Government officials in the state of Jammu and Kashmir are on the move to Srinagar city in an annual ritual to escape the summer heat of Jammu plains.
Under an old tradition called Darbar, meaning council of ministers, about 4,500 officials staffing the main civil secretariat every year move lock, stock and barrel to Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.
In October, they move back to the Winter capital, Jammu.
The Darbar has been a tradition since the 1920s, when the region was ruled by the Dogra Maharaja who moved with his staff to Jammu to avoid Srinagar’s freezing winter.
They returned in summer when Jammu, in the foothills of the Himalayas, heated up.
That tradition has stayed alive despite the cost of moving (over 60 crores), which increases at least 10 percent each year, and a over two-decade-old separatist rebellion in which tens of thousands have been killed.
For Jammu residents, the departure of administrators marks the start of a period of scarcity and shortages.
Queues have already formed outside fuel depots in Jammu, and the frequency of power cuts, regular even during the summer, increases.
Administrators in Srinagar live in highly guarded apartments and hotels and are taken every day to their quarters in a convoy of vehicles backed by a security escort.
Their families, who live in Jammu, often come to Srinagar on weekends.
“It is like re-living your college days,” one senior official laughed while making tea in his small room. The official flew to Srinagar ahead of the Darbar move.
The civil secretariat which houses all state government officials shuts down completely for six months as telephone lines are disconnected and cupboards and tables lie bare in the darkness, surrounded by silent corridors.
Security guards moving in and around the building are the only signs of life.
On the last working day, workers pile hundreds of gunny sacks and wood and metal trunks outside the secretariat building while others carry them to waiting trucks.
About 100 trucks will make their way to Srinagar on April 27 and 28, escorted by a security convoy as they have been for the past two decades since guerrillas launched the separatist campaign.
(Free Press Kashmir)
