SRINAGAR: As India prepares to host a meeting of tourism officials from the Group of 20 in the disputed region of Kashmir, authorities have deployed elite commandos and stepped up security in the region’s largest city.
The meeting will be the first significant international event in Kashmir since New Delhi stripped the Muslim-majority region of semi-autonomy in 2019. Indian authorities are hoping the meeting will show that the controversial changes have brought “peace and prosperity” to the region.
Since the 2019 changes, the city, known for rolling Himalayan foothills and exquisitely decorated houseboats, has become a major domestic tourist destination. Hotels have been mostly booked out for months. Kashmir has also drawn millions of visitors, who enjoy a strange peace kept by ubiquitous security checkpoints, armored vehicles and patrolling soldiers.
For the G20 meeting, the city has spruced up its commercial center and roads leading to the convention center on Dal Lake, while police have increased security even further, placing a massive security cordon around the site.
On a recent Wednesday, gun-toting naval commandos in rubber boats mingled with tourists in canary-yellow gondolas.
Paul Staniland, a political scientist who studies South Asia at the University of Chicago, said the G20 meeting is “in line with Indian government policy to symbolically project normalcy and stability in Kashmir,” and is unlikely to herald a change in policy.
“The meeting is good and it could boost tourism,” said college student Mufeed Hilal. “But we also want to see the Kashmir issue resolved. That is our basic problem.”
