[The turbulent region has long
weathered violence and political strife, but India’s security crackdown and the
coronavirus have brought life in the tourist-dependent region to a near halt.]
Mr. Jagger spent most of the next
two weeks on the boat’s upper deck, Mr. Wangnoo recalled with a smile. The lead
singer of the Rolling Stones strummed his black guitar and jammed with Kashmiri
folk musicians as they watched the moonlight dance across the Himalayas.
Today, Nagin Lake is desolate and
quiet as a tomb, devoid even of the rowing touts who normally trawl the water.
There are no tourists, no money and little hope.
“In Kashmir, tourist industry money
goes into every pocket from arrival to departure, everybody lives on it,” Mr.
Wangnoo said. “And now, there is nothing.”
Kashmir, the craggily beautiful
region in the shadow of the Himalayas long caught between India and Pakistan,
has fallen into a state of suspended animation. Schools are closed. Lockdowns
have been imposed, lifted and then reimposed.
Once a hub for both Western and
Indian tourists, Kashmir has been reeling for more than a year. First, India
brought in security forces to
clamp down on the region. Then the coronavirus
struck.
The streets are full of soldiers.
Military bunkers, removed years ago, are back, and at many places cleave the
road. On highways, soldiers stop passenger vehicles and drag commuters out to
check their identity cards. It’s a scene reminiscent of the 1990s when an armed
insurgency erupted and the Indian government deployed hundreds of thousands of
troops to crush it.
Conflict in Kashmir, India’s only
Muslim-majority region, has festered for decades. And an armed uprising has
long sought self-rule. Tens of thousands of rebels, civilians and security
forces have died since 1990. India and Pakistan have gone to war twice over the
territory, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety.
Now, as India flexes its power over
the region, to even call Kashmir a disputed region is a crime — sedition,
according to Indian officials.
Mr. Wangnoo’s family had kept
afloat during the darkest days of conflict. Through it all, visiting
dignitaries, young adventure-seekers and Bollywood stars came to sunbathe on
the top deck, amid the gardens of floating lotus and majestic chinar trees on
the lake’s edge.
This time, the seventh-generation
business — wholly dependent on tourism, like so many others in Kashmir — is at
risk of going under.
Other houseboat owners have it even
worse. The houseboats date to the British colonial era, a clever workaround to
restrictions on foreign land ownership. But the elaborately carved cedar
vessels are in ill repair and many are sinking. Hard-pressed owners are unable
to pay for fresh caulk.
Onshore, people shuffle in long
woolen pherans, the traditional gown-like garments that cover them from their
shoulders to their shins, sipping steaming cups of saffron and almond tea and
passing small pots of burning coal to keep warm.
Many say that the
political paralysis is the worst it has ever been in Kashmir’s 30
years of conflict, and that people have been choked
into submission.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of
India stripped the region of its autonomy and statehood in August 2019, and
promised the move — which canceled Kashmiris’ inheritance rights to land and
jobs — would unleash a flood of new
investment and opportunity for the beleaguered region.
Half a million soldiers came,
imposing the strictest clampdown Kashmiris have ever seen.
The money hasn’t arrived. People
say they are more scared than they have ever been. Political leaders from the
wealthiest, most respected families in Kashmir — former elected officials who
had worked to
reconcile Kashmiris’ call for independence with India’s desire for
unity — were arrested and held for months.
“You can do this to pro-India
leaders, you can do it to anyone,” Mohamed Mir said from behind the counter of
his father’s empty pashmina shop in downtown Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city.
Kashmiris who try to vent their
anger online against the Indian government are being slapped with terrorism
charges. Many have been detained.
Paramilitary forces appear
suddenly. They arrived at the Khanqah of Shah-Hamdan, a Sufi shrine drenched in
colored glass and papier-mâché dedicated to Mir Sayed Ali Hamadni, the Persian
saint and traveler who brought Islam to the valley.
In the evening, soldiers stood
guard at the 6th-century Hindu temple on Gopadri Hill, Srinagar’s highest
point, the Sankaracharya Temple, as muezzin calls to prayer from local mosques
echoed across the still valley.
Kashmir’s economy is on the brink
of collapse. In the past, even when gun battles between security forces and
militants became pervasive, international tourists continued to throng
Kashmir’s ski slopes, houseboats and artisan pashmina and papier-mâché shops.
Since Indian forces moved in,
however, hardly any visitors have come.
The absence of tourists hasn’t made
a difference to Ghulam Hussain Mir, whose papier-mâché jewelry boxes, bowls and
vases are largely sold to overseas customers online.
But the Indian government’s communications
blockade has hurt him. Internet, T.V. and phone service were shut off
for months. When they were finally restored, the government permitted only the
slowest mobile internet speeds to prevent video from reaching smartphones. Mr.
Mir missed out on months of orders, and now demand for his wares in parts of
the world still overcome with the coronavirus is muted.
A 700-year-old mosque a short
walking distance from Mr. Mir’s home and workshop remained open through civil
strife and fires. But after the Indian government took control of Kashmir it
was closed for months. Its muezzin was locked out and prevented from giving the
daily calls to prayer.
“Fear is different and worse than
at any time in the last 40 years,” Mr. Mir says, sitting cross-legged on a
thickly carpeted floor in his workshop.
A large hive of people support
tourism on Dal Lake, which the Lonely Planet guide calls “Srinagar’s jewel.”
Some of Srinagar’s poorest residents live deep in the center of the lake, in an
area partially filled in and paved, and connected by a network of uneven wooden
walkways.
Neighborhoods are nicknamed after
war-torn places like Kandahar and Gaza Strip. Normally, people find work
driving water taxis, repairing boats, or selling tourists produce from their
floating gardens. Now, except for the occasional odd job, there is no work.
“Life is under embargo because
tourism is the most important industry in the city,” said Ghulam Mohammad, 56.
Devoid of activity, “it’s like a jungle now,” Mr. Mohammad said, looking out
over the quiet lake.
Except for a handful of Indian
tourists, Mr. Wangnoo hasn’t had any guests for more than a year. Within six
months, he estimates, he could lose the business and with it the dream of
passing it down to the eighth generation, his sons Ibrahim and Akram, in their
20s.
“We have worked hard over these
generations, we have built up the reputation. At the end of the day, it’s all
gone,” Mr. Wangnoo said. “Nobody has been a friend to Kashmir except God.”
With no business to occupy him, one
recent afternoon Mr. Wangnoo flipped idly through the hotel’s treasured guest
book, landing on an exhortation to Sultan, his father, from Mr. Jagger: “May
you always stay lite and brite.”
Mr. Wangnoo clutched the collar of
his dark brown pheran as dusk settled over Nagin Lake.
“There’s no brightness,” he said.
“It’s looking like dark days ahead.”
Showkat Nanda contributed
reporting.
