The Hindu : National : Aliabad Serai — a symbol of destruction

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

National

National

Aliabad Serai — a symbol of destruction

By Praveen Swami

A Gujjar family takes a break at Aliabad Serai. — Photo: Praveen Swami

ALIABAD SERAI (SHOPIAN), JUNE 8 . Aliabad Serai's stone walls guard over the magnificent 3,182-metre Pir Panjal pass, the highest point on the road armies marching from the plains of Punjab have taken into Kashmir for hundreds of years. Part of the string of magnificent shelters built along the Mughal Road by Emperor Nuruddin Mohammad Jehangir from 1605 to 1627, Aliabad Serai is also a symbol of the destruction a decade and a half of conflict has caused to the Pir Panjal.

Graffiti on the magnificent monument records the passage of the modern armies fighting on the Pir Panjal. One scrawl, on the archway that leads into the Serai, informs travellers that the Border Security Force used the building as a camp until 2002. Another message, stuck up by the Jaish-e-Mohammad in 1999, when Indian troops had been pulled out of the area during the Kargil war, claims the monument for Pakistan. Although the monument is considered to be of great archaeological value, parts of its stone walls and arches have been pilfered for use as building material.

War has ensured that change has been slow to come on what is known as the Mughal Road to Kashmir. Prior to the outbreak of terrorism in 1988, the Jammu and Kashmir Government was engaged in pushing a modern road across the Pir Panjal, a development which would have halved the journey time from southern Kashmir to Rajouri and Poonch and ensured there was an alternative to the single highway which now links the Kashmir Valley to the plains. Successive Governments have since promised to resume work on the Mughal Road, but nothing has actually been done.

A rusting bulldozer trapped on a stone cliff-face halfway from Hirpora to Aliabad shows just how far the Rs. 1.5 billion works have proceeded. Several of the concrete bridges built along the road, notably across the raging Rambiara river, have been washed away since. In stark contrast, the stone culverts put up to ford mountain streams during Jehangir's time are for the most part intact. The one Serai built after Aliabad, a State Government shelter on the Pir Panjal pass, has almost disappeared, its roof stolen by someone in need of tin sheets and iron girders.

Like the Sokh Serai, which is now an Indian Army outpost a few hours' walk away, Aliabad would have most likely been used by Mughal forces on their way to Kashmir. Nearby Hastwanj, local legend has it, was the place where Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir's cohorts of battle elephants went into the Yanga Nar river. But the Mughal Road was, and is, also of crucial importance to civilians. Pioneered by Gujjar herdsmen who drive their livestock into the mountains in the summer, the road is a lifeline for everyone from itinerant mystics to small-time traders.

Building a modern road through Aliabad would bring enormous benefits to the south Kashmir economy, and to remote parts of Rajouri and Poonch such as Thana Mandi and Surankote. Yet, the State apparatus simply cannot function at gunpoint. Work on the Mughal Road was stalled after terrorists began targeting contractors for protection money, a development that also terminated work on roads from south Kashmir into the district of Doda. Despite regular election-time noises, the bottom line is that neither the State Government nor the armed forces want to commit the resources needed to build the road, and then secure traffic across it.

It takes little to understand the problem. Last summer, for example, four terrorists kidnapped Chiri Gujjar, the daughter of Sher Mohammad Gujjar, on the eve of her wedding in Dubjan. "They wanted the cash the bridegroom was wearing on his ceremonial garland," says Makhan Din Gujjar, "as well as a tribute of butter, goats and chicken." Chiri Gujjar was held for three days while a ransom was negotiated. This summer, the family has chosen not come up. Unsurprisingly, almost anyone supposed to work in the hills — schoolteachers hired to work at mobile schools for the Gujjars, forest guards, veterinarians — have found excuses not to do so.

Army authorities have moved to change things this year, pumping in additional troops and initiating an ambitious new community liaison scheme. Gujjars leaving Rajouri and Poonch have been issued photo-identification, which entitles them to medicines, veterinary support and emergency rations when they reach what are known as Receiving Area Support Points (RASP) on the Kashmir side of the Pir Panjal. Last month, the Army's RASP at Dubjan was handling over 200 Gujjar families a day. The new troop presence has also helped end violence — the Aliabad Serai area, for example, hasn't seen a fire-fight with terrorists since last April.

Military engineers say it should take less than a year to turn the old Mughal Road into a black-top highway. Whether the Jammu and Kashmir Government finds the courage — and the cash — to get cracking, however, remains to be seen.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National