Sameer Hamdani: “My book presents Srinagar as a stubbornly resilient city”

This is not a book about Kashmir, rather it seeks to look into the various aspects of urbanity that define a particular space in Kashmir: Srinagar.

In what ways does your book depart from earlier documented histories of the city?

This is not a book about Kashmir, rather it seeks to look into the various aspects of urbanity that define a particular space in Kashmir: Srinagar. It is a book that seeks to understand what Srinagar means for Kashmir, and how the city self-images itself as the city of Kashmir, or as I write the only city of Kashmir.

Author Sameer Hamdani (Courtesy the subject)

The book offers an open-ended narrative that navigates through textual and material culture alike, tracing how Srinagar has served as a crucible of transcultural and transregional encounters. It attempts to present Srinagar as a living and stubbornly resilient city, not reduce it to a beautiful or ugly “place”.

288pp, ₹699; Hachette India

You write about the loss of “old Srinagar” as the city has expanded into reclaimed marshes, paddy fields and orchards, producing new neighbourhoods that you see as lacking identity. To what extent do you see this expansion as an inevitable outcome of urban growth and population pressure, or is it a consequence of poor planning and policy decisions over time?

There is a masnavi written in Kashmir about a devastating flood that took place in Kashmir in 1903 - Sehlab Nama (The Book of Flood). The refrain in this masnavi features a line, ‘gov kouyni Khanbal ti Khadanyar’ (from Khanbal (South) to Khandinyar (North), it (Kashmir) became one), which primarily speaks to the extent of destruction caused by the flood.

Unfortunately, given our current unabated and uncontrolled urbanisation, I fear this may well be our future, where entire Kashmir from north to south will become one single continuous city. It’s a frightening reality, particularly for those like me who do not see city as the only future for humanity.

Policy makers and planners are certainly to blame, but so are we the people living in villages, towns and the city. As a community we have also displayed an incomprehensible casualness as our land banks are eroded, destroyed and built upon.

Is it the inevitable outcome of urban growth and population? No. Do we really need our individual houses in individual plots of lands parcelled from orchards, farms and wetlands? Maybe it is not even a question of need. In a region where land is limited can we even afford to keep building like this at all? What about food, and where do you grow it? Look at Srinagar. If you ignore the mountains and the surviving water bodies, it is one big construction site, devoid of any green space. Is this what we want for the entire valley?

You point out that the Jhelum once functioned as a highway, with the city as its destination, and that Srinagar was ringed by interconnected water bodies. How has the Jhelum shaped the city, and how has that relationship changed in recent decades?

Except for one brief, manicured stretch within the Civil Lines, the Jhelum riverfront today is a long stretch of decaying old houses. Take a boat, and virtually every ghat in the city is choked with silt and garbage, and completely absent of life. The river that once gave the city its reason to exist now feels like something Srinagar is ashamed of, something it would rather forget.

If you chance upon any old image of the city, read any of the more than 50 travelogues written about the city, what captures your imagination is the river, and importantly life on the river. People performing morning ablution on the river bank - the yarbal, people transporting food and goods on barges, people trading in their shikaras, it is all happening on Jhelum. From Bilhana in the eleventh century who proudly speaks about bathing houses on the Jhelum to Muhammad Salih Kambo, the official historian of Emperor Shah Jahan, everyone is celebrating the river. Shrines, temples and khanqahs opening to the river. The numerous merchant houses, their khotis and showrooms selling ‘Kashmir Art’ lining the Fateh Kadal or what we call the 3rd Bridge. Even gossip seems to have been an activity particularly prevalent on the first bridge constructed in the city, Zaina Kadal. That is lost today.

You write that some historians rely heavily on memory, which you distinguish from “actual” history. Please elaborate on this, and how memory-driven narratives have influenced the written history of the city.

I am not speaking about ‘historians’ here, whose research is based on academic rigour and grounded in evidence. It’s more an observation on ‘popular histories’. We keep encountering versions of history that are speculative, built entirely on conjecture with little or no verifiable evidence to support them. Often, to sidestep any questioning, you label them as ‘oral history’, and that is it. Just check some popular social media pages, sometimes it feels like the more you can spice it up, the more edible it becomes for general consumption.

We need to bring a level of academic rigour to how we write popular histories. Because in the end popular history is what remains impactful within the society, in any society.

The recent online conversations that took place regarding the reality of Habba Khatoon’s grave at Pandrethan is a clear illustration of the dilemma we are facing. How do you all of sudden in the twentieth century arrive at a decision that an unknown spot in the city’s outskirt marks the last resting place of Kashmir’s greatest romantic poet. Someone who had passed away somewhere in the sixteenth century.

Similar is the case of the alleged grave of Kashmir’s leading poet of the 17th century, Ghani Kashmiri, which was “discovered” based on a stray, ‘oral tradition’ compiled by Munshi Muhammad Din Fauq. Fauq was someone who wrote voluminously on Kashmir in the first half of the last century, but many of his claims are again grounded in memory, and remain unsubstantiated.

You mention that until the end of Muslim rule in the nineteenth century, Srinagar was known by its Persian name, Shahr-i-Kashmir. What role did Persian language and culture play in shaping the city’s Muslim identity?

I would not limit what you term the Persian language and culture to a particular community alone. Remember the first translation of Ramayana in Persian was undertaken in the court of the sultans of Kashmir in fifteenth century, much earlier than when a similar experiment took place under the patronage of Emperor Akbar. Go to the oriental Library in Srinagar and you will find numerous manuscripts of Persian poetry commissioned by Hindus living in the city. Occasionally, you may even find the owners’ notes on the margins. If you are a connoisseur of art and learning in, let’s say, 19th century Srinagar, you would definitively have a good understanding of Persian language, and would be rooted in localized version of the Persian culture. The chronograms for two of the earliest temples constructed in Srinagar following the Sikh conquest of Kashmir are in Persian, and they still exist.

Even the early Dogra rulers, both Maharaja Gulab Singh and Ranbir Singh patronized poets who wrote in Persian. During my research, I discovered an invitation card written on the wedding of Raja Hari Singh (future Maharaja Hari Singh) – it was in Persian.

And then, even today, if you attend a mehfil-maloud at a Sufi shrine, in a Khanqah or even at someone’s home, aside from the prayers which are in Arabic, the majority of the recitation is in Persian. Verses of masters such as Maulana Jami, Amir Khusroo and then our own native poets who wrote in Persian such as Khwaja Habib-al Lah Nowsheri. Architecturally, the cities greatest monument, the Jamia Masjid is the prime example of synthesis of Persian and Kashmiri architectural traditions. This can be seen at some other sites too which, I have explained in my earlier book on architecture.

Do you believe that a popular history of Srinagar, and of Kashmir more broadly, should be part of the school curriculum in Jammu and Kashmir?

Unlike the years when I was growing up, the youth today, I would say especially those in their late teens and early twenties, show a remarkable interest in history. Much of this curiosity, however, is either a nostalgic venture into an imagined past or shaped by politicised readings, selectively amplified or distorted through social-media debates. In an era when even governments actively promote a particular ‘gaze at the past”, or let’s say select versions of history, accessible and researched popular histories have become indispensable. That is what I feel. Books that remain grounded in evidence and speak to a wide readership are not just desirable; they are a societal necessity.

Now speaking about school curriculum, should it be done? Yes. Will such a venture make a difference? Yes. Can it be done? To be honest given how history courses have been redesigned from school to graduate level, I believe it’s a near impossible task. And what is difficult in the rest of the country, seems rather impossible here. But then, let’s hope.

Majid Maqbool is an independent journalist based in Kashmir.