Srinagar City has a continuous history of two thousand years. That makes it to an elite list of cities which are situated on the banks of a river and which have stood continuously for two thousand years. In the south-Asian sub-continent, we would like to think that Benaras is perhaps the only other city which has a long continuous history of two thousand years.
Unfortunately for a city that is two thousand years old, we have a significantly lesser number of signs, buildings, and war memorials to name a few. However, that does not mean we do have places to show. If a survey is done on the percentage of tourists who visit Kashmir do actually go on a sightseeing tour of downtown Srinagar the percentage would not be more than twenty percent. From that one can imagine the wrongly set priorities of the tourism sector. Downtown Srinagar should have been the first place we show to a tourist, it has to be a mandatory tour on the itinerary of every tour operator.
However, that begs the question, is Downtown Srinagar ready to host five million tourists for a daytime visit between March and May? That is a really good question to ponder. Downtown Srinagar has seen the wars, the working of the high levels of governance, the coronations, and the emergence of the Sufi culture, the roots of culture in short have sprouted from here. Are the roads wide enough to accommodate such a high footfall of tourists? For the small markets around Jamia Masjid say such a high footfall can be a boon as can be the same for other markets. The government needs to think of a tourism route for downtown Srinagar where the tourist vehicles can be provided with substantial parking space, maybe lawns of some government college or school if the government cannot find any other site. Anything to revive the tourism of downtown Srinagar. Anything.
Downtown is the spiritual and cultural capital of Kashmir Valley. We see when tourists visit Iran or Turkey the first place they visit is the oldest part of the city – why is it the reverse in the case of Srinagar? Downtown Srinagar needs to be put on the cultural capital map of South Asia. It deserves a place there.
We hope that the current administration led by able statesmanship of Manoj Sinha will take this up on priority.
