Ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit, Srinagar turns fortress

SRINAGAR: A day ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most important visit to the Valley, Srinagar has turned into an eerie, haunted town, almost waiting for a congregation of absolutely introverted ghosts.

The city, which still has big, stinking mounds of dirt and sooty, colour-bleached buildings displaying the ravages of the calamitous floods that visited the city not sometime ago, has become a virtual fortress, with police and para forces barricading the length and breadth of the city.

The horrible attack on armymen, on Friday, in Uri has substantially increased the threat perception. On every dusty corner, standing against blistered and worn-down walls, military fatigues are the most prominent colour with an alert posse of policemen with their shiny guns standing guard against any infraction they think can occur in light of the high-profile visit.

The detritus of floods is still evident in the hundreds of soot-coated cars that stand forlorn in the many bazaars of Srinagar. Damaged badly by floods, these rows and rows of wasted metal present a sordid picture of apathy and heartlessness on the part of the state government.

In fact, Modi and his well-oiled campaign machine is coming to a town that has never looked so grimy in its entire existence. Moreover, a deep wintry fog and a feeble sun make the whole city look so enfeebled that it seems it is barely struggling to recover from a deep blight.

Some areas of the city have been entirely made off-limits with concertina wire laid haphazardly and sinisterly at their entrances, clearly reflecting that the police here is not taking any chances ahead of the Modi visit. Driving along the Dal Lake, the lighted shikaras look like tiny outposts of some magical realist land in fast-descending darkness and sharply dropping temperature.

The sombre Hazratbal mosque, in the gleaming whiteness of its marble, is a distant symbol of hope in this barricaded gloominess. Into this murk, PM Modi arrives with his fervent message of hope and development. With his oratorial skills, with his penchant for launching grand schemes, with his blazing promises of a glorious future, will the prime minister be able to convince the luckless Kashmiris that at least a fortune cookie, if not a big trove of kismet, is coming their way?

The idle, rusty cars in Srinagar tell a different story, which Modi and his cavalcade may entirely miss in their hurry to announce big plans for the valley. Maybe, Kashmiris hope, some of the accumulated dust will be wiped out, if not all.