Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Our underperforming and ill directed economy may be seen both as a cause and symptom of our political ills. Kashmir has failed to integrate with India and it has not failed to long for Pakistan or independence. It has ridiculously bad performance in human development and other important indices. Its underperforming or ill directed economy may be seen both as a cause and symptom of its political ills. It has been weakness for rice that has been, both in symbolic and literal senses, at the centre stage of fight for Kashmir’s political future. Now Kashmir is a disaster in terms of management of natural resources (a huge fraction of them were never even considered for tapping and have been locked for reasons not difficult to fathom), unprecedented employment crisis (too many casual jobs implying casual attitude to future, most of important sectors like agriculture and livestock unorganized, mostly alienation in jobs  and we have mostly jobs that drain us further in the long run imply...

Recalling Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter on J & K PSC Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. (Potter Stewart) When I heard some have been accused and counter-accused of moral failure and failure of wits for both appearing and not appearing in the PSC exam on 6th Feb, I recalled Hawtthorne’s great novel The scarlet Letter ’s heroine Hester Prynne, a young woman, who is found guilty of adultery and a crowd gathers to witness punishment. She is sentenced to wear a scarlet "A" ("A" standing for adulteress) on her dress to shame her. She refuses to lose her dignity on the scaffold. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses. “Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”   Here is brewing up a similar story that might grow into a tale of shame and despair for hundreds or thousands of innocent pe...

An open letter to the Chief Minister of J & K on Wild Management Plan for Vandalization of Historical Heritage Farm at Dachigam. Dedicated to the dumb sheep and their reportedly deaf shepherds, and the oppressed Hangul. Hon’ble Madam, “As they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so. My duty is to speak out; I do not wish to be an accomplice in this travesty. My nights would otherwise be haunted by the spectre of the innocent” sheep farm suffering for a crime it did not commit.  “I defy decent men to read it without a stir of indignation in their hearts and a cry of revulsion, at the thought of the undeserved punishment being meted out.” Compelled by my professional obligations wedded to Hippocratic oath and thanks to my long standing interest in environmental movements and thinking, I, based on close reading of much of communication between sheep husbandry and wild...

Public perception, especially perception in educated class regarding animal husbandry is that is not the ideal choice even for a farmer, not to speak for a minister to choose as his profile. Farmers continue to be imagined as poor, ignorant, crude, uncouth. Animals are best when prepared for table but not when it is encountering them live with all the dung and bestiality associated with them. Another presumption is livestock sector is only of marginal importance to our economy. Public perception may well be erroneous but as creatures who do care for reputation or perceived image we may be prone to escape reality. And reality must be faced.  Let us examine the facts. Before I come to the status in our state I need to make an observation about a pathology of modernity called necrophilia – love for corpses which is Erich Fromn’s expression for our love for machine culture. Man has been created in divine image and this requires living with other species, seeing ourselves in them as...

Sometimes questions are raised regarding our attitude to mutton consumption and there are advices for revisiting it. I don’t doubt that on occasions and in certain elite families mutton consumption may be excessive but we need to note that we can’t be a vegetarian society. To properly understand modern Kashmir’s obsession for mutton – the need of mutton as a protein source in the normal diet of all Kashmiris,  we may have a brief look at the figures provided by science. Not only do we consume far less than required when we speak in general terms for the whole population, but we are also deprived of quality meat due to absence of slaughter houses and non-availability of quality meat that goes for export to big hotels. If it were not for Eids , prayer food culture and festivals Kashmir's would, generally speaking, qualify as very poor consumers. Middle classes eat mutton mostly on different functions, festivals and marriages or when guests come visiting. The BP...