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Kashmir’s Unheard Fish Stories

16 March 2020

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By: Rafique Khan

In a magazine photo essay (Kashmir Walla, January 13-19, 2020) the headline reads: “Kashmiri fishes are disappearing along with the community”. The magazine reporter Bhat Burhan quotes a fish monger’s anguished cry: “How will I feed my family.” The fish monger laments of water bodies in Kashmir “getting dirtier and shrinking” and resulting declining fish catch makes the fish mongers of Kashmir a “disappearing profession.”

Burhan writes that close to 100,000 people in Kashmir depend on fishing for livelihood. Jammu and Kashmir waterbodies cover an area of about fifty thousand hectares (192 square mile). The waters bodies have seventeen species of fish.

The report has a quote from a conference on Fisheries and Climate Change held in 2019 by the Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology (SKUAST) that reads: “In contrast to the requirement of 1.5 lakh tons fishes, J&K only produces about twenty thousand. That means fish harvested is Kashmir (20,000 tons) is about one seventh of the demand (150,000 tons).

After reading the essay, I conjured my own fish related stories about Kashmir that I want to share. There are six: the first one is that I was told, the next two that I read about in books, there are two that I observed myself and the sixth and last one is the one that I have imagined.

Story one

I do not eat fish, in particular the Kashur Gaad (Kashmiri fish). When I was a toddler, my father, a civil engineer, worked for the Public Works Department (PWD) of the Jammu and Kashmir Government, Bandipore Division. The Bandipore division headquarters ,with offices and residences for the staff, was a sprawling compound laid out as a British suburban compound. The compound was at the toe of mountain range, high above overlooking the Asia largest fresh water lake Wular.

The compound was near a village called Sunarwan (meaning golden forest). The PWD compound also adjoined river Madumatti. Madumatti originates in the high mountains above Bandipora and empties into lake Wular. At Sonarwan Madumatti flows in rapids. The PWD workers had built a check dam on part of Madumati to create a small pond. The pond was stocked with fish. I am told in Sonarwan a village lass named Jani helped my parents to look after me.

Apparently back in the 1940’s the fish was so abundant in the Sonarwan pond even teenagers could catch a fish with their bare hands. Jani had caught a Kasher Gaad in the pond, baked it in her Kangari – a fire pot – for me. The fishbone got 2 stuck in my throat and the trauma of that experience made that feeding my last meal of Kashur Gaad.

Years later, on a hike to the mountains above Bandipore I learned that the Somarwani pond is no more. Alas, Indian army had established a camp in Sonarwani. The soldiers fished the pond using dynamite. The dynamite blasts weakened the pond embankment and the seasonal flood waters washed it away.

Story two:

A British traveler in a fish related story narrates an example of oppressive rule in Kashmir. This is the period when the second Dogra ruler Pratab Singh came to the throne in Kashmir, after the death of his father Maharaja Gulab Singh. When Gulab Singh died the court astrologers prophesied that the soul of the dead Maharaja had migrated into a fish. To ensure the survival of the dead Maharaja’s soul, floating as a fish in the waters, Pratab Singh issued a decree prohibiting fishing in the waters of his domain. The British traveler describes seeing the aftermath of violating that decree.

Two peasants where caught fishing for their food in their river. For their punishment the men where tied to a pole, their hands tied behind their back, naked above the waist, with the fishes they had caught tied around their necks. They where left without food or water, with their catch of fish, to die as a reminder of the fiat of the autocratic power in Kashmir.

In Kashmir even now about a century and half later, I understand, unauthorized fishing is still prohibited. A government permit is required to fish in the Kashmir Waters.

Story three

This next story is from my personal observation, from another corner of Kashmir, in an alpine river valley named after the river that flows through it, the Wadwan river.

Wadwan river transitions into a slower meandering waterways within the Valley floor as it descends from the high mountains where the river runs in high rapids.

Wadwan river has fish. The catch is that fishing requires government permit. To get a permit to fish a Wadwan valley resident requires a day long hike to reach the government office to apply for a permit. Access to motorable transport is extremely limited in Wadwan. So for Wadwan residents there is no fishing. For the ones who dare to disobey and fish, greasing the palm of enforcement officials with a little bribe gets the perpetrator off the hook.

A comment in the magazine report by the Director of Fisheries Department jogged my memory of fishing in Wadwan . The Directors comment reads: “ We have proposed land for the fish market in Tengpora (Srinagar) and are waiting for releaseof funds so that we could start works.”

There is a government owned fishery in Wadwan. The Fishery, near a village named Brian, located in the geographic center of the Wadwan valley, is a visible landmark. The fishery compound office building, a structure made of brick with a tin roof, is totally alien to the local architecture, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the verdant Wadwan valley. The fishery compound is enclosed by metal fence. Within the compound adjacent to the office there is a pond. The pond has a channel connecting it to the Wadwan river. During the week long stay in Wadwan, we saw no human activity at the fishery. The building was locked and the pond was an alga infested hole in the ground. There are no fish in the fishery at Wadwan.

“Kashmiri fishes are disappearing” and yet the boss man of the government fisheries main worry is for funds to buy land and build buildings rather than address the dwindling fish habitat. I figure, building buildings generates cash to grease palms and fish have no cash.

