats to them thus blocking our economy and the money which could run many families and help many unemployed youth to earn their livelihood.
The fault is ours own, if not all but few/some from within us are responsible for this. Either they don’t know what they are doing or they deliberately want to keep innocent people in dark by raising slogans suiting their personal interests.
There was a time when majority of the working Kashmiri people were earning from Bollywood shootings and tourism influx, but with spurt of violence and militancy in the state, film Directors and producers resorted to a change in their plans, preferring other destinations and location for shootings, as the investors never liked to confront disturbances.
For a long period, there was a virtual stalemate in Bollywood shootings in Kashmir Valley due to which huge chunk of money that would have been earned by the local Kashmiri people was diverted to other parts of the world. But as the peace started returning, efforts are afoot to invite the Bollywood into Kashmir once again to boost the industry taking on the process of shooting here. But ironically, some sections have started creating obstacles thus disallowing economy to become stable.
Relevent to mention here that a day after the State Tourism Department of Jammu and Kashmir asked Bollywood to project Kashmir as a safe destination by shooting films in the Valley, the Chairperson of Dukhtar-e-Millat, Sayeed Aasiya Andrabi termed it as an attempt to dilute the long-standing Kashmir dispute. Aasiya even threatened to launch a campaign against the move soon. She opined that New Delhi wants to dilute the Kashmir dispute by facilitating the shooting of films, to project the Valley as a safe destination.
Worthwhile to mention here, that Aasiya had last month served a legal notice to Rahul Dholakia, director of the film on Kashmir, ‘Lamhaa’, for allegedly portraying her character on which film stars; leading Bollywood actors, Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu, Anupam Kher and Kunal Kapoor, the entire film unit was forced to pack.
According to her the situation in Kashmir was similar to that in the early 90’s and said "How can we allow Bollywood stars to dance on the graves of our youth? We won’t allow anybody to overshadow the sacrifices of Kashmiris. I am going to launch a valley-wide campaign against any such move, and will also seek response from our Ulemas on this serious issue," she added.
But did she ever think of those who die daily if not physically but mentally and emotionally due to hunger, unemployment and their struggle for livelihood?
Never, why she should do so? She might be right at her place as she is saying that promotion of obscenity through the shooting of films and entertainment programs will affect our culture here. But she should not forget that Bollywood can help in promoting the Kashmiri culture which will help in worldwide propagation and will call the attention of world community.
She also dismissed government’s claim that shooting of films would create employment avenues. As she is of the view that to tackle unemployment, industries should be opened, one should ask what type of industry she is talking about. Is their any doubt in it that Film industry is a leading industry of the country and has potential to accommodate and employ thousands of people in out state and project their talent and potential?