In Kashmir, 'conscious music' and poetry test India’s limits on speech

'I just express myself and scream, but when harmony is added, it becomes a song,' says Javaid, a Kashmiri poet like his father and grandfather. Photo: AP

Sarfaraz Javaid thumps his chest rhythmically in the music video, swaying to the guitar and letting his throaty voice ring out through the forest: "What kind of soot has shrouded the sky? It has turned my world dark. ... Why has the home been entrusted to strangers?”

Khuaftan Baange - Kashmiri for "the call to night’s prayer” - plays out like a groaning dirge for Muslim-majority Kashmir, the starkly beautiful Himalayan territory that’s home to decades of territorial conflict, gun-toting soldiers and harsh crackdowns on the populace. It is mournful in tone but lavish in lyrical symbolism inspired by Sufism, an Islamic mystic tradition. Its form is that of a Marsiya, a poetic rendition that is a lament for Muslim martyrs.