Global Policy Forum

By Khursheed Wani

At a special assembly in Indian administered Kashmir last month, around 400 Muslim clerics vowed to help combat AIDS, which has infected 24,000 people in the Muslim dominated Valley. The clerics, who deliver sermons to Friday congregations in mosques, had gathered at a prominent religious school in the outskirts of Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, where hundreds of youth study Islamic traditions.

"At the end of the meeting, a draft was adopted to help fight the disease through Islamic teachings," said schoolteacher Molvi Hafizullah. Following the initiative, clerics have begun educating Friday assemblies on the causes of AIDS and its prevention.

"The clerics vowed to exercise their writ on people to spread awareness about AIDS," said Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad, a researcher in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Government Medical College, Srinagar, who educated clerics about its causes and effects.

Leader of another leading Islamic school, Mufti Abdur Rashid said, "AIDS is the result of crumbling social values and free-sex concepts. Islam prohibits such practices and the remedy lies in the adoption of the Islamic way of life."

In their sermons, clerics sharp focus on morality and social values, while giving contraception a miss. "AIDS has emerged because humans turn into beasts when it comes to sexuality. I urge people to remain loyal to their spouses, " lectured cleric Muhammad Shaban, while delivering a Friday sermon in a mosque in Srinagar's Old city.

"Involvement of clerics is an inspired decision which has paid dividends," said Dr Nisar Ahmad Bhat, head of nongovernmental organization (NGO) Ikhlas Blood Bank and Medical Aid, which has launched a mission to spread AIDS awareness in the state.

He said the movement to use clerics had worked wonders in rural areas where people were ignorant even about the name of the syndrome.

The Jammu and Kashmir State AIDS Prevention and Control Society, an agency belatedly established to fight AIDS in April 2000, also cannily sought the help of Islamic scholars in their campaign. Leading scholar, Mufti Nazir Ahmad Qasmi, was asked to write a book in the states' official language - Urdu - highlighting the Islamic methodology of preventing AIDS. Some 1000 copies of the 200-page book have been distributed among the youth.

Ahmed said they had sent the English version of the research study to the UN-AIDS Group last December, stressing that, "It can be reproduced to create awareness among Muslims across the globe."

Other communities in the state are now replicating the benefits of employing religion in the AIDS campaign. For instance, in areas near the winter capital, Jammu, the Society is training religious leaders of the minority Sikh community to disseminate AIDS prevention messages.

Last week, the Society conducted the first-ever conference of some 1200 elected village representatives at Kathua town near Jammu to educate villagers about AIDS.

Project director of the Society, Dr Mohammed Amin said, "We want to educate the rural population about AIDS, as their illiteracy and backwardness makes them more vulnerable."

Amin said that in the next phase, 400 schoolteachers in the state would be made AIDS literate. The Society had received U.S $362,000 from the World Bank for program implementation for 2002, most of which has been spent.

Researchers in Kashmir have identified migrant laborers, truck drivers and tens of thousands of Indian security forces deployed here as the main AIDS carriers. Tourists both from India and the West, form another high-risk group. Most of the victims are aged between 15 and 49 years.

Three years ago, a European tourist injured in a shootout in Srinagar's Old city tested HIV positive. Ditto with some 15 Indian soldiers identified during blood transfusion tests at a government hospital in the city.

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