People’s history of Kashmiri Hanji

In Nilamata purana, the origin of Kashmir valley is told using the Matsya Avatar story. A great deluge, a divine boat of feminine power ferrying all life on the eternal waters of deathless eternal Shiva and this boat being rowed by Narayan in the form of a fish. The story conforms to the strain of Kashmir Shaivism in which female power Shakti brings about the experienced world to life through her interaction with Shiva. In this story half-human, half-fish Narayan is the rower. The doer. The action. The story is told in context of Naubandhana tirath, a mountain site near Kramasaras which we now know as Kausar nag located in the Pir Panjal Range in the Kulgam District’s Noorabad. The site where the divine boat was moored. The story is eerily similar to Abrahamic tale of Noah’s Arc and Jonah. Kashmir was born out of water. Myths as well geology tells us that much. The higher reaches of Kashmir mountains in fact have many sites where boulders have been carved by glacial action over millenniums to arrive at a shape in which a hole appears, a hole as if to tie a boat.

Where there are humans, where there is water, there exist boats, there exist stories.

 About 200 years ago, when the tickle of European tourists in Kashmir started arriving, some Doongas started transforming into Houseboats. It is widely believed that Houseboats were born simply because these tourists could not purchase land in Kashmir. However, facts tell us other more important story. The tourists could have always taken up houses on rent. What made Houseboats a basic necessity of these early tourists was the need for lodging near various camp sites that they were discovering across Kashmir. Early houseboats were a floating camp for tourists going on long journeys. Natives were already using Doongas for this purpose. For western tourists additional amenities were placed inside the boat along with some changes in the basic design. A room wall was removed to create an additional lounge area at the front, straw matted windows were replaced by wooden panels. Colonial era writer Sir Francis Younghusband, who was the British Resident in 1906 was to claim that a ‘floating house’ was first built in Kashmir by a sport loving Englishman named M.T. Kennard in some year between 1883-1888. The boat was named “Pamila”. This may or may not be the origin of Houseboats in Kashmir as there are multiple stories about them, but this certainly is the beginning of the phenomena in which houseboats came to have fanciful names. Kennard in around 1918 went on to build a marvel: a two storied houseboat named “Victory”, which even in the 1980s used to stand at Raj Bagh. The houseboat design was modified and improved over the years by people name Colonel R. Sartorins, Sir R. Harrey Bart. Hanjis meanwhile in their oral histories remember one visiting Army man named Dunlop with modifying the Darpad Doonga to come up with basic elementary design of a houseboat. Identity and exact date of Dunlop is not known as none of the later writers moved beyond the writings of early western writers, no original research was carried out based on interaction with the Hanjis. Interestingly, in an English painting depicting Lord Canning’s visit to Kashmir in 1860 we can see a Darpad Doonga being used as a houseboat, as a moving floating camp. Fifty years later Younghusband mentions lack of Dak Bungalows in Kashmir. We read about Nedou’s Hotel in Gulmarg, started by a Croatian origin family, existed in Kashmir since 1880s. Then there were some westerners who had set up huts for themselves in the higher reaches of hills. Around the same time some British citizens like Miss O’Connor were running a successful lodging business for western visitors while agencies like Cockburn’s could provide the tourists huts in Gulmarg. Some shops catering to the needs of the tourists started on Houseboats around Bund area of Srinagar 1890s. Among them some famous names like Mahatta Studio started about 1918. This was the golden era of tourism in Kashmir. Among the many western tourists heading to Kashmir, a famous Hindu monk’s boat experience stands out. In 1897-98, Swami Vivekananda wanted to set up an ashram in Srinagar, but the request for land was refused by the British Regent Adelbert Talbot. Like most other visitors, he stayed on houseboats, traveled by boats going to various campsites and religious sites. During one of the pilgrimage ride on a Doonga boat, Vivekananda worshiped four-year-old daughter of his Muslim boatman as goddess Uma. The act was inline with his beliefs about reforming the caste views of his own community. This is one of the few native accounts of boat travel in Kashmir of that era.

Darpad Doonga George Landseer (1834–78) painted it in 1881 but depicts scene from 1860 when he accompanied Lord Canning, Governor-General of India from 1856-62, to Kashmir.

