Muslim students singing Hindu religious song unwillingly in Kashmir stirs controversy

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) – The singing of a Hindu religious song by Muslim students unwillingly at a government school in Indian-administered Kashmir stirred controversy, prompting Muslim clerics to strongly object and call the act intolerable.

Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulema, or United Council of Clerics, an umbrella organization representing dozens of religious organizations of all major sects and denominations of Islam in Indian-administered Kashmir, said in a statement on Tuesday that it will not tolerate interference by the central government or any of its departments in the religious affairs of the restive region’s Muslim community.

The council was reacting to a viral video clip in which teachers from a government school in Kulgam district of the Kashmir Valley were seen singing a Hindu devotional song in a classroom, while boys and girls students repeated it, swaying their arms and heads sideways as Hindus do when singing religious songs.

The song, which was a favorite of Mahatma Gandhi, is dedicated to the Hindu deity Rama. The education department had asked schools to sing this song on September 13 as part of a calendar of events commemorating Gandhi’s birth anniversary. The festivities will conclude on Oct. 2, Gandhi’s birthday.

“It is becoming clear that there seems to be a deliberate plan to push our young generation through state-run educational institutions towards apostasy, to wean them away from Islamic beliefs and identity, to speed their so-called ‘integration’ with the Hindutva idea of India. This is a very serious matter,” the council said in the statement.