Oppressed for centuries-Kashmir's Shias get their due as Muharram procession restored

Exactly a century ago, in 1923, Kashmir's Shia community emerged from centuries of having to cloak its faith in the cover of darkness. Then, architect and historian Hakeem Saleem Hamdani records , in his magisterial telling of the Shia community's history in Kashmir, a defiant gesture that changed the course of history. Two mourners, Mian Ghulam Muhammad Khan and Yusuf Ali Khan, began beating their chests and reciting noha lamentations as they reached the main road. They were joined by many others, and the procession ran to dusk. Lit up by the fire from torches, the majlis congregation would gather…