Over the next few decades, there were spate of western travelogues and each of them singled out the houseboat experience as something unique. Boatmen became the wheels of tourism and with them moved many other industries that were dying. The great love of Kashmiri Shawls in West was over by the time Germany and France went to war in 1870, exports and sales were down. There was economic upheaval in shawl industry which lead to human upheaval. Ironically, only more wars in Europe helped Shawl industry survive. A surge in tourists was seen in Kashmir during the world wars. Western soldiers post in India, in Summers, for a moment of relief headed to Kashmir. They stayed in houseboats, purchased shawls and handicrafts as souvenirs. Earlier these specimens were sent to the west, now the west came to Kashmir. Kashmiri crafts were introduced afresh to the new world. A more direct case of houseboats leading to the economic growth of other crafts can be seen in case of Khatamband woodwork for ceilings. Lawrence notes, “A great impetus has been given to this industry by the builders of houseboats, and the darker colours of the walnut-wood have been mixed with the lighter shades of the pine.” The carpenters in this era picked up new skills even as old designs and motifs were used to embellish the Houseboat. The actual work of building the houseboat was pure native engineering applied to Deodar wood. Incidentally, Deodar wood was also essential to another great innovation of that era – Railways. The Railway sleepers in India were usually made of this tree wood. Tourism had a ripple effect on other crafts of the state too, for example: the tailors of Kashmir came to be known as some of the best weavers of English dresses. The birth of modern houseboat is one of the few genuine innovations driven by an entrepreneurial zeal. In modern lingo, we can say it was Kashmir’s “Silicon Valley” moment. And like in any true Capitalist system, the State had little to do with it in terms of capital investment or skill development, they were more involved in price regulations. It was people who drove the whole movement. It was driven by family of Hanjis who lived in Doongas towed at the back to Houseboats, people who served the customers, picked up new skills. Their service gave birth to the fabled concept of Kashmiri “mehmaanawazi” – noble service of the guest.

How did Kashmir come to have hundreds of Houseboats? Where was the Capital fund coming from?

The story of houseboats in Kashmir is tied to a figure who one would assume had little to do with boats because of his caste. While Hanjis were learning a spatter of English language from tourists, picking up skills like making pancakes and Jams through corporal punishment at the hand of masters, Pandit Narain Das, a Kashmiri Pandit, was one of the first five Native Kashmiri to learn English (possibly again though use of corporal punishment) in a Christian Missionary School. In around 1885, Narain Das opened a shop for tourists which was destroyed in a fire incident. Narain Das moved his goods to a Doonga and thus started operating his shop from a boat. As business grew, he changed its straw matted walls and roof with wood planks and roofing shingles. The story among the Kashmiri pandit goes that Naraindas was soon approached by European tourists to purchase the boat. Naraindas sold his boat at a profit and soon realized that making and selling boats was a better business. He commissioned great many houseboats, an act for which he caught the moniker “Nav Narain”. P. N Madan, Director of Tourism for the State in early 60s however gives an alternative story to this beginning. According to him there was documented evidence to prove that a Gondola styled Houseboat was in fact commissioned in around 1880 by one General Thatcher. Since Thatcher did not know the local language, in order to pass orders to the builders, he used the English language services of a fourteen year old Pandit Nariandas. Thatcher stayed in the houseboat for the summer and at the end of the tour sold the houseboat to Narain Das for Rs. 200. That is how Narain Das got into the business of boat making. In oral history of boatmen, Narain Das is acknowledged as the man who put in money to get a houseboat constructed, then boats would be handed over to the Doonga Hanjis, in return the Hanjis would pay him a “cess” on services rendered to a tourist. In modern terms he would be called the “venture capitalist” of the industry. Thus in 1906, the number of houseboats in the valley was already in hundreds.Till the year 1948, Narain Das’s family alone had built and managed some 300 houseboats. This golden era of tourism came to an end with the India-Pakistan war of 1947-48. The main benefactors and regular clients of the industry, the British were gone from the sub-continent, new tourists were afraid to travel to a conflict region.

