SRINAGAR, India – Habib Wangnoo scanned the silver lake from the deck of his vacant houseboat hotel and remembers helping Mick Jagger out of a narrow, flat-bottomed canoe during the 1981 rock star’s visit to Kashmir.
Mr. Jagger spent the next two weeks on the upper deck of the boat, Mr. Wangnoo remembered with a smile. The Rolling Stones lead singer conjured up his black guitar and caught up with Kashmir folk musicians as they watched the moonlight dance across the Himalayas.
Today, Nagin Lake is wild and quiet like a tomb, without the rowing touts that usually pull the water. There are no tourists, no money and little hope.
“In Kashmir, tourism is going to be money in every pocket from arrival to departure. Everyone lives on it,” he said. Wangnoo said. “And now there is nothing.”
Kashmir, the beautiful region in the shadow of the Himalayas that has long been captured between India and Pakistan, has fallen into a state of suspended animation. Schools are closed. Exclusions are set, lifted and then set again.
Kashmir was once a hub for Western and Indian tourists for more than a year. First, India has brought in security forces to combat the region. Then the coronavirus struck.
The streets are full of soldiers. Military bunkers, which were removed years ago, are back and in many places tear the road. On highways, soldiers stop passenger vehicles and drag their commuters to their identity cards. It is a scene reminiscent of the 1990s when an armed uprising broke out and the Indian government deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to crush it.
Conflict in Kashmir, the only region in India that is more than a Muslim, has been frustrating for decades. And an armed uprising has long sought self-government. Tens of thousands of rebels, civilians and security forces have been killed since 1990. India and Pakistan have twice waged war over the area, which is divided between them but claimed by both in its entirety.
As India expands its power over the region, it is according to Indian officials according to crime also a crime to even call Kashmir a controversial region.
Mr. Wangnoo’s family kept their heads above water during the darkest days of conflict. Through it all, visiting dignitaries, young adventure seekers and Bollywood stars took a bath on the upper deck, amidst the gardens of floating lotus and majestic Christmas trees at the edge of the lake.
This time, the seventh-generation business – completely dependent on tourism, like so many others in Kashmir – is in danger of going under.
Other houseboat owners have it even worse. The houseboats date from the British colonial era, a clever solution to restrictions on foreign land ownership. But the cedar bowls that have been incorporated are poorly repaired and very sinking. Hard pressure owners cannot pay for fresh calf.
On land, people sway in long wolferane, the traditional clothing-like garments that cover them from their shoulders to their shins, drink steaming cups of saffron and almond tea and give small jars of burning coal to keep warm.
Many say that the political paralysis was the worst in Kashmir’s 30 years of conflict, and that people were suffocated to submission.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the region of its autonomy and state capture in August 2019, promising that the move – which canceled Kashmiris ‘heirs’ rights to land and jobs – would unleash a flood of new investment and opportunities for the beleagured region .
Half a million soldiers came and imposed the worst collapse Kashmir’s had ever seen.
The money did not come. People say they are more scared than they ever were. Political leaders from the richest, most respected families in Kashmir – former elected officials who worked to reconcile Kashmiris’ call for independence with India’s desire for unity – were arrested and detained for months.
“You can do it to leaders of India, you can do it to anyone,” said Mohamed Mir behind the counter of his father’s empty pashmina shop in the center of Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city.
Kashmiris trying to vent their anger online against the Indian government are charged with terrorism charges. Many were detained.
Paramilitary forces suddenly appear. They arrived at the Khanqah of Shah-Hamdan, a Sufi shrine soaked with stained 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 guarded the 6th-century Hindu temple on Gopadri Hill, Srinagar’s highest point, the Sankaracharya Temple, while muezzins echoed to prayer from local mosques across the quiet valley.
Kashmir’s economy is on the verge of collapse. In the past, even as shootings between security forces and militants became rampant, international tourists continued to gather Kashmir’s ski slopes, houseboats and artisans of pashmina and papier-mâché.
However, since the Indian troops moved in, there have been almost no visitors.
The absence of tourists did not make a difference to Ghulam Hussain Mir, whose jewelry cards, bowls and vases of papier-mâché are largely sold online to overseas customers.
But the Indian government’s communication blockade hurt him. Internet, TV and telephone service were turned off for months. When they were finally restored, the government allowed only the slowest mobile internet speed to prevent videos from reaching smartphones. Mr. Mir missed months of orders, and the demand for his wares in parts of the world that are still being overcome with the coronavirus has been subdued.
A 700-year-old mosque, a short walk 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. The muezzin is excluded and prevents him from making the daily calls to prayer.
“Fear is different and worse than ever in the last forty years,” says Mr. Mir and sit cross-legged on a thick carpet in his workshop.
A large hive people support tourism on Dal Lake, which the Lonely Planet guide calls ‘Srinagar’s gem’. Some of Srinagar’s poorest residents live deep in the middle of the lake, in an area that is partially populated and paved, and connected by a network of uneven wooden paths.
Neighborhoods have the nickname of war-torn places like Kandahar and Gaza Strip. Normally, people find work to drive water taxis, repair boats or sell tourist products from their floating gardens. Now there is no work, except occasionally a strange job.
“Life is under embargo because tourism is the most important industry in the city,” said Ghulam Mohammad, 56. Without activity, “it’s now like a jungle,” said Mr. Mohammad said and looked out over the quiet lake.
In addition to a handful of Indian tourists, Mr. Wangnoo has had no guests for more than a year. He estimates within six months that he could lose the business and with it the dream of passing it on to the eighth generation, his sons Ibrahim and Akram, in their twenties.
‘We have worked hard during these generations and built the reputation. At the end of the day, everything is gone, “said Mr. Wangnoo said. “No one was a friend of Kashmir except God.”
With no business to occupy him, Mr. One recent afternoon, Wangnoo flipped through the hotel’s precious guestbook and on a reprimand to Sultan, his father, Jagger landed: “May you always stay light and buzzing.”
Mr. Wangnoo clings to the collar of his dark brown pheran as dusk descends over Nagin Lake.
“There is no clarity,” he said. “It looks like dark days ahead.”
Showkat Nanda contribution made.