'Let People Come': The Kashmir Village That Lost Its Season

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
Naranag

By Uzma Qadir Mir

On most summer mornings, the pony bells would start early in Naranag. Boys would jog alongside their horses, leading tourists up the alpine paths. Shopfronts would lift their shutters to the rhythm of the rising sun. Smoke would curl from kitchens, and the scent of noon tea would drift across the Sindh River.

This June, there is only silence.

Naranag sits silently in the Kangan region of central Kashmir, surrounded by fir forests and snow-fed streams. The 8th-century temple ruins still hold their ground. The mountains still stand like sentinels.

But since the government shuttered the village to visitors after a terror attack in distant Pahalgam in April, the spirit here has faded.

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“This place used to breathe with people,” said Aijaz Ahmad, a pony handler who has worked these trails for seventeen years.“Now, it feels like we're holding our breath.”

The attack in Pahalgam killed several tourists. In its wake, the Jammu and Kashmir administration closed 48 tourist sites across the Valley, including Naranag. The decision was framed as temporary, a cautionary measure.

But for those whose lives run on the pulse of seasonal travel, it was not just precaution, it was paralysis.

In Naranag, tourism is not a luxury. It's oxygen. Pony handlers, guesthouse owners, tea vendors, drivers, porters and fruit sellers count on the four warm months of footfall to survive the other eight.

Families here do not save for vacations. They save to pay off loans taken to build spare guest rooms or to buy a second pony.

“This year, people were hopeful,” said Khalida, a schoolteacher whose husband runs a small dhaba near the river.“Many borrowed money to repaint their walls, repair roofs, stock dry goods. Now they sit with those hopes like unopened boxes.”

Children no longer chase after passing jeeps or wave at tourists. The narrow lanes, once so busy that parents warned kids to stay away, are now deserted. A makeshift stall that once sold saffron pouches and dried apricots has closed, its plastic tarp now flapping like a tired flag in the wind.

“We bought two more horses this year,” said Bashir, a father of three.“I thought we would finally earn enough to pay for my daughter's college admission. Now we just feed them and wait.”

The waiting has its own weight. Young men who once took pride in guiding tricky trails and pitching tents for visiting trekkers now spend hours lying on charpoys, scrolling through their phones or smoking in alley corners.

The elders, too, sit longer on porches. They have no stories to exchange with strangers, no questions to answer, no prices to negotiate.

One woman, who didn't want her name printed, spoke about her teenage son.“He used to go with tourists to Gangabal. Now he's always angry. Restless. What will we do with this anger?”

That anger, many fear, could curdle into something darker.

Addiction has already found its way into parts of the Valley, where idleness meets despair. With no work and no purpose, the youth here risk drifting into the undertow.

It isn't just economic collapse that worries people in Naranag, it's emotional erosion.

According to official figures, tourism contributes about seven percent to Jammu and Kashmir's GDP. In the summer of 2024, over three million people visited the region, making it one of the best years since the pandemic. Guesthouse owners repainted their signage. Pony handlers stitched new saddles. Hope was a kind of currency again.

Then came April 22, 2025.

The gunfire in Pahalgam stopped after minutes. But in Naranag, hours away, its echo lasted much longer.

“There was no warning,” said Younis, a porter.“Just news on the phone. By evening, bookings were canceled. People who were packing bags for a trek called and said, 'Sorry. We're not coming.'”

Local leaders, including former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, have spoken against the blanket closures, calling them unfair to communities far removed from the violence.

“Why punish a peaceful village for something that didn't happen here?” one resident asked.

There are suggestions on the table. Phased reopenings. Permit-based visits. Community safety groups. Emergency funds for families. Small loans to tide over this season of stillness. But so far, no one in Naranag has heard anything concrete.

“I don't want charity,” said Bashir, looking away.“I just want to work.”

If summer passes like this, many here will not recover. Not next year. Not even the one after that. Some wounds, many here say, don't announce themselves loudly. They simply settle in the bones, making each step heavier than the last.

“Just open the road,” a young man named Rayees said, when asked what they wanted most.“Let the people come.”

• Uzma Qadir Mir is an undergraduate economics student at Amar Singh College, Cluster University Kashmir. She can be reached at [email protected]

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