Sopore (Kashmir): It’s harvest time, but the market in this northern Kashmiri town – usually packed with people, trucks and produce at this time of year – is empty, while in orchards across Jammu and Kashmir unpicked apples rot on the branch.
In one of the world’s largest apple growing regions, a weeks-old lockdown imposed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi dramatically abolished the state’s special constitutional status has cut transport links with buyers in India and abroad, fruit growers and traders said, plunging the industry into turmoil.
At dawn late last week the market in this town which is known locally as ‘Little London’ for its lush orchards, big houses and relative affluence, was deserted, its gates locked. “Everyone is scared,” a lone trader, rushing to an adjoining mosque for morning prayers, told this agency. “No one will come.”
Apples are the lifeblood of Kashmir’s economy, involving 3.5 million people, around half the population of the state.
Since the lockdown, the government has promised rapid economic development and plans an investor summit later this year to attract some of India’s top companies to the region, create jobs and lure young people away from militancy.
In the short-term, however, farmers and fruit traders informed the clampdown is stopping them from either getting their produce to market or shipping it out to the rest of India. Some stated that they have also been threatened into stopping work by militant groups.
In orchard after orchard in this town and outskirts, apples hang rotting on trees. “We are stuck from both sides,” said Haji, a trader, sitting inside a sprawling two-story house. “We can neither go here, nor there.”
Business people who spoke to this agency said it is not just the fruit industry that is reeling – two other key sectors of Kashmir’s economy, tourism and handicrafts, have also been hit hard.
Shameem Ahmed, a travel agent who owns a houseboat in the summer capital Srinagar, said this year’s tourist season has been completely wiped out.
“August was peak season, and we had bookings up to October,” Ahmed said. “It will take a long time to revive, and we don’t know what will happen next,” he added with apprehension looming large on his face.
The near complete lack of tourists has also hit carpet traders such as Shoukat Ahmed. “When there are no tourists, there are no sales,” he said. “We are also unable to sell across India because communication is down.”
At a major chamber of commerce in Srinagar, some members said the continuing lack of internet and mobile connections had paralysed their work, including the ability to file taxes and make bank transactions.
Haseeb Drabu, a former state Finance Minister from a local party which had once allied with the BJP, said outsiders were now balking at doing business with Kashmiris.
“With a few businessmen raided and more under detention, why would anyone from the rest of the country engage with them and subject himself to a possible enquiry of his transaction and opening of his books?” Drabu said.
The latest bout of instability has been devastating to the likes of Manzoor Kolu, who runs a five-roomed houseboat on Srinagar’s mirror-calm Dal lake, framed by snow-clad mountains.
Days before August 5, Kolu said police had come asking him to move tourists out of the property, fearing unrest. “They told me that if anything happens, I would be responsible,” he said. His four guests, all Indian tourists, left shortly after. No guest has come since.
“Now we have to wait until next April. It’s hopeless,” he said, sitting inside the living room of the 35-year-old boat, packed with intricately carved wooden furniture and traditional Kashmiri carpets. “So many times, I’ve thought of selling, but this is my father’s whole life’s achievement.”
Kashmir’s tourism industry has lost momentum in recent years, starting with devastating floods in 2014 and followed by a sustained period of unrest in 2016.
Tourist numbers had begun improving between April and July this year, government data showed, only to drop off a cliff in August. Only 10,130 tourists came last month, compared with nearly 1,50,000 in July and more than 1,60,000 in June this year.
In a one-story house in Srinagar’s working-class Zoonimar neighborhood, Abdul Hamid Shah sits beneath a window quietly embroidering a Kashmiri shawl. Each shawl is at least three months’ work, and some take a whole year to complete.
Reuters