My Visit to Quake-Affected Villages in Kashmir

Yoginder Sikand

Early this week I, along with two friends of mine from
Delhi, left for Srinagar to visit some of the areas
affected by the recent earthquake. We first went to
Tangdhar, a six-hour journey from Srinagar via Sopore
and Kupwara. Tangdhar is located in the Karnah tehsil
of the Kupwara district. It is a mountainous area
straddling the Line of Control that divides the
Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of Jammu and
Kashmir.

There are 42 villages in the Karnah tehsil and most of
them have been totally destroyed in the quake. Between
350 to 400 people here lost their lives, and thousands
have been badly injured. The number of people rendered
homeless by the quake in this region is estimated at
more than 50 thousand. The area still trembles with
aftershock tremors being felt every day. Most houses
in the area have collapsed into heaps of rubble, and
the few that are left standing are not usable since
they have developed dangerous cracks and can easily
crumble once the snows start. Consequently, almost
all the people in the villages here are now staying in
tents and make-shift shelters made of tin sheets and
logs. They have lost almost all their personal
possessions, stocks of food and domestic animals.
Almost all shops and schools in the area have been
destroyed. Roads and paths leading to many villages
off the main highway have also been blocked, being
covered with massive boulders. Fields have developed
deep craters and cracks and, consequently, can no
longer be used for paddy cultivation, and irrigation
channels leading to the fields have been clogged.

After spending two days in Tangdhar we returned to
Srinagar and then went on to Uri and villages beyond,
in the Baramulla district. The situation in this area
is as stark as in Karnah. All the villages have been
completely flattened, with almost every single
building destroyed. More than 1000 people are said to
have lost their lives in this area in the quake.
Almost all families living here have been rendered
homeless.

Government Relief: Although the government has
announced that it has provided relief to the affected
people, we heard numerous complaints in all the
villages we visited from people who said that they had
received nothing at all or else just a pittance. For
each person killed in the quake affected families have
received a sum of Rs. 50,000 only. The government has
announced that it is supplying each person with a
single, one-month ration of 11 kilograms of rice, 700
grams of sugar, as well as tea leaves, cooking oil and
kerosene. Although some villagers have received the
rice and the sugar, we met many others who said that
they had got nothing at all. All the people we met
said that tea leaves, kerosene and cooking oil have
not reached the villages as yet, more than two weeks
after the quake. In the three days that we spent in
the Tangdhar and Uri region we did not see any
vehicles of the civil administration transporting any
relief material. We heard numerous allegations of
large scale corruption in the distribution of the
relief and accusations of local level officials
misappropriating relief funds and material. We were
also told of the politicisation of relief, with
different political parties (Congress, Peoples’
Democratic Party and National Conference) being said
to be providing relief to their own supporters and
vote-banks.

People we met insisted that the one month ration that
the government has announced is grossly insufficient
to help them tide over the long winter that has
already begun and which will last till next April. All
the food and grains that they had stored for the
winter have been destroyed and they need supply of
grains and other food articles for at least four to
five months. Winters in this area are severe, and in
many villages the temperature falls below minus 15
degrees Celsius and snowfall of six feet and more is
common.

The government has also announced a paltry sum of Rs.
100,000, to be payable in two instalments (of Rs.
40,000 and Rs. 60,000) for rebuilding of each house.
The process of distributing this money has only just
begun, and few people seem to have received this money
as yet. People complain that this amount is too
little, and is not even enough to hire labour to
remove the rubble and to purchase and transport
material to build temporary shelters for this winter,
let alone for reconstructing their homes. They want
that the amount be substantially increased and also
insist that it should be paid in one instalment.
Receiving it in two instalments, as many of them
argue, would mean that they might have to bribe the
local officials twice, instead of once.

The Army has played an impressive role in the relief
work at some places, particularly immediately after
the quake, transporting victims to hospitals, and
providing relief material and medical assistance. It
has also distributed tents, particularly to families
that have members working in the army [Both in the
Tangdhar and Uri sectors, there are several locals
working in the Indian Army. The locals are mainly
Punjabi-/Pahari-speaking Muslims and there is hardly
any support among them for the ongoing militant
movement in Kashmir. Many Army officials I met
stressed this point]. However, it is clear that the
role that the army can continue to play in relief work
is strictly limited now, its prime responsibility
being on the borders.

NGO Relief: We noticed that relatively few NGOs are
involved in providing relief in the aftermath of the
quake, particularly in the Tangdhar area. One reason
could probably be the extremely difficult terrain, and
the long distance from Srinagar. Yet, I personally
could not help notice the distinct lack of enthusiasm
on the part of Indian civil society, including NGOs
and corporate houses, to respond to the quake when
compared with their role in providing relief in the
wake of the quake in Kutch or in the recent Tsunami.
However, we did see some NGOs from the Kashmir Valley,
a few larger Indian NGOs as well as some Christian and
Muslim organisations from other parts of India helping
in providing relief.

While people welcomed the relief that these NGOs were
providing, we heard numerous complaints. We were told
that there is no proper co-ordination between the
different groups working in the area. No one seems to
have any idea of which NGOs are active in the region.
Consequently, there is much duplication of effort.
Many of the same villages are visited by different
NGOs and many others by none at all, and so while some
people get relief material from several organisations
others get nothing.

