The venue of the event and the areas around it are being turned into a no-go area for the ordinary people,” said Naseer Ahmad, a local columnist. “If anything, it shows the concert has little to do with the people in the Valley and everything to do about the projection of a fake normalcy to the rest of the world. The traffic restrictions and the internet shutdown have attracted severe public criticism with people questioning the need for the event. Separatists have called for the protests against the menace which has now metamorphosed into beard-cutting. Scores of women and even young girls have had their braids cut by masked persons.
Similarly, the government also shut down the internet on Friday as a precautionary measure, in view of the growing public restiveness over the frequent cases of the braid cutting across the Valley. The vehicles going towards Duck Park, Shalimar Crossing, Telbal Crossing and its adjacent areas shall be allowed to ply towards Nishat via Foreshore Road,” the advertisement reads. “All types of vehicles, except those of the invitees, shall be diverted at Ram Munshi Bagh towards Dalgate. A press release to this effect has been advertised in all local dailies. So in an unprecedented measure, the government barred the traffic on the boulevard and made elaborate traffic arrangements to divert all thoroughfare which passes through the roads close to the event. In a pre-dawn attack, three militants managed to get past several layers of security barriers and kill an ASI and injure four other personnel before being themselves killed. More so, after a daring Fidayeen strike on a BSF camp near Srinagar airport, arguably the Valley’s most fortified place. While the state can draw some comfort from the absence of the political opposition to the show, it is doing everything possible to secure the event from a possible militant attack. The concert will show the lively side of Kashmir,” said Rijiju. “People everywhere can witness the beauty, culture, and music of Kashmir. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who will himself travel to Srinagar to witness the concert, has said it will help promote the beauty and culture of Kashmir. This is a message that, however, the government too is plying. The performance which follows shortly after one by Kashmiri singer Abha Hanjura, is generally being seen as an attempt to send across a message of normalcy to boost the drastically reduced tourism inflow. However, unlike the performance of the Junoon group in May 2008 which was opposed by the Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Syed Salahuddin or for that matter that of the Zubin Mehta in 2013 or the literary festival in 2011 which faced a severe civil society backlash, no political or social group has taken any exception to Sami’s concert. When he would sing his chartbusting numbers on the banks of the picturesque Dal Lake to the applause of the audience, his background as a former Pakistani musician, who voluntarily gave up the country’s citizenship to become Indian, was of as much importance in a place rife with separatist and pro-Pakistan sentiment, as was his music. Mercifully it hasn’t been politicised yet, but singer Adnan Sami’s concert in Kashmir has acquired some distinct political overtones which have not been lost on Kashmir.