Muslim Girls Quit Rock Band After National Controversy

Facebook page of Praagaash Members of Praagaash.

The three Muslim teen-age girls, Aneeqa Khalid, Noma Nazir and Farah Deeba, just want to play rock and roll and heavy metal music.

The only female rock band at Srinagar’s national “Battle of the Bands” competition in December, they quickly gained fame in India after placing third there. Their band, Praagaash, which means “from darkness into light,” draws inspiration from Metallica, Green Day, Iron Maiden and Cradle of Filth, doing alternate rock covers and their own compositions.

“It was awesome and overwhelming,” Ms. Khalid, the 15-year-old bass guitarist, recalled during an interview Saturday. “We were getting all this attention and a standin ovation. Then we got other offers to play.”

Fans describe the band as passionate and talented. “They just came into the scene last year and were already considered to be among the top bands,” said Junaid Khan, a 21-year-old fellow rock musician from the Kashmir Valley.

But the national attention quickly turned bittersweet last weekend. Unwillingly, the members of Praagaash have been transformed from plucky amateur female rock musicians, into participants in an ongoing political and religious struggle in conflict-ridden Indian-controlled Kashmir, and, in fact, across India.

First, state and national politicians chimed in. Then a religious leader declared a Fatwa against their band. On Monday night, overwhelmed by the attention, Praagaash disbanded. All three teenage girls quit, posting the news on their band’s Facebook page.

Kashmir Valley, a traditional hub of art and culture,! has only recently begun to create its own to rock music. A handful of male bands, including BloodRockz and Tales of Blood, are fusing the Western genre of music with traditional Sufi music. Men face a lot of criticism for playing rock music in the Muslim region, said Adnan Muhammad, the Praagaash band member’s teacher, who is widely regarded as a pioneer of rock music in Kashmir Valley.

“We are used to people seeing this music as being against our religion,” Mr. Muhammad said. “We respect their wishes but still carry on the best we can.”

Teenage girls playing rock music attract a different level of attention altogether. After the December competition, Praagaash was both applauded and derided on Facebook. Strangers ridiculed them for being un-Islamic because they had performed in public before unknown men. Some even suggested they could be raped for their performances. (Many of the abusive comments have been removed. A screenshot of some of them is here.)

The three girls, tenth-grade students who are 15 and 16 years old, recalled being scared by the Facebook messages, but said over the weekend that they were determined to continue to play after the furor died down. After all, said Ms. Nazir, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, rock and metal music was in her blood. “Whenever I’m angry or sad, it helps me to get out of it,” she said. “It’s kind of a rescue,” she said.

“The first time I heard an acoustic guitar, I thought it sounded so cool,” Ms. Khalid said on Saturday. “I knew then I just had to learn and be part of a band.”

But over the past weekend, the Facebook threats themselves became national news, featured on television channels including NewsX, and in articles in English and Hindi papers. Suddenly, the band became a focal point for long-simmering tensions between India’s Hindu maj! ority and! Muslim minority, and within different factions within the Muslim community.

As the media storm grew, Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, expressed his support for the girl band, and called for a police investigation into the threats. “I hope these talented young girls will not let a handful of morons silence them,” he said on Twitter on Saturday.

Political leaders jumped into the debate. The influential separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani replied to Mr. Abdullah’s Tweet through a spokesperson, saying that his “dynasty had long disassociated itself from Islamic and ethical values.” Other political players were quick to register their support or condemnation for the band.

On Monday evening, activist Anna Hazare’s “Indians Against Corruption” party took up the cause, telling her more than 235,000 Twitter followers t support the band on Facebook.  On Tuesday, the police in Jammu & Kashmir began to officially investigate the girl’s harassers.

Suddenly, the band’s very existence is being viewed nationally as no less than a weapon against the Taliban. “If regressive elements succeed in stifling music itself, though, civil spaces will suffer, ceding vital ground to elements trying to make Kashmir resemble Talibanized Afghanistan,” the Times of India wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday.

Band members said in interviews during the weekend that they had neither sought any government intervention on their behalf, nor did they think it was necessary. While the Facebook threats were worrying, they weren’t actually dangerous, they said. “These were not threats by criminals but just a case of abuse and bullying by teenager! s who wer! e probably jealous,” said Ms. Nazir.

In separate interviews, the teenage girls stressed over the weekend that they just want to play music. They don’t want to be convenient examples for the media, forced to play the stereotypical role of “Muslim girls who break down conservative barriers,” they said.

“I have been so tense about the media hype that I’ve been playing my guitar so hard to get the frustration out,” said Ms. Nazir.

Then on Sunday, Grand Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad, the top religious leader in Kashmir, issued a fatwa against them for singing in public. Mr. Ahmad advised women to only sing inside their homes before female members of the family.

Band members say their parents to force them to shut down the band, which their families never really embraced in the first place.

The mother of Ms. Deeba, the drummer, said she believes that performing in pblic is against Islam, but she couldn’t bear to crush her 16-year-old daughter’s dream when she first said she wanted to play.

“In return, my husband made her promise that she would pray five times a day and she did,” Ms. Deeba’s mother said in an interview.

Ms. Khalid’s mother wondered why her daughter’s playing of music was un-Islamic if women performing on television channels were streaming into Kashmiri homes everyday. “But if we live here, then we have to live by the rules,” she said in an interview. “We have no choice.”

The girls said they are aware of the contradictions between their dreams and their conservative surroundings. When national attention of their plight started to build, they first hoped to circumvent critics by giving up live performances, focusing on composing music and releasing an album instead.

As recently as Saturday, a confident Ms. Khalid had talked about the band working on a punk-rock song with both Hindi and English lyrics. ! “We are! not quitting,” she said. “It’s our passion and we can’t help it so if people want to talk then let them talk.”

Sunday’s fatwa was too much to endure, the parents say.

Ms. Khalid’s mother said that she and her husband were even afraid of allowing their daughter to step outside of the house, although she had to go for her tuition lessons. She recalled with fear a recent incident in which acid was thrown on the face of a female teacher in Srinagar.

“Anything bad can happen. We simply can’t take that risk any more,” she said.