Apples Rot In Occupied Kashmir Orchards, As Lockdown Puts Economy In Tailspin

It's harvest time, but the market in the northern Kashmiri town of Sopore - usually packed with people, trucks and produce at this time of year - is empty, while in orchards across Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir state unpicked apples rot on the branch

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Sep, 2019 ):It's harvest time, but the market in the northern Kashmiri town of Sopore - usually packed with people, trucks and produce at this time of year - is empty, while in orchards across Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir state unpicked apples rot on the branch.

According to a Reuters report on Thursday, the weeks-long curfew in one of the world's largest apple-growing regions imposed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi dramatically abolished the state's special constitutional status has cut transport links with buyers in India and abroad, fruit growers and traders say, plunging the industry into turmoil.

At dawn late last week the market in Sopore, a town known locally as "Little London" for its lush orchards, big houses and relative affluence, was deserted, its gates locked. "Everyone is scared," a lone trader, rushing to an adjoining mosque for morning prayers, told Reuters. "No one will come." Apples are the lifeblood of Kashmir's economy, involving 3.5 million people, around half the population of the state.

In a surprise move on August 5, just as the harvest season as getting under way, the government abrogated provisions in India's Constitution that gave the Jammu and Kashmir partial autonomy and stipulated only residents could buy property or hold government jobs. Strict movement restrictions were imposed simultaneously, and mobile, telephone, and internet connections snapped.

The farmers and fruit traders say the clampdown is stopping them from either getting their produce to market or shipping it out to the rest of India.

In orchard after orchard, surrounding Sopore, apples hung rotting on trees.

"We are stuck from both sides," said Haji, a trader, sitting inside a sprawling two-story house in Sopore. "We can neither go here, nor there." Business people who spoke to Reuters say it is not just the fruit industry that is reeling - two other key sectors of Kashmir's economy, tourism and handicrafts, have also been hit hard.

Shameem Ahmed, a travel agent who owns a houseboat in the summer capital Srinagar, said this year's tourist season was completely wiped out.

"August was peak season, and we had bookings up to October," he said. "It will take a long time to revive, and we don't know what will happen next." The near complete lack of tourists has also hit carpet traders such as Shoukat Ahmed. "When there are no tourists, there are no sales," he said. "We are also unable to sell across India because communication is down." At a major chamber of commerce in Srinagar, some members said the continuing lack of internet and mobile connections had paralyzed their work, including the ability to file taxes and make bank transactions.

In a one-story house in Srinagar's working-class Zoonimar neighborhood, Abdul Hamid Shah sits beneath a window quietly embroidering a Kashmiri shawl. Each shawl is at least three months' work, and some take a whole year to complete.

Shah is typically paid 35,000 Indian rupees ($490) per shawl, which he often gets in monthly instalments of around 10,000 rupees. Since August, his payments froma shawl trader he has worked with for a decade, have shrunk.

"He's telling me he doesn't have money because there is no business," Shah said.