View around Shah Hamadan by William Carpenter Junior, 1854-55

In 1948, only about 5000 tourists stayed in houseboats. In 1950, the total number of tourists was 7000. Hanjis remember the 50s as the terrible decade when houseboats were dismantled by the owners to sell prized deodar wood as a means of sustenance. To relive Kashmir’s economy, it was obvious that tourism had to be revived. In 1948, not many tourists may have arrived, but certain interesting people from artist community arrived to revive the magic of Kashmir on people’s mind. S.H. Raza the world famous painter arrived and stayed on a houseboat in Jhelum near Bund. The houseboat became a hub for budding artists of Kashmir who would watch him paint and out of these artists came the artists who started the Progressive art movement of Kashmir. Early art exhibitions were held on houseboats, so the houseboats became an art studio. Central government commissioned documentaries on Kashmir prominently featuring the boat life. Anthropologists, sociologists, photographers and journalists arrived to document the life of water people. Houseboat owners, dug into their carefully maintained guestbooks going back a century and reached out to old patrons and invited them back. There were ads in international magazines selling the royal dream of a houseboat. “Jash” cultural boat rides were organized in Kashmir. Slowly the tide was turning, the image of Kashmir as the “venice of east” was re-established. Improvements in film photography technology meant Cinema repainted the old monotone descriptive images of earthly paradise in vivid and lush technicolor. Few mortals could ignore the lure. Tourists rediscovered Kashmir. Some Raj era tourists agencies also survived, meanwhile agencies like Razdan, Mercury, Sita etc arrived on scene. As we shall see, while tourism revived, the lot of Hanjis did not change much even as tourists were drawn to Kashmir because of them. For fishermen Hanjis, new varieties of fish were introduced which marginally improved their lot, rest were on their own, working as seasonal manual labor. Till 1979, 87% of Hanjis still lived on boats, only 2% had “pucca” house, 55% lived below the poverty line, only 40% could be called literate with only 2% having finished intermediate standard and still more alarmingly about 60% of Hanjis were under one or another form of debt. We are here talking about a population of two Lakh sixty thousand Hanjis. There were 403 houseboats in the valley at the time and just about 500 Shikara taxis for tourists.

In around 1978, Clarion advertising agency of Calcutta gave the tourism department of Jammu & Kashmir State its symbol – a Shikara on a lake against the background of a mountain. This was the beginning of the second golden era of Kashmiri tourism again driven by boat. By 1981, this number of tourists was to become 6 lakh, while the total houseboats were about 740. Post 1947, number of houseboats in Kashmir reached its zenith in 1985-86 with 825 houseboats. Old houseboats were restored and new ones built in anticipation of even greater numbers. As tourism grew, government policy changed and curtailment was done on number of houseboats. This despite the fact that if Kashmir tourism reaches its full potential, even these number houseboats are not enough as quality tourists do prefer the houseboats. Concerns about the impact of pollution, encroachment of water bodies were being raised, all ignoring the rapid urbanization on land, the blame was squarely put on the boatmen. All these issues came to a stand still along with tourism when the violence of 90s broke out. It was a shock from which boatmen community is still reeling under. Only a trickle of tourists arrived in Kashmir, that too post-1993 when Hanji community on its own stepped out to personally get the tourists. Besides big Indian cities, the went to cities in Europe and far-east countries like Taiwan, Hongkong, Malayasia and Thailand. They worked hard to put the fear of violence out of the visitors, it was tough, but few did come, and all the other tourism related trades benefited from these efforts. It was during these years that the houseboats on Jhelum went into a state where the owners could not afford to repair them. People in Kashmir started to think of these icons of Kashmiri craft and culture as eyesore. Something that needs to be hidden away like a piece of old furniture.

Fall of tourism in Kashmir in the 1990s, also saw the rise of tourism in Kerala which too has a great boat culture. The place celebrates it. Kerala people take pride in their houseboats as they claim their Kettuvallam (rice barge) boats to be many millennia old. Still, such was hold of Kashmir over the minds of tourists that in Kerala, boatmen came up with motorized boats and named them “Shikara” to dazzle the visitors. It is ironic that icon of Kerala tourist is a tree, a coconut tree but boatmen community is thriving, meanwhile icon of Kashmir tourism is a boat, a shikara but boatmen are seen as some sort of foreign intruders out to destroy environment.

