Footfalls Of Integration

Not a day passes when the government and BJP leaders don’t talk about the large number of tourists visiting Kashmir as evidence that people in the Valley have started accepting the new political reality created by the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. For almost six months, all hotels, especially in Gulmarg and Pahalgam, had been closed due to the military siege and communication blockade that accompanied the abrogation. In 2020, after the government lifted ­restrictions on travel to the Valley despite the Covid lockdown, 41,267 tourists, including 3,897 foreigners, visited Kashmir—the lowest number since 1990. Since December 2020, however, the number of tourists has gone up drastically—19,102 visited in January alone, 26,180 in February and 47,593 in March.

“Our aim is to bring the golden era back to Kashmir,” says Lt Governor Manoj Sinha. “We are exploring new destinations. Efforts are afoot to put in place a better infrastructure for ­tourists.” In March, the government organised around a dozen shows to promote tourism. Bollywood singers were brought to the Valley and music festivals organised in the famed ­gardens. “We have been reading and hearing that Kashmir used to be a ­favourite Bollywood destination in the 1960s, the ’70s, and the ’80s. We will work to bring back the same culture,” says Sinha.

On April 10, Sinha and Union sports minister Kiren Rijiju inaugurated Khelo India Centre of Excellence in Srinagar. Two days later, the Ministry of Tourism organised ‘Another Day in Paradise: Tapping the Potential of Kashmir’ in Srinagar to project Kashmir as a destination for leisure, adventure and films. Union tourism minister Prahlad Singh Patel says Jammu and Kashmir saw a five-fold rise in the number of tourists in January 2021 compared to January 2020. Officials in the tourism department say tourists are visiting Kashmir with a “changed perception”, now that Kashmir is “fully integrated” in India. “They want to see their own Kashmir now,” says an official. “They also think Kashmiris are happy with the development taking place in the region.” A number of Union ministers and BJP leaders, including Rijiju, are often seen in the Valley these days. Union textiles minister Smriti Irani was recently seen in Srinagar talking to lotus-stem sellers on the banks of the Dal, and other BJP leaders described it as a rare event in the past 70 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet in March asking people to have a glimpse of the “majestic tulip garden in the foothills of the Zabarwan mountains” in Kashmir has also brought huge focus on the garden. Spread over an area of about 30 hectares, the tulip garden was declared open in 2007 by the then CM Ghulam Nabi Azad, but Kerala governor Arif Mohammed Khan was brought in to inaugurate it again this year. “It is beyond doubt that Kashmir is the most beautiful place in the world. People of Kashmir are beautiful, their thoughts are beautiful and their vision is beautiful. This is the people’s legacym which they have inherited from the great Reshis as the Valley is the land of Sufi Reshis who has given Kashmiri people a rich culture, tradition and ethos,” said Khan in his speech at the event.

“If tourists coming to the Valley and visiting the tulip garden is not an indication of peace, then what is?” asks Altaf Thakur, a BJP leader in Kashmir. Congress leader Salman Nizami points out that the government is talking about the tulip garden as if it came up only after the hard work of BJP workers this year and that it could be done only after the abrogation of Article 370.

Locals associated with tourism say there has indeed been an exponential rise in the number of tourists over the past five months. “We have been arguing that tourism should be seen as a business activity and not mixed with the ­discourse of ‘return of normalcy’ as it makes the industry vulnerable. But no one listens to us,” says a top hotelier.

By Naseer Ganai in Srinagar