Story four:

One particular fish species, Trout, has made Kashmir one of the world’s major destination for recreational fishing. Trout species of fish is a transplant from Europe brought to Kashmir beginning of 19 th century, AD 1899. Frank J Mitchel, a Scottish soldier of fortune ran a carpet making workshop in Kashmir. Mitchel convinced the Kashmir authorities to import Scottish trout eggs. After a failed attempt the second consignment of rainbow and brown trout 10,000 eggs reached Kashmir. Released in Dachigam and other streams the imported trout flourished in Kashmir .

As per The Third Pole (website) an institution organized to understanding Asia’s water crisis, the real attraction of the trout in Kashmir is in its habitation in the numerous snow fed mountains. Two tributaries of river Jehlum – Sindh and Lidder – offer the finest trout fish anywhere in the world. But now, confirming the Kashmiri fish mongers lament, The Third Pole notes that the trout are declining due to a blend of pollution, human intervention and climate change. Trout cultivation as of now, as per The Third Pole, mostly is from fish farms; government run (90 tons) and private run fish farms (300 tons)

Story five:

Echoing the lament of the fish monger about dwindling fish the KASHMIRWALLA report also describes the ordeal of a fisher women who commutes daily from her home on the bank of Wular lake in Bandipore to Srinagar to sell fish. The fisherwomen says “ We buy fishes from one at a lower cost and then sell to customers”.

Two years back in the Summer of 2018, a friend and I went down river Jehlum in a shikara from the outskirts of Srinagar to the bank of Wuler Lake at Sopor. In our eight hour ride we saw the degradation of the river. River Jehlum was once the main venue of Kashmir natural and cultural environment. River Jehlum is now turning into an open sewer. We saw at every town and village on its bank open drains discharging raw sewage. It all empties into Wular.

We traversed Wular lake at dusk. A vast expanse of clam water surrounded with distant snow capped mountains is a wonders sight. At Wular water flow is very gentle, so sediments in the water drop to the lake bottom. In Wular in the center of lake, miles from the nearest habitation, I sensed a faint smell, It smelled of sewage.

Alas, I realized then that Wulur – Asia’s largest fresh water body – is turning into sewage soakage pit. How will the Kashmiri fish and the people who depend on it for their livelihood survive?

Now to the imagined story:

Enterprising Scotsman Mitchel in 1900 AD envisaged and then worked to realize his vision to propagate trout fish from Scotland in the waters of Kashmir. This imagined story is some 200 years later. Now Kashmiri entrepreneurs transport live fish from Kashmir, for expatriate Kashmiris to partake their Kasher-Gaad and for the finest dinning establishment to serve Kashmir’s Rainbow Trout, the premier trout in the world. And the best part is, it is all a private grassroot cooperative enterprise of Kashmiri young men and women.

How did this happen:

It started in Sonarwan, Bandipora. Year 2022 graduating college students from the Bandipora Degree College formed a co-operative society, Bandipora Enterprise Society (BES). Aim of BES was to facilitate enterprises for its members, mostly freshly minted college graduates. One BES member, resident of Sonarwan, came up with the idea of rebuilding the fish pond on Madumati. Fish Eggs and baby fish were easy picking from private and government fish hatcheries. Within a few years the yield was good enough to supply the fish mongers in Bandipora. As the word spread, many other fish ponds cropped up and down Madumatti and other areas of the Valley.

The main valley of Kashmir, where river Jehlum flows has side valleys, 24 in all. The valleys are drained by alpine tributaries like Madhmati that descend from the snow fed slope of Pir Panjal and the Himalayan mountain to join river Jehlum. Taking a lead from BES other Kashmiri young men and women from the 24 side valleys started their own fisheries. And then others entrepreneurs got in the business to export the fish from Kashmir. For the Scotman Mitchel back in 1900 it was as audacious task and took months of toil to bring his trout catch to Kashmir.

In 2047 it would be a matter of hours for the Kashmiri fishmonger to fulfill orders of fresh fish to any part of the world. It was not all easy though. Remember the government edicts on fishing in Kashmir, no fishing without permit. The BES members had to tussle to over come the debilitating colonial legacy. The hardest part was to change their own colonial mindset.

They had to change their thinking; they had to evolve from being passive subjects in an unrepresented old colonial regime. They had to evolve as votive citizens and take responsibility for their own being, their existence. One of these responsibilities was to assume custodianship of their home. And home being not just their personal property but all of their surrounding homeland, including its natural resources like the waterways and forests.

Fish pond was one measure of their responsibility. BES canvassed and sought support from Sonarwan and surrounding communities, making the plea that the fishery would provide jobs for residents and generate local tax income for betterment of local public services. The fishery would make BES vested to ensure protection of the Madumati headwater from water pollution and soil erosion and thus conserve and enhance Bandipora natural environment. The community gave its support and the community support paved the way for clearing government administrative hurdles and getting the seed money to seed the Sonarwan Fishery, and many others like it.

Rafique A Khan is a Los Angeles based Kashmiri-American city planner. He manages Kashmir Foundation of America www.kashmirFoA.org

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