The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir saw unprecedented damage after the floods in September. Nothing was spared — houses to hotels, the high court to hospitals, government offices to private businesses, shopping complexes to universities, schools and houseboats. The financial loss has yet to be ascertained. According to official estimates, at least 350 villages were completely submerged.
Jammu and Kashmir has had to face catastrophes time and again. There was a blizzard and an earthquake in 2005, a cloudburst and flash floods in 2010, and another cloudburst in 2011 — all this in addition to the militancy that has gone out of control since the Nineties. And each time these tragedies struck, the state has gone back by more than five years in terms of development, in spite of the efforts of the government and the resilience of Kashmiris.
In the Rajbagh area of Srinagar, the state capital, Shahala Ali Shaikh, a fiercely independent and successful entrepreneur and an environmental activist, lost her house and business. Standing amid the debris, she says, “It was bound to happen. What you give to nature will come back to you!”
Along with a team of other concerned citizens of the state, Shaikh had met officials of the central and state governments to warn of an impending disaster way back in 2006. They had suggested practical measures that needed some common sense and political will to check the changing dynamics of the environment. But all fell on deaf ears.“You need to understand the topography of a city like Srinagar where you have the River Jhelum, a Dal Lake, mountains all around; it’s like a saucer, you know — very fragile and very sensitive to earthquakes and flood situations,” Shaikh says. “City planning and transport could not and should not have ignored this aspect.”
Sajid Farooq Shah, a prominent businessman who owns the now-destroyed Comrade Inn, says: “A city whose population has already exhausted the carrying capacity of land will have to rethink the outdated the Housing Master Plan 2001. The presumption that Srinagar would experience a population growth akin to Switzerland has been fatal. Look at this: the master plan does not allow residential constructions beyond 25 feet (7.6 metres) but the floodwaters rose way beyond 30 feet (9 metres). The entire city had to drown. There is an urgent need for drafting practical and well-researched housing and transport policies for the city.”
In 2006 the delegation of concerned citizens also submitted a proposal to enunciate the importance of a water transport system. They explained the benefits of keeping the waters of the Dal Lake and Jhelum flowing. The proposal, based on what London has done with its Thames, elaborated on developing a water transport system in the Jhelum and its tributaries and how dredging the river bed and having a waterfront makes environmental and economic sense. “If the government had heeded the citizens’ advice”, says my driver, as he drives me from Pampore to HMT Crossing, “and you had taken a boat to cover this distance, you could have easily saved about an hour.”
I imagine a well-developed transport system in the River Jhelum taking care of the local transportation needs and supplementing incomes. This would take care of the inter-district travels within the state from the north to the south and 70 per cent of the present transportation woes between Anantnag and Baramullah. But what I actually see as I drive around Srinagar, and along the Jhelum and the sides of the Dal Lake is something different: heavily populated pockets in a shambles and refugee camps whose residents have nothing but plastic sheets to keep off the elements, all pointing accusingly at the extreme insensitivity of the government(s) in place.
“Look at what has happened to Rajbagh, Kursu and adjoining areas,” says Shabeena, a survivor of the floods now living in a makeshift camp. “It’s all gone … forever. Whatever you do, you cannot reclaim the lost history of the area.”
All that remains of the Lalded hospital, the Presentation Convent, state museum, swanky emporiums and coffee shops are ruins. Move away from the once-posh areas of Rajbagh and there are stagnant floodwaters everywhere, sparking fears of an epidemic. Mehzoor Nagar, colonies on the banks of the Dal Lake, and countless temporary shelters house people with itchy skin and other health complaints.
As an immediate step towards relief in Kashmir, one needs to build houses for thousands of people who have lost their homes. No one seems to have an idea where the relief packages announced by the central or the state governments have been going. The recent Rs7.45 billion (Dh445 million) package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his plan to have a central-government body oversee its implementation are laudable. But all these promises will count for nothing if the homeless have no protection against the harsh winter that will set in soon. Whatever has to be done, has to be done urgently.
Omar Shafi Trumboo, a well-known industrialist and general-secretary of the Civil Society Forum of Kashmir, has been involved in relief work in the state, especially in the badly hit south.
“Temporary shelters for people need to be built urgently as winter is almost here,” he says. “Also, conversion of these temporary shelters into permanent structures has to begin soon. One can clearly see politics and the impending elections affecting relief work. Good Samaritans from the corporate world and other individuals need to come forward and begin work.”
Sachin Pilot, former union minister for corporate affairs, agrees with Trumboo: “The J&K tragedy is a national tragedy and it should not and must not be politicised. Funds, resources, efforts should flow in from everywhere to rehabilitate victims. The government should see that CSR rules are made a little flexible, as I did during my tenure as union minister, so that people from everywhere can pitch in. In fact, the project of rehabilitation should be the topmost priority of the government after rescue and relief work.”
Organisations like the HMP Foundation have been working from day one, rescuing victims, distributing relief material, holding medical camps, stocking up medicines and food in hospitals.
Faisal Patel, founder and director of HMP, says, “We have distributed 1,500 litres of water, 3,500 kilograms of food packets [including rice, pulses, flour, salt, sugar, biscuits, etc], 2,000 kilograms of milk powder, 100 kilograms of baby food, 3,000 blankets, 2,000 pieces of warm clothing, 5,000 chlorine tablets, 3,000 face masks, 2,000 tubes of disinfectants, 5,000 packets of ORS, 5,000 strips of general medicines, 2,500 bandage strips, and other essential items for daily use. We have also organised health camps in south Kashmir and Srinagar and catered to more than 2,000 patients. We have reached out to more than 1,500 households in the state through health camps or by providing relief.”
Elaborating on his future plans for rehabilitation in Jammu and Kashmir, he adds, “We have realised that one needs to identify specific areas where one wants to work and get on with it. So, at HMP, we have decided on working towards ‘Adopt a J&K Village’ project, where we will rebuild 100 completely destroyed villages and rehabilitate their residents. These villages will be worked upon with the motive of building them better than before in terms of infrastructure, opportunities for growth and employment, and the overall aesthetics.
“We are also planning to undertake the rebuilding of hospitals such as the Lalded and G.B. Pant. Organisations like the FICCI [Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry], corporate houses such as Jindal Steel and Larsen & Toubro, are already on board in realising this task.”
Restoring normality in this beautiful land that Firdaus once described as heaven in the much-quoted couplet, Agar Firdaus bar ru-e-zamin ast, hami ast o- hami ast o- hami ast [If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here] will take all the goodness and resilience humankind, especially Indians, can muster.
Shubhrastha Shikha is a consultant for socio-political projects and a freelance journalist.
