By Law Kumar Mishra
The other day, B K Dhar, who recently retired from the forest department in Bhopal, called me from Srinagar, excitedly sharing how he couldn’t find a hotel room in Srinagar.
“Everything is booked! Even shikara rides are expensive now. Hard to believe it is the same Kashmir,” he told me. A Kashmiri pandit, he along with many others, had to leave his homeland and his house in the 80s to escape fanatics. I do remember Kashmir—but not the one he was seeing.
When I landed at Srinagar 27 years ago, the Tourist Reception Center near Radio Kashmir center had only two occupants- me and a Swedish engineer engaged in a hydro power project. In the late 90s and early 2000s, when I was posted in Kashmir as a journalist, the Valley was drowning in fear. Terrorism was at its peak.
During those times, all shops closed their shutters before sunset, creating a curfew-like atmosphere on the streets, with armed forces jawans and mobile bunkers stationed every 50 meters. Terrorists had free rein. But today, places like Lal Chowk, Pratap Park, Boulevard Road, and Dal Lake resemble Connaught Place of Delhi, buzzing with activity even at midnight. Residential areas such as Afendi Bagh, Rainawari, Hyderpora, Rawalpora Batmaloo, Bemina, Sannat Nagar, Jawahir Bagh, and all ten Kadals (bridges over the Jhelum) are teeming with visitors, a far cry from their previously secluded and fearful past.
Dal Lake, now alive with tourists, was eerily empty back then. Houseboat owners sat idle, their shikaras gathering dust. Hotels, which today struggle to accommodate guests, had vacant rooms and dim corridors, not out of choice but necessity.
Reporting in those days meant navigating a land where every street carried whispers of an encounter, a blast, or a curfew. The sound of gunfire wasn’t shocking—it was routine.
I had narrowly escaped death, perhaps by few seconds, when a fidayeen attacker, the first in Kashmir, had entered an army complex in the Badamibagh cantonment in November 1999 as I was existing to target the same officer whom I had met few minutes ago, defence PRO, late Major P Purushottam. Five soldiers and Major Puroshottam lost their lives in that attack.
It was in those years that Narendra Modi, then the BJP’s General Secretary in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, became a familiar face in Srinagar. Unlike many politicians who saw Kashmir from afar, Modi was there. He wasn’t a leader relying on intelligence reports from Delhi—he was on the ground, meeting people, speaking to party workers, understanding the pain firsthand.
One of the moments that stayed with me was the Chhittisinghpura massacre in March 2000, when gunmen, disguised in army uniforms, executed 35 Sikhs on the eve of President Bill Clinton’s visit to India. The shock was immense, the grief unbearable. Modi was quick to arrive, walking through the village, meeting grieving families, and listening to their pain. His face was not just one of sympathy but of someone registering everything—every detail, every emotion, every failure of the system that allowed such a tragedy to happen.
I remember standing nearby as he spoke to locals, absorbing their anguish.
Years passed. Narendra Modi became Gujarat’s Chief Minister, then India’s Prime Minister. And the moment he took office, it was clear—Kashmir was never far from his mind. He had seen its darkest days firsthand, and he knew exactly what needed to be done.
Today, the transformation is undeniable. The streets of Srinagar, once silent by nightfall, now echo with footsteps. The hotels, once empty, are overbooked. The shikaras, once still, now cut through Dal Lake, filled with tourists. Fear is no longer the defining emotion of the Valley.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to interact with Modi again. Amid discussions on various issues, Kashmir inevitably came up. As we spoke, he recollected those difficult days, particularly the Chhittisinghpura massacre.
As a journalist, I have reported on Kashmir’s worst days. Today, I heard of its best. And I can’t help but think back to those days in the early 2000s—when Modi walked through those streets, understanding, planning, preparing. He had seen the problem up close, and that’s why, when the time came, he knew exactly how to change its future.
