Stories of Dignity from Downtown Kashmir

Between the streets of downtown Srinagar and the marketplace, pride and dignity flow through the lives of those we often overlook.

- Wajahat Qazi

“Class consciousness’ and the nature of capitalism in Kashmir have characteristics peculiar to the region. But this essay is not an exegesis on either.

It is about the dignity and pride of the ‘subaltern’ and underprivileged socioeconomic classes in Kashmir.

No clear and neat portrait can be drawn of the same.

Difference(s) within difference(s) exist within classes, social groupings and subcultures of Kashmir, like in the haenz or boatpeople community of Kashmir dwelling mostly in Dal Lake.

There are the naav-e-haenz (those who own and paddle shikaras), houseboat haenz (those who own and man houseboats), gaeir haenz (those who extract water chestnuts), gaad-e-haenz (those who take fish from the lake for living), and so on. Any description would be a caricature.

There are behavioural characteristics (many of these not sanguine) peculiar to each class, cultural and social grouping, brilliantly described by British Resident Walter Lawrence in his 20th century Kashmir treatise. But there is a theme that undergirds the subaltern classes of Kashmir, one of dignity and pride.

This can be abstracted not from class, cultural or social groupings of Kashmir, but from economic super and substructure of the region.

As a hypothesis, for conceptual clarity, I will define this economic class as one that makes barely 400 INR per day. Extending the hypothesis further, based on this very threshold, this economic class live mostly in the main clusters around Downtown Kashmir and its environs.

Before explicating further, | must make clarificatory remarks: this essay is a sequel to the one I wrote last week, ‘What does road rage tell about class conflict in Kashmir?’. But it is not an apologia.