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War clouds force tourist exodus from Kashmir

Basharat Peer in Srinagar

The tension on the India-Pakistan border has given a fresh jolt to the tourism industry in Jammu and Kashmir, with even the few foreign and domestic tourists staying in the valley leaving.

"Around 60 foreign and 600 domestic tourists were staying here," Bashir Shaala, secretary of the Houseboat Owners Association, said.

"Ever since the prime minister made the speech threatening a 'decisive war', most of them (tourists) have left," he added.

The exodus is taking place in Ladakh also, where the majority of tourists are foreigners.

"I do not have the statistics, but most of them are leaving," a tourism department official in Leh said. "The arrivals were already low this year," he added.

Shaala and other houseboat owners, who have been reduced to penury by the 12-year-long insurgency in the state, feel frustrated as bookings are also being cancelled now.

"The foreign tourist inflow had already diminished," he said, "but we had some domestic tourists coming. Now they too have cancelled their bookings."

"The last time a foreign tourist stayed in my houseboat was in November 2000," Shaala said.

In the pre-militancy era tourists would wait for days to get a room in his houseboat, he said.

His visitors' book boasts of tourists from almost every part of the globe.

"Americans, British, Russians, French... tourists from everywhere would queue in front of my houseboat," he said.

His houseboat, Gemini, is a five-bedroom boat, fitted with exotic Kashmiri carpets, carved walnut panelling and furniture rivalling a palace.

But Shalla himself, like other houseboat-owners, lives in a wooden cottage on the banks of the Dal Lake.

"For a night's stay I would charge $40 then. Now I welcome the occasional visitor, who pays even $10," he said.

From the 557,977 tourists in 1989, the numbers dipped to a meagre 10,324 in 1990, when the separatist movement reared its head.

Tourist traffic declined further as 1991 saw merely 6,287 travellers going to Kashmir. And as violence ravaged the valley over the years, the arrivals kept falling. Only 3,871 tourists have visited the valley between April 2001 and 2002.

Tourism department officials feel helpless about this phenomenon.

"Tourist arrivals are beyond our control," Sheikh Nisar Ahmed, Kashmir's tourism director, said. "I do not see any improvement in the situation till there is peace."

Sheikh believes the tourism department's publicity efforts will not make much sense till there is an end to the violence in the state.

"In fact," he said, "Kashmir does not need publicity, it is known all over the world as a tourist destination."

The houseboat owners, who were worst hit by the slump in tourism, have had to even sell pieces of furniture adorning their houseboats.

"It was a tough decision," G M Patloo, one of the owners said. "But I had to feed my family. There was no other way out," he added.

To survive, some of the houseboat owners are turning to other professions like selling handicrafts or working as manual labourers.

The cost of repairing the houseboats also adds to the burden of the owners.

"It takes anything between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000. We might somehow make our ends meet, but saving money for maintenance is a major hassle," Patloo said.

The houseboats, which are found only in Kashmir, were introduced in 1931.The present version with fully furnished interiors came in 1975.

"I built my houseboat in 1983 for Rs 900,000. Today, if the government buys our boats, we are ready to sell. So that we can move ahead to other trades," Shaala said.

Terrorism Strikes in Jammu: The complete coverage

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