A Tale of two Srinagars

Anuradha Dutt

Curfew in Srinagar after Article 370 revocation The name ‘Srinagar’ is associated commonly with the troubled city in the Kashmir Valley, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, which was converted into a Union Territory from a state on August 5, 2019 after revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution. Before secessionist violence peaked in Kashmir from early 1990, spurring an exodus of Hindus, and unceasing acts of terror, the valley was a favoured tourist destination and film shoot locale. Jab jab phool khile, a Hindi potboiler released in 1965, had the hero, a handsome shikara or house boat operator, serenading the heroine, there on a vacation. The skull cap he wore indicated that he was Semitic while the girl was a wealthy Punjabi Hindu. The hurdles in their way reflected the class schism and not religious divide. And the story ended happily with the lovers uniting.

A trip to Srinagar for a report for the Illustrated Weekly of India in 1988 unveiled the tranquil Dal Lake, fabled char chinar, Gulmarg’s sylvan meadows and the ubiquitous firan, worn by men and women alike. The trip provided an insight into the syncretic ethos of Kashmiriyat: neither stridently Islamic nor Hindu but a blend of diverse strains.

Time constraints impelled skipping the tomb touted as Jesus Christ’s grave in folklore, with ideological and fictional spin-offs postulating that Jesus had survived his crucifixion to escape to the Kashmir Valley with some of his followers.

A trip to Srinagar for a report for The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1988 unveiled the tranquil Dal Lake, fabled char chinar, Gulmarg’s sylvan meadows and the ubiquitous firan, worn by men and women alike. The trip provided an insight into the syncretic ethos of Kashmiriyat: neither stridently Islamic nor Hindu but a blend of diverse strains.

Visits to the Lord Shiv temple atop Shankaracharya Hill and venerated Kheer Bhavani shrine were incorporated into a hectic schedule, meant to get a sense of the local mood and aggressive political posturing as insurgency had reared its ugly head again. Time constraints impelled skipping the tomb touted as Jesus Christ’s grave in folklore, with ideological and fictional spin-offs postulating that Jesus had survived his crucifixion to escape to the Kashmir Valley with some of his followers.

Garhwal Srinagar. (Photo : Chandra Prakash Uniyal) Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, stated in 1899 that Jesus had not died on the cross. He reached Kashmir to find and preach to the lost tribes of Israel. He died there at the age of 120 and was buried in Srinagar. An Ahmadiyya, Khwaja Nazir Ahmad wrote a book Jesus in Heaven on Earth: Journey of Jesus to Kashmir, His Preaching to the Lost Tribes of Israel and Death and Burial in Srinagar.
Published in April 1952 in London, it tried to prove that Kashmiris and Pashtun Afghan tribes had descended from the lost tribes of Israel. Ahmad quoted V. Rangacharya’s History of Pre-Musalman India, Vol. I, published in 1937, as stating that the people of Kashmir, Northwest Frontier and Kashtwar were “very Jewish”. Commenting on the tendency of emigrants to carry with them their “habits, customs and traditions but also the very names of places of the homeland”, Ahmad averred:
“Turning to Kashmir and Afghanistan, we find innumerable names of places and tribes which can be traced to the Israelites of old . . . The preponderance of places and tribes after the Israelites of old and new places in Palestine can, therefore, be explained only on the hypothesis of migration”.

Christ Parichay, a 1946 book authored by Ganesh Savarkar, elder brother of Hindutva stalwart Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, recast Christ as a Tamil Vishwakarma Brahmin of dark hue, whose name was Keshao Krishna. After his crucifixion, adherents of the Essene cult revived him by administering medicinal herbs and plants. He set up a mutth, in Kashmir perhaps, where he spent time in devotion to Lord Shiv. There, at the age of 49, he attained samadhi.

Ram Chandra Kak worked as Superintendent of Archaeology, Jammu and Kashmir, and also became Prime Minister of the state from June 1945-August 1947. He noted in Ancient Monuments of Kashmir, 1933: “Moses is a very common name here, and some ancient monuments still to be seen disclose them to be a people come out of Israel. For instance, the remains of an edifice built in a high mountain is called to this day the Throne of Solomon (Takht-iSulaiman)”.

Holger Kersten’s Jesus lived in Kashmir, 1983, averred:

“In the cemetery at Bijbihara, the place where the bath and stone of Moses are located, there is also an old grave that has an inscription in Hebrew”.

“Turning to Kashmir and Afghanistan, we find innumerable names of places and tribes which can be traced to the Israelites of old . . . The preponderance of places and tribes after the Israelites of old and new places in Palestine can, therefore, be explained only on the hypothesis of migration”.

Incursions from the Islamic swathe and Mughal rule left their imprint on culture and mores. Buddhism and Shaiv and Shakt Tantra flourished in Kashmir before mass conversion to Islam in the 14th-15th centuries reduced Hindus to a minority. Proselytising Sufis were believed to have largely enforced the change.

