SRINAGAR, Kashmir — They come for the largest tulip garden on the continent. They come over the snowy Himalayas. They come for the lakes and the natural beauty.
Tourists have returned to Jammu and Kashmir in droves, in what India calls a sign of how things have changed in the disputed region, where violent separatists have been active for decades. Three years ago, India’s Hindu nationalist government surprisingly cemented control of the Muslim-majority area, saying that would finally bring peace.
“The region was a terrorist hotspot,” said Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister and a key deputy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Now it has become a great tourist destination.”
But what attracts the visitors offers only a brief escape for many residents, who remain trapped in an old cycle of fear, despair and uncertainty.
In Srinagar’s tulip garden this summer, Suhail Ahmad Bhat, a fruit vendor from the nearby town of Baramulla, admired the beauty of a million flowers. “I feel good in the garden,” Bhat said. “But outside the garden, there is a sense of fear: a lot of checkpoints, a lot of weapons. There is no peace of mind.”
In late 2019, the Indian Army began aggressively enforcing a punitive embargo that cut off Kashmir’s communications with the outside world while New Delhi revoked the state’s semi-autonomous status and placed local political leaders under house arrest.
For now, there is a new normal in the Kashmir Valley, the most restless part of the region. It relies on a strong military presence that quickly imprisons dissenting voices. Many Kashmiris find themselves in an uncomfortable limbo between a militarized state and militant separatism.
To attract more visitors, Srinagar officials established the tulip garden in 2007. It is spread over 30 hectares and has flowers in more than a dozen colors, as well as 68 varieties of tulips that bloom for a month in early summer. .
The garden is attracting visitors again after a recent ceasefire on the nearby Pakistani border and a post-pandemic surge in travel. The number of tourists in the Kashmir Valley, the government says, will rise to more than 2 million in 2022, a triple jump from the previous year.
Traders and business owners say a reduction in political strikes and a decrease in large-scale violence have meant less business disruption. But they pointed to a high unemployment rate and low demand for goods to counter the government’s claims that it had pumped billions of dollars in investment into the valley.
Since New Delhi took control, there has been a significant reduction in infiltration by militants from Pakistan, government data shows, and a slight drop in terror incidents. But the number of civilian deaths, around 40 a year, has remained largely unchanged. Authorities in Kashmir have put the number of active militants in the valley below 100.
For many residents, any calm is unsettling. Irfan Abbas, an accountant out in the tulip garden with friends, was tired of the new normal.
“So much repression, so much depression,” Abbas said. “It’s like a volcanic situation — it can erupt at any time.”
By: Hari Kumar and Mujib Mashal
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6510228, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-12-28 20:50:08
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