By: Saleem Beg (Former Director General, J&K Tourism Dept)
In the last decade, Kashmir has been battered by floods with alarming frequency. Each deluge feels like nature’s revenge on a fragile mountain land that has ignored the warnings written into its own history.
Kashmiris have long known that rivers need room to breathe, that marshes and wetlands act as safety valves, and that bunds and embankments are only as strong as the soil beneath them. Yet, despite this wisdom, the erosion of ecological safeguards has stripped the Valley of its natural defences. Wetlands have been encroached upon, mountain slopes over-cultivated, and embankments treated as quick fixes rather than as part of a larger ecological design.
At the heart of the crisis lies soil erosion. When fragile Himalayan slopes are stripped bare—whether by deforestation or cultivation on steep gradients—the thin layer of topsoil washes away with every rainfall. This loss is double-edged: it silts up rivers, lakes, and flood channels, reducing their carrying capacity, and it deprives the land of the green cover that once acted like a sponge—absorbing rain, recharging springs, and holding back floodwaters. In short, when the soil goes, the Valley’s defences collapse.
It is striking, then, to look back at how even the Dogra rulers, more than a century ago, understood this connection. In 1881 (or 1891), the Forest Department of Jammu and Kashmir was established under Maharaja Pratap Singh, guided by conservators such as J.C. MacDonald. Their brief went beyond timber management: they were tasked with anti-erosion work, watershed treatment, and afforestation as tools of flood control.
The colonial imagination, for all its limitations, recognised that protecting forests was inseparable from protecting people. In 1941, the department’s name was changed to the Forest and Anti-Erosion Department.
A remarkable piece of evidence survives: the Progress Report of the Forest and Anti-Erosion Department, Jammu and Kashmir, for the Samvat Year 2000 (≈ 1943–44). Preserved in the Amar Singh Club archives, this report records not just technical measures like contour trenching, check dams, and plantation drives, but also a bold effort to shape public opinion. One entry reads:
“Wide propaganda was carried out in favour of anti-erosion activities through lectures in schools, public shows, and pamphlet distribution among the rural population. Exhibitions and practical demonstrations were given to schoolboys and villagers… Slowly and steadily, public mentality is changing.”
Today, as Kashmir sinks again and again under floodwaters, this historical memory is worth revisiting. The princely state, with its meagre resources, attempted to build a system that connected ecology with public welfare. The lesson is clear: floods are not just natural disasters—they are failures of memory. We cannot afford to forget what our land has always told us: survival in Kashmir depends on living with water, not against it.
The writer is former Director General of J&K Tourism Department, a public intellectual and an ardent heritage conservationist. He is presently also Convenor of INTACH Kashmir Chapter.
