Kohala: The Gateway to Kashmir

Taking ‘Kashmir Road’ from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital and arguably a city among world’s most beautiful, could be an envious experience for those who often take roads in Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir. The imagination about ‘other Kashmir’ gets more excited on this wide and smooth four-laned high-speed motorway zigzagging through well protected thick forests. It takes you to a height before suddenly falling steep. As one crosses Murree, it is entirely different world on the other side. The rise is now a fall not only in terms of altitude but also the quality of surface you wheeled on, the width of road of road and what you get to see on the either side. The road goes on narrowing down; potholes and shingled stones giving bumps after bumps make it tough negotiating on the curves. Are we on remnants of once a road or the road is coming up? Driver tells us that it is a slide prone area and therefore construction and reconstruction is a continuous process. Unlike Jammu-Srinagar highway where traffic has to be regulated either way almost every third day to make smooth way for defence convoys, not even a single Military or Paramilitary vehicle could be spotted on Islamabad-Kashmir road. Either the Military travels in plain clothes in civilian vehicles or they are stationed heavily at the designated locations. However, there is no convincing answer to why there is not even a single Military vehicle on the road which is Pakistan’s strategically most vulnerable area.

The steeply falling drive ends with the famous Kohala Bridge over mighty Jhelum River where Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir boundaries meet to separate. The mainland Pakistan ends and what is locally called as ‘Azad State of Jammu and Kashmir’ begins. Unless you are informed that ‘this is Kohala’ there is nothing on the site that leads you to the historical importance of this place. In terms of boundary and the definition of so called ‘special status’ Kohala is equivalent of our Lakhanpur –the gateway to Jammu and Kashmir on banks of Ravi River. Unlike Lakhanpur, a place of huge commercial importance with no major historical importance, Kohala assumes a very significant historical position in context of political conflict between India and Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir. This is the place where Mohammad Ali Jinnah stayed for a while before entering Kashmir. Before 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru too had taken Kohala route to Kashmir. And the tribal raiders, who mainly came from today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa entered through Kohala and made this place as their first base for launching attacks in Kashmir. There are many other things Kohala was famous for. Sir Allama Iqbal stayed here for many days to compose ‘Hammala’, the first poem of Bang-e-Dra. In late 1880s the British government had accorded a special position to Kohala –a vast and luxurious guest house was established there with all possible amenities of that day, including a telegraph centre. After a deal (in 1810) between Malka Singh, the administrator of Rawalpindi and the Dogra dynasty of Jammu , for more than 140 years Kohala was the most important trade centre between Punjab and Kashmir as Pathankote was on the eastern side. Going little back, Kohala assumed much more importance in the ancient times for being centre of Hindu pilgrimage for the worshippers of Kohala Devi. However, everything swept away with the events of 1947 that left Kohala with the only identity that it separates Kashmir from mainland Pakistan. What could be more tragic for this historical place than the fact that no one knows who rules Kohala –Punjab or Kashmir? A dispute over lease struck during British era still remains unresolved.

What is status of Kashmir on the Pakistani side of Line of Control? The experience of crossing over Kohala is an important part of this debate. On India side, at Lakhanpur taxes are collected, vehicles are levied but men are not counted; the money collected is added to the state’s coffers. However, at Kohala taxation is not known to anyone, there is no such department no such infrastructure. However, the men who counter are out to not only count but also identity check. The identity here refers to nationality. Everyone, whether a subject of Kashmir or citizen of Pakistan had to get down from the vehicles, queue up with their national identity cards in hands for clearance to enter ‘Azad State of Jammu and Kashmir’ as sign board along the check post points. For the foreign passport holders, there is a procedure, nearly identical to ports of entries to different countries. On the roadside, there is a shed inside which around half a dozen men in loose Khan suits take seats around a couple of archaic computers. Here your passports and travel documents are verified, a photograph is taken with small handy camera which usually rests in Kurta pocket of one of the officials. Your details are entered in a register and signatures are put before getting the go ahead for onward journey.

“Look at Pakistan’s commitment to the independent status of Kashmir”, says a local politician as he argues that identity check at Kohala is an assertion of ‘Azad Kashmir’s identity is an independent country which is just enjoying temporary protection of Pakistan pending lasting settlement’. That is one view. Hear the other one! “Pakistan is extremely insecure about Kashmir and they want to keep a regular check on who is coming in and who is going out”, says an activist in Muzaffarabad. He adds: “We (Kashmiris) are in a permanent state of confusion about our identity and nationality and Kohala reminds us of that every day”. The independent viewpoint is closer to reality. Kohala is Pakistani’s major political, diplomatic and strategic ploy over Kashmir. Through the identity check at crossing point, Pakistan intends to tell both the domestic and international community that Kashmir is a separate ‘State’ under temporary protection of Islamabad. Politics apart, this uncertainty is a daily life psychological and emotional burden on every subject of Pakistan administered Kashmir.

 

(Author is Editor of Epilogue Magazine and he has recently visited Pakistan and Pakistan administered Kashmir.

 

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