Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Meditations on A. G. Sheikh’s Reflections on Ladakh, Tibet and Central Asia. Literature is essentially about presenting us a world we have lost or we can reclaim; it creates a world that ought to be or that we can imagine. It has often presented Utopias or imagined heavenly perfection in distant or exotic lands. Fairy tales retain such attraction because they present a world somehow we identify with or feel nostalgic about. What if we are told about something that has been the case and that is, to a significant extent, a case and that can be, in a way, accessed, here and now. Ladakh is one such case. Indeed it is a sanctuary of sprit, a preview of heaven, a moral ideal that puts to shame all ideals of material progress, the last bastion of tradition that can revivify the world or at least remind it of what it has forgotten and could arguably reclaim. Abdul Ghani Sheikh has devoted his life to better comprehension of the mystery, beauty and sacrality of the paradise we all have in...

In the light of Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge Tourism can be a scandal. It can lead to destruction of not only land but cultures and sacred traditions It can ultimately create, rather than cure unemployment. It can, especially when unregulated, open up Pandora's box that are not foreseen by planners. This is one of many other important theses of the greatest book written on Ladakh ( Is it not ironic that one of our tourism ministers has been from Ladakh in the past? The sordid side of tourism – in the name of development we can turn sanctuaries of spirit into deserts where even devils would not dare to tread – is not kept in consideration.) The book, that every Kashmiri who is concerned with development discourse, tourism and identity of pir-waer should read, argues quite lucidly and brilliantly many theses that almost all of us would intuitively consent to. . It also argues the importance of Ladakh culture for the world that has severed ties with tradition.  Fir...

Increasing degradation in the value base of Kashmir culture is reflected in its different institutions and customs. The present paper focuses on the institution of marriage and customs associated with it, especially in Muslim community of our Valley, and highlights the divergence between traditional form and present day artificiality, mannerism and corruption of the same. It points towards capitalism as the key culprit in the process of degradation that has converted a great institution that strengthened relationships into a meaningless system of rituals that not only drain our economy but also reflect our moral and spiritual lassitude. The paper also addresses the cause of increasing divorce rate and failure of the great institution in its traditional sense in present day Kashmir. A need to revive the traditional basis of our cultural practices by a critique of existing institutionalized form is emphasized. What is culture and why is culture so important? What are our sacrosanct ...