Guest post by Roshan Lal Dass. Tales from the crypt called secretariat that invoke ghosts from past. It should be a proper genre in Kashmir.
The army cantonment in Srinagar is located in the huge area of Badami Bagh near Batwara. On one side in east it reaches up to Pandrethan and on the northern side it touches the famous Gupkar road where all the elite political families of Kashmir camp. This is a funny little episode that happened somewhere in late 70s and early 80s.
J&K government wanted money for the cantonment land. After a protracted correspondence and hectic lobbying by the J&K government with Delhi about the compensation for this huge chunk of land, the Ministry of Defence finally agreed to pay for it. The powerful people of the government in the state conceived a plan of grabbing the money from the central government which was virtually ready on a platter. Mr. Pji’s Parsi family had settled in Kashmir in early twentieth century where he became a big businessman working in fields like tourism to insurance. He is said to have acquired a lot of wealth and land. Not much is known about these Ps except that they were considered to be one of the first non-Kashmiri citizens of Kashmir. They were known for their unique red building located in heart of Residency road in Srinagar with an animal sculpture that regaled many a kids. The building burnt in 90s and the remains of the heritage building was razed to ground and a mall built over it by (it is said) a former terrorist turned “Gandhian”. But, we digress…
When the defence ministry asked the state government for official records of the land occupied by the army, they were flustered as there were none. The whole land was nazool land which in revenue terms means there is no real owner. Only a small patch of land belonged to Mr. Pji who was in good books of powers both in state and union government. It is said that when Jinnah came to Kashmir in 1920s, he stayed in Pji’s house. Mr.Pji was summoned by one of the big powers of the Jammu & Kashmir state and a conspiracy was hatched. After a month or so Mr. Pji made a claim with both state and union defence ministry that the huge chunk of land in the cantonment belonged to his family and he should get the full market value of the land . The revenue officials right from Patwaris, Girdhawars, Dy.Collectors and Collectors, right from serving to retired, were coerced, cajoled and bribed by the persons in power into preparing fictitious revenue maps and mutations in favour of Mr. Pji’s family. The deal had been struck wherein 75 percent of the paid amount would be shared by the powers and 25 percent would be pocketed by Mr. Pji. He was directed to do all the dealings with the defence ministry in New Delhi himself. After about a year of parleying and negotiations between Mr. Pji and Defence Ministry and after multiple trips by him to Delhi, the payment was rendered to him in lump sum. With all honestly, he paid the amount to the main conspirators and pocketed 25% of his share. It was a story with a happy ending and win win situation for all the conspirators. Or, so it seemed.
A big twist took place in the story. After about a year or so, Mr. Pji received a notice from the Central Landed Estate department that he had to pay an estate duty on the huge sale of land and the payment which he got from the Defence ministry. He was shocked as none of them had an inkling of this factor. The duty was demanded which came to about 25% of the whole amount. At first he ignored the notice but he was pressurised by the Landed Estate Department into making the payment. Mr. Pji discussed the matter with other conspirators and asked them that the money would have to be redistributed proportionately. He was surprised on receiving the reply that they had reinvested the money somewhere else and they could not arrange the money immediately. However, he was promised that he would be fully reimbursed in due course of time if he made the payment to the Estate Department. Mr. Pji paid up the money and waited for others to reimburse him. No money was paid to him even after repeated pleas and even after threatening them to expose the deal. They simply told him that they had nothing to do with this deal and he would have to bear consequences himself. It took him sometime to realise that he had been duped and left with no money in this deal. He did not even get reimbursed for the money he spent on his frequent trips to Delhi and hotel stays.
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A Bonus tale
A station of Mr. Biswas
One Bengali namely Mr. Biswas had settled in Srinagar right from early nineteen twenties. He was a successful businessman and owned a petrol filling station in heart of the city. The business was good and it served the family’s needs right up to three generations. Family had a four storied house just near the pump. By eighties of last century the station looked outdated and old fashioned. The business was shrinking. The surviving grandson of Mr. Biswas put a proposal of winding up the filling station and converting it into a multi-storied shopping complex. The proposal was put forth before the authorities and the file finally went up-to the highest authority of that time. Biswas was asked to pay a huge bribe for grant of permission. Biswas refused to pay up. The whole place including the petrol filling station is still in in that depilated state looking like an eyesore in the middle of a posh area.
P.S. This is how internally the land matters worked in Jammu & Kashmir.
