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.
Bac♚k 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🐻, but we, the Kashmiris, did.
This reconstruction work around the Ghanta Ghar culminated before August 15, 2023𝔍, and grand celebrations occurred🅺 on Independence Day.
On the 77💎th Independence Day celebrations at the Lal Chowk, while I tried to talk to two 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.
There was a ne꧑w clock tow𝓡er. No Kashmiris stood underneath it that day. Shops remained shut.
Erasure
In 2022, the path🌳 alongside the Jhelum Bund began to be tilled. The path had two or more bunkers, and sirens f🤪rom patrolling forces kept the night awake.
In 2024, I revisited the Jhelum Bund. The reconstructed cemented paths and tiled blocks had destroyed several Chinar trees. The area is now wide open, with no trees to obst🌳ruct a direct view from the opposite side 🌞of the road. This makes surveillance easier.
The construction work along the Press Club Colony in Srinagar also began in 2022 as part of the Smart City renovation. The doors to the Press Club remain locked to this day♊.
The red brick buildings along this road disp💯layed nameboards of various prominent media houses.
Then, the nameboards of the media houses di⛦sappeared.
One of the media houses stated that the government had order𝕴ed th𓆏e 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 Kashඣmir said that the real challenge is to stay afloat and not to get closed down. 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 si꧑lenced and the lives that continue to suffer in prisons. An unofficial handbook of changed vocabulary was imposed.
The place 🦹is revamped now and fewer trees 𒁏are visible
Entering Personal Spaces: Ent✅rances of graveyards in Srinagar are now covered with barbed wires, and bunkers can be seen 𝔉outside.
No visitor has been allowed since 2022
Then and Now: The nameboard of ‘Rising Kashmir’, a meꦯdia house, seen in 20ꦆ22
The nameboard has gone missing in 2024
Silent Graveyards in a Shiny City
Lal Chowk, once the hub of many protests, is now a recreational space for tou𝔉rists 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 K꧒ashmir is the peaceful get-together of Kashmiris, the political resistance and the social gathering, 🔯leaving the parks, the gardens and social spaces bereaved of anything local.
The authorities want the graveyards to remain nameless and the barbed wires, so compliaไnt even in the new version of Kasꦜhmir, prohibit people from entering or praying there.
The Jamia Masjid, the famous mosque in 🍨the Nowhatta Chowk, remains closed after Friday protests became a regula🐬r thing. Stone pelters no longer emerge from the many alleys.
In 2022, the mosque w🥂as completely shut and troops guarded it. Now, the mosque remains open on Friday but there is no sermon from the Mir Waiz.
“A Farce”
In t🐼his Naya Kashmir, as the Kashmiri youth sleep in depression with unemployment remꦿaining 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