Antecedents and cultural moorings of numerous Muslims and Hindus seemed common. Nazir Ahmad noted that Kashmiri Pandits shunned pork and fish without fins, and favoured meat that was kosher or hallal, like Semitic peoples. Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims alike avoided beef too, suggestive of a shared Hindu past.

  Kamaleshwar Mahadev shrine in Garhwal Srinagar 1989.
(Photo : Seeme Qasim).

Funded Islamist terror is a transnational phenomenon, geared to brinkmanship. Its rationale was Kashmir’s limited autonomy under Art. 370; and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru being open to the idea of holding a referendum on Kashmir’s future under the United Nation’s aegis.

Though the plebiscite prospect was shelved via diplomatic manoeuvres, the Islamist terror network, exploiting local grievances and misgovernance, gradually besieged Kashmir through the agency of Pakistan and influencepeddlers here.

Subsequent visits to Srinagar and to Jammu, the winter capital, in early 1990 occurred at a juncture when separatists had already disrupted normal life and unleashed killings, spurring the Hindu exodus. Meetings with important personae – Jammu & Kashmir National Conference Chief Farooq Abdullah; Mirwaiz Maulvi Muhammad Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone, the Mirwaiz slain by militants in May 1990, and Lone similarly killed in May 2002; and pro-Pakistan Dukhtaran-e-Milat chief Asiya Andrabi - intimated that ruthless extremists had superseded moderate elements in steering events.

The trip to Jammu to interview Jagmohan, appointed Governor for the second time by the Centre, found him stranded in Srinagar. Giving an assurance that he would reach Jammu, he graciously arranged my climb up to the hallowed Mata Vaishno Devi shrine with two armed escorts.

The interview was finally conducted elsewhere. As violence mounted, as too sparring between India and Pakistan, Kashmir waited two decades more to be integrated fully with India. Time will unfold whether ‘Sri’ – attributes of beneficence, auspiciousness, beauty and prosperity, associated with Sridevi, a form of Goddess Lakshmi - will return to the city on the banks of Jhelum river.

Over 900 km away along national highway 44 from the valley is another, lesser known Srinagar, located on the left bank of Alakananda river in Uttarakhand. This town, an education hub in Garhwal region, with a literacy rate that is almost 100 per cent, is affirmatively Hindu. It is a transit point for spiritual seekers travelling up to Badrinath, Kedarnath and other sacred Himalayan pilgrimages in the beautiful upper reaches.

Frequent night halts were necessitated at this Srinagar en route to high altitude shrines as well as sites of protests by environmentalists, notably Sundarlal Bahugana, against the controversial Tehri Dam that straddles Bhagirathi Ganga and Bhilangana in a seismically active zone. The town’s air of serenity was in sharp contrast to the Kashmir Srinagar’s tense ambience.

The Himalayan terrain and rivers are central to Hindu beliefs and pantheon of deities. But since the British raj, the destructive trend spilling over into free India, policymakers in tandem with construction companies have implemented development projects that have stripped the majestic mountains of green cover; blocked rivers’ flow via large dams and changed their course through diversion tunnels drilled through the rock face. Rivers disappear over long stretches. Industrial effluent and domestic sewage pollute hitherto pristine waters. In the process, irreplaceable ecosystems, wildlife, temples and heritage sites have been destroyed, and lakhs of people displaced.

Protest against Vishnugad-Peepalkoti project at Haat village.
(Photo: Matu Jansanghatan) Creating the 52 km reservoir of Tehri Dam entailed submerging old Tehri town, 40 villages completely and 72 partially. Conservationists are agitating to decommission obstructive dams and to shelve those being constructed or on the anvil if the Ganga, Yamuna and other Himalayan rivers are to be revivified. Protest fasts to save the Ganga from continued onslaughts led to the deaths of Swami Nigamanand in 2010 and Prof. G.D. Aggarwal in October 2018.
Swami Atmabodhanand, 26, who took over the fast, imbibing lime water only, called it off just as India headed for the 2019 general elections. The sustainable development paradigm, endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hinges on green energy options such as solar plants and wind turbines.

A grim reminder of the disastrous fallout of the development overreach is the June 16, 2013 cloud burst, landslides and flashfloods, triggered by glacier melt because of human intrusion and scarce forest cover, washing away buildings into the Mandakini in spate bellow, leaving about 200 pilgrims in Kedarnath dead and 5,000 missing.

The temple was later cleansed of mortal remains. Locals attributed the disaster to divine retribution for turning the pilgrimage into a tourist and honeymoon resort, as much as the forced shifting a day before to an elevated site of the revered upper half of the Goddess Dhari Devi image, till then resting in a shrine on the banks of Alakananda, about 15 km from Srinagar. The lower half is worshipped over 30 km away at Kalimath by tradition. The temple was relocated so as to raise the height of the Alaknanda Hydro Electric Project despite protests..

Srinagar suffered damage in low-lying areas. The dam floodgates were opened, and the tumultuous waters washed the debris there. Locals’ demand to restore the shrine to its original site was ignored, and work to make the project operational revived even as cost escalated.

So, while this Srinagar has borne the impact of skewed development, the other has been devastated by terror over several decades.