A different Doda
In the short span of a dozen years, a once happy
land has been transformed into its very opposite
BY YOGINDER SIKAND
Killing of innocent civilians,
rape of village women, towns under curfew — this is all that we hear about Doda
these days. No one seems sure of who exactly is responsible for the seemingly
endless spell of violence and blood–letting that has now become a way of life
for the 5,00,000 denizens of Doda. The militants blame the army, who blame the
Pakistanis, who blame ‘Hindu fanatics’, who, in turn, blame ‘Islamic
terrorists’… and so on, while hardly a month passes without news of a major
massacre somewhere up in the mountains of Doda, as its people continue to reel
under unmitigated terror, hapless victims of the grand real estate dispute that
is the Kashmir controversy.
Doda was once a happy land,
isolated for much of the year from the rest of the world by treacherous mountain
passes. I first visited Doda some 15 years ago, shortly before the eruption of
militancy in the Kashmir Valley. A friend of mine had invited me to spend a
month with him and his family in Udrana, a little village on the outskirts of
the township of Bhaderwah, located in a narrow valley sandwiched between the
towering, snow-capped peaks of the Kailash Himalayas, on one side, and the
thickly-forested mountains below, on the other.
The rickety government bus
took almost 15 hours to cover the 200-km-odd stretch from Jammu to Udrana. The
road was narrow and strewn with boulders that had come rolling down in a recent
avalanche. A hundred metres below a river thundered, hurriedly making its way
down to the plain. On either side stood awesome, stern–looking mountains, draped
in an endless carpet of pine forests. Past the hill–station of Patnitop, and
then Batote, where we stopped for lunch, we lunged ahead, passing by little
hamlets set in the midst of terraced rice fields and patches of apple and nut
trees.
We got to Udrana just as
the muezzin’s cry from the mosque floated through the valley, calling the
faithful for the evening prayer. Across the street from the mosque, the temple
of the snake-god, was abuzz with activity. It was the eve of the first day of
the three–day Patt Mela, the annual fair of Vasuki Nag, patron deity of the
Naga-worshipping Hindus of Bhaderwah.
Bhaderwah, as I remember it from that first visit,
seemed to be a haven of pace and tranquility. Hindus and Muslims lived here in
roughly equal numbers. While in the surrounding villages they lived together in
common settlements, in the ‘bazar’, as the villagers referred to the town, Hindu
and Muslim quarters were neatly defined. Boards announced ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’
tea-stalls and eateries that catered to a clientele defined by religion, for, as
I was to discover, stern rules of social distance in matters of food were
strictly observed between Hindus and Muslims. I was to face the wrath of my
Brahmin hosts for trespassing their norms of propriety for gorging on two plates
of meat pilau at a Muslim roadside stall after two weeks of bland daal and
vegetables got too much for me to bear.
Yet, it seemed, Hindus and
Muslims lived in reasonable peace, each respecting the other’s space, sometime
indifference giving way to close friendships. My own host had several close
Muslim friends, and his uncle ran a shop along with one of the richest Muslim
merchants in town. Hindus and Muslims were invited to each other’s marriages,
but even here the rules of separation would be meticulously observed. Hindu
cooks would be specially employed to prepare food for Hindu guests, while at
Hindu weddings, Muslims seemed oblivious to any such scruples.
Festivals were an occasion
for Hindus and Muslims to mingle together, providing a welcome change from the
drab and harsh daily regimen that living in these remote parts entails. I was
fortunate to be in Bhaderwah in time for the town’s unique festival, the Patt
Mela. A large crowd of people had gathered outside the temple of Vasuki Nag, the
snake god, when I arrived there, my back stiff from the steep climb up the
narrow cobbled path from Udrana.
Musicians, playing on reed
pipes and metal drums, kept up an incessant low drone, while young men rushed
barefoot through a pit of burning coals in the hope of moving the fierce king of
the snakes to grant them their wishes. A procession wound its way through the
streets towards the temple, carrying richly embroidered and brightly coloured
umbrellas and flags. A
group of Muslim Gujjar cattle grazers, with their tell–tale hennaed beards and
tightly–wound turbans, had set up stalls, selling fresh milk and doing brisk
business. Kashmiri Muslim men, easily distinguishable by their finely chiselled
features, stood along with their Hindu friends watching the spectacle.