View around Shah Hamadan, February, 2014 “beautified” sans houseboats and boat people

Yet, in the 2000s when Kashmir again was to be revived from economic slumber, tourism was the vehicle, boatmen were again asked to row the massive ship. Again, the cycle of 50s-60s was repeated. Shikara again was brandished as the mascot of tourism, magic of cinema invoked, articles were written, advertisements published, old patrons sought back, slowly the tide again changed. One can actually map the fate of tourism in Kashmir with the number of houseboats on water. In the year 2000, there were 850 houseboats in Kashmir, which in 2007 grew to 1000. Number of tourists about 5 lakh, bulk of them domestic. Once tourism showed signs of revival, again new measures were put in place to curtail the number of houseboats in one way or another. It is almost a pattern. Use boatmen to kickstart the engine of tourism, when efforts start paying dividends, try to side-step the Hanjis by invoking environmental concerns. Here one needs to ask who is better posed to take care of water bodies, a community that have lived in them for generations or people who can’t tell a lake from a pond? World over, for success in saving the environment, local native tribes are made a party to the effort, a synergy is developed, a collaborative effort is taken in which the first step is recognizing their right to the resource and environment, an ownership is established. There is no other way as 80% of the world’s biodiversity is in tribal territories. There are environmental movements that seek to decolonize the approach to conservation. However, in Kashmir Hanjis are being denied the claim that they actually have a territory.

In all this, it must be remembered that post 1947, Hanjis as people were directly or indirectly under the control of Tourism department. That must be unique example for a tribal community anywhere in the world. Their fate was all the more tied to tourism. If tomorrow it was deemed that Hanjis are not essential for tourism, or if it is deemed they are detrimental to the environment in which they have lived for centuries and are better equipped to care about, then truly the future of this tribe is bleak. Dispersed all across the valley, dislocated from their centuries old trades, low education levels, with no ability to put an elected representative in the state assembly, they are disenfranchised people living on whims and fancies of seasonal environmentalists, bureaucrats, judiciary and the government. Thus is ignored the simple fact that Dal probably is shrinking because of effluents coming in from modern townships like Hyderpora, urbanization around Nishat, the development happening on land all around the water body, increasing sedimentation around the edges and also increasing aquatic weeds in the Lake, thereby destroying the endemic biodiversity. Why isn’t this obvious reason first dealt with?
Without prioritizing needs of the people directly impacted by drastic change in government policies, without gauging the reason of failure of previous government schemes supposedly for the benefit of Hanjis and environments, without factoring in the rampant bureaucratic corruption and power lobbies at work, putting boat people on land is like putting a fish out of water (in the name of fish and water) and expecting it to learn to walk.

Hakh/Vegetable seller. Postcard from circa 1930s

We need to acknowledge that we are talking about the lives of an almost invisible marginalized aboriginal tribe. “Haenz” the word is as old as the Kashmiri language. In sayings of Lal Ded (14th century) we find reference to Haenz lady of Anchar lake, selling lotus stem, calling out to potential buyers. Lal Ded hears her calls and has a moment of epiphany as she engages in a dialogue with the lady. Lad Ded, the grandmother of Kashmiri language and culture, manages to find divine message in business call of a Haenz woman. Lal Ded heard the voice of people whose “coarse” language has been derided by civilized society for centuries. Lal Ded’s ears were open to her calls, her eyes registered their presence. Only then could she sing:

Aanchaari Hanzeni hund gom kanan
Nadur chu te hyayu maa
Ti booz trukyav tim rude wanan,
tsainnun chu te tsinev maa

Call of Haenz lady of Anchaar fell in my ears
“This Nadru, who would buy?”
Hear this the wise exclaimed:
“Dwell deeper, would you dwell a bit deeper?”

It was only post 1947 that someone heard this call. Dinanath Nadim, the progressive poet in 1950s wrote a song on this exact Vakh of Lal Ded using the refrain of Haenz women’s “hyayu maa”. Yet, the real call remains unheard, the tribe still struggles against a tide.