This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'Future Tense' issue, dated October 1, 2024. To read more stories from the Issue, click here.
Desolation
It all began with deconstruction. In 2022, the roads in Lal Chowk in Srinagar were demolished. The doors of the Press Club remained shut. JCBs blocked the way to the Ghanta Ghar (clock tower). A large area bounded with asbestos near the Ghanta Ghar was surrounded and guarded by armed forces. The construction of Naya Kashmir had begun under the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government at the Centre that had abrogated Article 370 in August 2019. All of a sudden.
Back then, the enclosure was barren except for a 🌳few dogs that occupied it⛦.
A tiny sapling stood upright amid the rubble. An outsider or a tourist never noticed it, bu🌜t we, the Kashmiris, did.
This reconstruction work around the Ghanta Ghar culminated before August 15, 2023, and grand celebrations occurred on Independence Day✅.
On the 77th Independence Day celebrations at the Lal Chowk, whꦯile I tried to talk to tw🥃o boys—the only local youths watching the celebrations from a distance—one of the journos warned me that there were spies among the crowd.
Hundreds of tourists attended the event, swirling flags and chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’ slogans.
ꦉThere was a new clock tower. No Kashmiris stood underneath it that day. Shops remain💮ed shut.
Erasure
In 2022, the path 𝐆alongside the Jhelum Bund began to be tilled. The path had two or more bunkers, and sirens from patrolling forces kept the night awake.
In 2024, I revisited th𓃲e Jhelum Bund. The reconstructed cemented paths and tiled blocks had destroyed several Chinar trees. The area is now wide open, with no trees to obstruct a direct view from the opposite side of the road. This makes surveil🌼lance easier.
Th▨e construction work along the Press Club Colony in Srinagar also began in 2022 as part of the Smart City renovꦆation. The doors to the Press Club remain locked to this day.
The red br♍ick buildings along this road displayed nameboards of var🍸ious prominent media houses.
Then, the nameboards of the media houses d꧑isappea༒red.
One of the media houses stated that the government had ordered the removal of all nameplates✃ from the front as part of the city’s beautification process. They call it the Smart City Project.
In Srinagar, the Press Colony remains under 24/7 surveillance𝄹, guarded by security forces. One of the editors of a media house in Kashmir said that the real challenge is to stay afloat and not to get closed down.ꦗ Through 2022, the intimidation and arrest of Kashmiri journalists continued.
After the renovations in 2023, the new landscape of the Press Colony has not only erased the presence of the press but also the stories that are silenced and the lives that continue to suffer i💎n prisons. An unofficial handbook of changed vocabulary was imposed.
The p♕lace is rౠevamped now and fewer trees are visible
Entering Personal Spaces: Entrances of graveyards in Srinagar are now covered wit🐓h barbed wires, and bunkers can be seen outside.
No visitor has been allowed since 2022
Then and Now: Th꧟e nameboard o🍨f ‘Rising Kashmir’, a media house, seen in 2022
The nameboard has gone missing in 2024
Silent Graveyards in a Shiny City
Lal Chowk, once the hub of many protestsꦛ, is now a recreational space for tourists to pose. Most tourists who visit Kashmir know where to go, what to see and what to avoid. It’s their Naya Kashmir.
On account of the Amarnath Yatra, the space has also now become a sanctum shelter for the yatris (pilgrims).
What is prohibited in Naya Kashmir is the peaceful get-together of Kashmiris, the political resistance and the social gathering, leaving t♍he parks, the gardens and social spa꧃ces bereaved of anything local.
The authorities want the graveyards to remain nameless and the barbed wires, so compliant even in the new version of Kashmir, prohibit peo🦩ple from entering or praying there.
The Jamia🐽 Masjid, the famous mosque in the Nowhatta Chowk, remains closed after Friday protests became a regular thing. Stone pelters no longer emerge from the many alleys.
In 2022, the mosque was completely shut and troops guarded it. Now, the mosque remains open on Fri🌳day but there is no sermon from the Mir Waiz.
“A Farce”
In this Na⛦ya Kashmir, as the Kashmiri youth sleep in depression with unemployment remaining the major reason, the lights alongside the bridge in Dalgate continue to shimmer in the night.
No Entry: The locked up door of Jamia Masjid in 2022
Hana Vahab is an independent journalist, currently based in Delhi
