Huts, Houseboats and Heartlessness

“If I was going through the jungle and I saw a tiger and a Kashmir government officer I would first shoot the officer.”

Thus spake my husband today on hearing the news that the Dal Development Board, in charge of the lakes around Srinagar, Kashmir, were planning to remove the waterside huts where the houseboat families live.

Many years ago, houseboat families did not live on land. Instead they lived in dhoonga boats, smaller narrower boats than the ones they let out to tourists. Here they raised their children and cooked for guests in the big houseboats.

Then along came the 18 or so years of militancy when the tourist trade plummeted and, to add to the houseboat community’s woes, the Government raised the price of the pine wood required for houseboat construction. As a result, when the dhoongas needed repair the owners could not afford to buy the necessary material.

Having no alternative, the families built huts made from cheap timber on the land they leased from the Government. The huts were not strictly legal and were not pretty but they served a purpose.

Now that Kashmir is limping towards some sort of normalcy, the Dal Development Board, under pressure from some grant-giving body, is planning to remove all the huts from the lakeside. Yes, fine, they need to go at some point but first, in the name of pity, provide some place for the families to stay.

What are the houseboat people supposed to do? Financially crippled by all the years of hardship, many do not have the resources to buy land to build alternative accommodation. And land prices have soared in the Kashmir Valley. What can they do? OK they could move into the boats they keep for tourists but then bang goes their chances of capturing some income this summer.

Sadly, the Houseboat Association, which should be fighting this threat tooth and nail, is badly divided and cannot present a strong and unified front. My mother-in-law, who has suffered greatly over the last 20 years, is frantic with worry. We are pressing ahead with an application for a housing loan to quickly complete the house we started last year. It has been a lousy year for business and we can’t afford it, but there is no choice.