LAL CHOWK

Three colours of retribution. Saffron, red and green

BY ZAHID RAFIQ

New façade Srinagar’s Clock Tower is undergoing renovation PHOTO: JAVED DAR

IN LAL CHOWK, Srinagar’s business hub, half-a-dozen workers are busy renovating the Ghantaghar — the Clock Tower. It hasn’t had clocks on it for a while now. Even when it had four of them in the 1990s, it used to be out of service at all times. Today, the damaged tower has become an evocative political symbol of contemporary Kashmir.

This is where competing nationalisms fight symbolic battles in Kashmir. And after the BJP youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), announced its plan to hoist the Tricolour in Lal Chowk on 26 January, the tower is back in the political limelight.

On 26 January and 15 August, Indian soldiers used to hoist the Tricolour atop the tower under heavy security cover. With only soldiers around and no civilians visible for several kilometres, it looked more like a military takeover of the capital city.

On days when angry Kashmiris are out on the streets and separatist cries of “Lal Chowk Chalo” ring out, the Lal Chowk area is made inaccessible. Several hundred metres of Concertina wires are placed around the tower and all entry points are closed. It is almost as if the tower has been arrested or there is something imprisoned inside it.

When thousands manage to take over Lal Chowk and storm the tower — climbing it from all sides, breaking their way in with crowbars and saws — several flags are unfurled atop the tower. Flags belonging to the Hurriyat (G), Hurriyat (M), JKLF, the stonepelters and Pakistan. The only one missing is the Tricolour.

It is here that every party that lays claim to Kashmir unfurls its flag. This is Kashmir’s flag tower.

When Bajaj Electricals built the tower in 1980, the idea was just to make its presence felt in the city centre. For Bajaj, it was a huge advertisement opportunity in Lal Chowk, says Tourism Director Farooq Ahmad Shah. For Srinagar residents, it was just a fancy tower and a popular landmark with no political symbolism.

It is the history of Lal Chowk that gives the Clock Tower its political stature. Lal Chowk was named in the socialist spirit after Red Square, the famous landmark in Moscow. Local historians believe that National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah christened the square Lal Chowk.

It was in Lal Chowk that Abdullah announced his love for Jawaharlal Nehru and India in a Persian couplet saying the two of them had become one. It was here on 2 November 1947 that Nehru,standing beside Abdullah, addressed thousands. “The fate of Kashmir will ultimately be decided by the people. We have given that pledge and Maharaja (Hari Singh) has supported it. It is not only a pledge to the people of Kashmir but to the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it,” promised Nehru.

That speech laid the political foundations of Lal Chowk and the eventual ‘betrayal’ added to its symbolism.

The Clock Tower gained political significance in 1992 when the then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi came to hoist the Tricolour atop the tower on Republic Day. Joshi’s move brought several militant groups together, uniting them against India. With Kashmiris locked inside their homes, Joshi hoisted the flag in the company of soldiers. He had to be whisked away in haste when a rocket fired by militants landed some metres away from the tower.

Since then, the BSF and the CRPF undertook the hoisting ceremony until last year when they announced it was unnecessary to continue the ritual because the tower “had no political significance” and an official function was held at the nearby Bakshi Stadium on Republic Day and Independence Day anyway.

However, the order to stop the flag hoisting at Lal Chowk reportedly came from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was struggling against the summer protests and saw it as an unnecessary provocation to the separatists and people.

Now, with the BJYM planning to march into the heart of Srinagar, JKLF chief Yasin Malik has dared them to hoist the flag. Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar too has supported Malik. For the duo, sidelined during last year’s protests, this issue could be their ticket back to relevance.

Omar, whose fortunes had nosedived after the 2009 Shopian rape case and the deaths of 117 civilians in last year’s protests, has opposed the BJYM plan. He is also counting on this issue to rehabilitate his tattered image.

zahid@tehelka.com