Troubles on the Roads to Zangskar [Two incomplete roads, two estranged communities and a looming isolation that breeds disastrous misperceptions] By SIDDIQ WAHID The road between Ladakh’s trans-Himalayan towns of Kargil and Padum opened in the mid-1970s. Like the road between Srinagar and Leh – they would be called ‘motor roads’ in the early 20th century to distinguish them from pony roads – that was literally carved through the Himalaya a few decades earlier, the Kargil-Padum road must have been a feat of exceptional engineering. However, according to Tsewang Jigmed, a local resident of the Zangskar region, the condition of the road has not improved in the more than thirty-five years since, and in some portions it has become worse. One tends to believe this assertion. I travelled this same road thirty years ago and again a few days ago. It takes ten to twelve hours to cover the 235 kilometers by car. It is a classic case of developmental anachronism in the 21st century. For the tourism industry, or even romantic arm-chair travelers to Zangskar, the anachronism may not be something to lament. Ananda Coomaraswamy, the masterly Sinhala-English interpreter of South Asian art, writing almost a century ago, commented on how tourism was a curious trade in which travel professionals publicized remote and ‘unspoiled’ destinations so that the tourists could, precisely, make them spoiled and handy. But for the residents of the region who are forced to endure hardships-that-need-not-be in this age of technological prowess, the isolation can be a curse. In September last year the sleepy town of Padum hogged the limelight for a few days in the rest of J&K with reports of clashes between Muslims and Buddhists. The genesis of the clash between the two communities was the conversion of five families (with one family eventually rescinding) to Islam. In today’s political climate it is understandable this event generated little more than mere publicity rather than understanding first. Commendably, political representatives of both the government and the opposition travelled to this out-of-the-way region in quick turn, resulting in the publicity on the controversy abating. Its resolution, however, is still awaited. The incident lingers as an imprecise memory and threatens to complicate what is already a complex conflict-ridden State of J&K. This is augured by reports appearing nine months later (see Greater Kashmir, June 1, 2013, et seq.), with indistinct perceptions and delayed conclusions in both the communities of Zangskar. Unless addressed and reconciled, it could turn out to be an archetypal case of what the ‘absence of state’ and confessional politicking can do to a place, especially when it is cut off – as Zangskar is – from the rest of the world for five months of the year. Under such circumstances, perceptions encrust themselves and become reality to achieve the opposite of the common good. There are signs that this is happening. Sometimes, corrections to simple inaccuracies or focusing on verifiable disagreements to diffuse them help to stem misperceptions at the all-important start of many a conflict. There are some factors about the Zangskar clash that can have deep negative effects on the citizens of Padum locally, of Kargil district-wise and of Ladakh in general. For example, the Sub-District Magistrate of Zangskar has issued a formal order in early June requiring local butchers – invariably Muslims – to close their shops on given days in a month in deference to the religious sentiments of the ‘majority’ community. The potential for inter-community understanding to such accommodation apart, such an “order” is clearly unconstitutional and, perhaps more importantly, has wide-ranging political ramifications in a state like J&K. Then there are “submissions” by the Zangskar Muslim Association or ZMA (significantly, a body specially instituted to respond to the 2012 clashes) to government representatives that their community members should be “provide[d] the benefit on the pattern of migration” and to “allow us [to be allotted] land in Kashmir valley to settle there till proper decision will not take by govt. (sic)”. Recent experiences in the State are enough to bring memories of how this can quickly transmute into accusations of inflexible and loaded terms like ‘ethnic cleansing’, whether deliberately or by default. There are some issues that can be easily verified and put to rest by mutual agreement to avoid a slide in harmony between neighbors who have lived side by side for the better part of a millennium. For example a recent newspaper report with a claim that Muslims have been or are being denied services in Government hospitals. This was unanimously denied by the ZMA as also the ZBA (Zangskar Buddhist Association) when I met, separately, with both. Again, the ZBA claim that their co-religionists were coaxed into converting to Islam, while the same converts openly denied it, as did the ZMA. A simple report by a formal fact-finding or inquiry commission could verify the discrepancies, clear the air, allow the report to be transparently addressed, smother factual inaccuracies and put such unnecessary ambiguities to rest. With time this task becomes more difficult if not improbable, as politicized politics in South Asia has demonstrated so amply. It is transparent that there are radicalized factions in both the religious communities of Padum and Zangskar. The established pattern of behavior of such groupings is that they thrive on controversy and even fuel it. This in turn facilitates the involvement of co-religionists who are not local residents, enlarging and distorting the controversy. One such distortion is repeated references to the Buddhists of Zangskar as the “majority” community. In fact the Buddhists of Zangskar are a nested community within the District of Kargil which is overwhelmingly Muslim. Yet within Zangskar, the Buddhists do form a localized majority, not only complicating provincial politics but threatening continued localized fragmentation. To return to the road: in the above mix of things, the road to Padum looms large as a means for reconciliation. Isolation tends to distort both controversy and expectation, which brings me to the tail-piece in the road. As if one incomplete road were not enough the construction of another road, from Padum to Nyemo in the District of Leh, was launched. After nine years this too remains miserably behind target, thanks in no small measure to the challenges of terrain. The sad twist in the one tale of these two roads is this: the Buddhist perception is that the incomplete road from Kargil to Padum illustrates a communal decision to keep Zangskar a backwater of a District and a State that is Muslim majority; the Muslim perception is that the ‘new’ initiative of the incomplete road between Padum and Nyemo is a prelude to hiving off Zangskar from Muslim majority Kargil District. What better way to neutralize such dangerously communalist interpretations to development than by completing both? And the sooner this is done the better. Zangskar’s demographics may be diminutive even by the standards of sparsely populated Ladakh, but it has the potential of sparking off yet another conflict in a State that is seeing enough.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 08:19:53 +0000
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