People also complain that many NGOs visit villages
that are located on the main road, leaving out
villages that are high up in the mountains. We met
numerous people who had trekked from remote villages
several kilometres to Tangdhar and other villages on
the main road in the hope of getting some food or
clothing from passing relief vehicles. We were also
told that many NGOs provide their relief material
without any planning at all, so that the more powerful
or influential people get much more while the poor and
the infirm get nothing. There have also been several
cases of relief trucks being looted.

In several villages we noticed large piles of clothes
supplied by relief organisations thrown around. In
some places people were using them to light bonfires
to keep themselves warm. We were told that these
clothes were torn or culturally unsuitable. We heard
that some NGOs providing these clothes simply throw
them in front of crowds of waiting people, who
scramble to pick up the best clothes, leaving behind
what are simply unusable. We also heard of an NGO
distributing thousands of bottles of mineral water to
the people, although drinking water is easily
available here from mountain streams. People told us
that instead of wasting money on such items, relief
organisations should send material of immediate use to
the people, such as blankets, jackets, coats, socks
and shoes, and that these should be in good condition.
Most importantly, they said, what they need is tin
sheets to build temporary shelters to tide over the
severe winter that awaits them. NGOs, they said, could
either supply them with tin sheets or else provide
them with money to purchase these.

Locals who can afford to do so, especially government
servants, might be able to escape the harsh oncoming
winter by shifting out of the area, but the poor,
mainly small peasants, will be unable to do so. The
situation is particularly grim in Tangdhar and other
parts of the Karnah tehsil, where relatively few NGOs
are working. The 10417-feet high Sadhna Pass,
connecting the Karnah valley to the rest of Kashmir
will soon be blocked by heavy snow (last year it
received a record 16 feet of snow), making it almost
impossible (as well as prohibitively expensive) to
transport food and other essential commodities from
outside. Exposed to the harsh cold and heavy snow,
and given that all their stocks of food have been
destroyed, it is possible that people here will face
death in numbers far larger than those lost in the
quake itself unless the urgent issue of temporary
shelters suitable to survive the oncoming winter as
well as adequate rations is immediately addressed.
These are two issues that NGOs should particularly
focus on now.

*

We have decided to work in two villages in the
Tangdhar area: Parada and the neighbouring village of
Chhatkadi. These are located at a distance of some 8
kilometres off the main road from Tangdhar. The tarred
road that connects the villages to Tangdhar has been
covered with rubble and is now motorable only till the
Pandu Bridge that spans a deep gorge through which the
Kazi Nag river flows. From the bridge it is a tough
one-hour walk up a steep mountain path. Parada is the
last village before the barbed-wire fence set up by
the Indian Army just behind the Line of Control.
Chhatkadi is located beyond the fence and half of the
village is in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the two
parts of the village being separated by a narrow
stream. Parada has around 200 houses and Chhatkadi 18,
all of which have been destroyed.

We had taken some relief material with us, which we
distributed in Parada. We were fortunate to have with
us a committed young man from this village, Muhammad
Fareed, who is presently studying in a college in
Srinagar. Fareed arranged for the distribution of the
modest amount of material that we had brought with us.
We have now despatched some boxes of warm clothes as
well as a consignment of 180 blankets from Delhi,
which Fareed, along with an informal committee of
village elders of Parada and Chhatkadi and some
associates of ours from an NGO in Kashmir will
distribute. We are now in the process of collecting
money to arrange for the purchase of tin sheets for
constructing temporary shelters for the 220-odd
families living in these two villages.

What You Can Do:

At the moment the most urgent need of thousands of
families in the Tangdhar and Uri areas is suitable
temporary shelters to help survive the harsh winter
snows that are due in two weeks’ time. People can no
longer continue living in the tents and shacks that
they have set up, and it is feared that unless they
are able to make suitable temporary shelters (of tin
sheets and wood) many of them, especially children,
face a certain death. Further, people are also in
desperate need of adequate stocks of food grain. In
the course of this visit I came across two
Kashmir-based NGOs that are known for their sincerity
and dedication, and which are also actively involved
in providing relief to the victims of the earthquake.
I would urge you to directly send them your
contribution in the form of money through which they
can purchase relief material and food supplies. Their
details are as follows:

Jammu and Kashmir Yateem Trust
Director, Mr. A.R. Hanjoora
Opposite Fire Service Station
Maisuma
Srinagar
Kashmir 190001
Telephone: 0194-2475114 mobile: 09419075361 email:
kashmirquakerelief@... [address your mail to
Mr. Hanjoora, J& K Yateem Trust]

The cheque can be made out in the name of Jammu and
Kashmir Yateem Trust. The organisation is working in
the Tangdhar area.


Human Aid Society
Chairman, Bashir A. Mir
Near Mini Bus Stand
Opposite New Cement Bridge
Tashkand Chowk
Baramulla, Kashmir
ph: [0] 01952-238017 [r]: 01952-257298
mobile: 09419032365
The cheque can be made out in the name of Human Aid
Society. The organization is working in the Uri area.
Email id haskashmir@...

Some NGOs from Kashmir and outside have got together
to set up the Central Relief Coordination Committee
for the Karnah Tehsil. Have a look at their website on
http://www.kashmirquakerelief.org