The origins of the Patt
Mela are shrouded in myth. According to local legend, many centuries ago the
Rajput ruler of Bhaderwah, who had been childless for several years, was blessed
by Vasuki Nag, the king of the snakes, with a son. Nag Pal, the son, succeeded
his father to the throne of Bhaderwah, as a fiercely proud Rajput warrior. Once,
so the story goes, the Mughal Emperor Akbar invited all his feudatories to a
darbar at Delhi. Since Bhaderwah, like the rest of Kashmir, had come under
Akbar’s authority, Nag Pal was forced to attend the darbar.
While the other feudatories of Akbar bowed and scraped
in front of the Emperor, Nag Pal alone refused to. Akbar is said to have been so
impressed with Nag Pal’s boldness that he gave him several costly gifts,
including gold and silver umbrellas, drums and ornaments as a token of his
pleasure. On returning to Bhaderwah, Nag Pal presented these gifts to the temple
of Vasuki Nag. It is in memory of their king and his bravery that for almost
four hundred years the Patt Mela has been held every summer at Bhaderwah.
The last time I was in
Bhaderwah for the Patt Mela — three years ago — Muslims were conspicuous by
their absence at the festivities. There had been clashes in the town recently
between Hindu and Muslim youths. The tension up in the ‘bazar’ was palpable.
Grim–looking, stern–faced army personnel patrolled the streets, and bunkers had
been set up where food and vegetable stalls once stood. Saffron flags fluttered
over Hindu-owned shops, while slogans denouncing army atrocities were faintly
visible on walls in Muslim localities, having survived frantic efforts by
municipal workers to scrub them away.
Strict curfew operated now,
and no one dared step out of their homes after sunset. My hosts, now used to my
unconventional ways, murmured in disgust when they learned that I had stopped at
a Muslim tea-stall for a cup of Kashmiri kahwa. Ismail, the amiable owner of the
grubby stall, complained about the frequent bandhs and hartals, and stories of
excesses by militants and the army.
“Hindus and Muslims are at
each other’s throats today”, he said, despairingly. “The Patt Mela celebrates
the friendship between a Muslim and a Hindu king, but who cares about that these
days?” he winced, as he puffed away on his ancient clay hukkah, sending out
clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.
Hindu attendance at Muslim
shrines in Doda, too, has come to an almost complete halt. Where once often
Hindus outnumbered Muslims, today few, if any, Hindus visit the many Sufi
dargahs that are found in almost every village of the sprawling district. Doda’s
most famous Sufi shrine is located at Kishtwar, a ten–hour drive from Bhaderwah
through high mountain passes on a treacherously narrow road. Hundreds of people,
Muslims as well as Hindus, have lost their lives in the Kishtwar area in the
last decade in the on–going conflict, and the situation here is probably much
more acute than in Bhaderwah, where it is already acute enough.
Kishtwar, when I first
visited it, was a major place of pilgrimage for Hindus and Muslims alike, its
graceful, pagoda–like dargah of the seventeenth century Muslim Sufi, Hazrat Baba
Fariduddin Baghdadi, attracting scores of the devout transcending barriers of
caste and creed. The Baba, as his name suggests, hailed from far–away Baghdad,
and travelled all the way to Doda on foot at a time when crossing the mountain
passes often meant instant death. Impressed by the Baba’s teachings and
simplicity, the Rajput king of Kishtwar converted to Islam, and many of his
subjects followed suit.
Even those who chose not to
change their faith held him in great regard. The story is told of how one of the
Baba’s sons miraculously brought a Hindu friend of his back to life so that they
could finish a game that they were playing when he suddenly died — polo I think
it was, if my memory serves me right! When I first visited the Baba’s dargah, a
slender minaret attached to its sloping roof was being repaired, arranged and
financed, I was told, by a local Hindu devotee.
Kishtwar, so I hear, is
today a ghost-town. Shops close by five and the streets are deserted an hour
later. The massive Chopan, the flat grassy plain at the far end of the town that
stretches as far as the eye can see, has not seen a cricket match for months.
Militants — both Hindu as well as Muslim — now have a strong presence in the
town. Cries for blood threaten to drown out the soul-stirring strains of the
music from the shrine of the Sufi who is probably turning in his grave at the
way the world is heading.
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