By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI – While the opening of the historic Srinagar-Rawalpindi Road remains an elusive dream for Kashmiris, India and China have quietly decided to open borders in the Ladakh region of held Kashmir, Daily Times learned on Saturday.
During Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s recent visit to Beijing, Nathu La was designated a new trade route and the last border post in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim along the Renginggang region of Tibet. Both India and China are now moving to open roads in Jammu and Kashmir as well. This will be the fourth trade route between the two countries. Other existing routes are the Lipulekh Pass in Uttaranchal and Shipkhil in the Himachal Pradesh.
For the past month, there has been an outbreak of activity at the customs preventive station (CPS) at Nyoma in Ladakh. Sources in the Jammu and Kashmir (JK) government said that customs authorities have conveyed that they are setting up a complete land custom station (LCS) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at the border post. They have also sought land to build the custom station. This will be the first LCS in JK, though there are a few CPS to prevent smuggling in the Jammu region along the Pakistan border.
Activity in the Ladakh region has caused anger in the nearby Kargil region. Local Member of Parliament Ghulam Hassan Khan has demanded that the traditional Kargil-Astoor route in the Askardoo region also be opened to increase business in the Muslim-dominated Kargil region.
“We are not aware of the political significance of the Nyoma route. But we are sure there will be a lot of business when it is formally opened,” an officer confided. The proposed LCS will be located in the Chumthang belt, the gateway to Chinese Tibet.
The route connects Damchok, the last habitation on the Indian side with the Tashigang belt of Tibet. The area is of strategic importance and movement is restricted beyond Nyoma. The Indian government has already requested China allow Hindu pilgrims to use this route to visit the holy Mansarovar shrine in the Kailash Mountains currently under Chinese control. The Nyoma route will create opportunities for the north-Indian businessmen, particularly of the Punjab and Haryana, who are starved of an international market because of uncertain relations between India and Pakistan. The Indian Customs Department opened its office in Ladakh last summer.
The authority to prevent smuggling was given to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, a paramilitary agency. Since then, customs authorities have made 14 seizures. In certain cases, the seized material was being carried in the vehicles of paramilitary forces.
Insiders say the main objective of the plan is to stop smuggling that is directly or indirectly abetted by spying. Since a number of security agencies are working in the area, they keep sending their agents to the area in the guise of smugglers. “Since it is difficult to judge whether it is smuggling abetted by spying or vice versa, the government has decided to legalise border trade,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
This border was the main source of the supply of tiger bones to China for a long time. Usually the smugglers would return with loads of shahtoosh wool, a costly item in Srinagar.
Experts believe the revival of the Silk Route in a World Trade Organisation era will cause a boom in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in its Ladakh region. Abdul Majid Matoo, a researcher at the Central Asian Studies Department of the University of Kashmir, said the Nyoma route was one of the six important trade routes that would connect Kashmir to the external world.
The Nyoma route would also address the Kashmir shawl and carpet industry’s demands for yarn and wool. Till the early 20th century, the Maharaja of Kashmir used to send a Lapchuk (leader of local trading community) to Lhasa to encourage businessmen there to visit Srinagar. Later, the British discouraged Kashmiri merchants from travelling through this route and only permitted businessmen from the Indian plains to import material for Kashmiri shawls.
