Suchetgarh, Jammu
Davendar Singh can’t remember how many nights he has spent, sleepless, listening to the endless shelling on the Indo-Pak border, a stone’s throw away from his house in Suchetgarh. Like him, over 400 families in Naibasti and Setowali villages of R S Pura block in Jammu are no strangers to this emergency-like situation for the last many years. Life in these border villages is both tough and unpredictable.
However, there is a fresh hope as India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire on February 25 this year. Residents of Suchetgarh heaved a collective sigh of relief. They hope peace will help boost border tourism. They believe it will provide local people a source of livelihood. They are exhausted from leading uprooted lives.
“Once we had to move three kilometres back and were accommodated in government buildings including schools till the shelling stopped,” Davendar, who runs a restaurant near Suchetgarh border, told Gaon Connection. “If Suchetgarh is made a tourist spot, it will generate huge employment opportunities for the youth,” the 33-year-old said.
Suchetgarh lies in the Indo-Pakistan border area, about 27 kilometres from Jammu city in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. While the Suchetgarh border has been peaceful since 2019, tourists were still reluctant to visit fearing shelling. The recent announcement of ceasefire has given confidence to tourists, who, despite the COVID-19 scenario in the country, are visiting this border area in Jammu, say the inhabitants of the area.
“Since the announcement of ceasefire, a large number of people have visited the Suchetgarh border,” Sunjit Singh, a 40-year-old who runs a dhaba there told Gaon Connection. He is elated that from a meagre profit of Rs 200 a day, he now makes a profit of anything up to Rs 600 each day.” There has been an increase in the influx of visitors to his dhaba and a 200 to 300 per cent increase in sales, he said.
“Before March this year, no more than a thousand people would visit here daily. It has gone up to fifteen hundred people now and on Sundays alone more than three thousand people visit,” a Border Security Force (BSF) official, who keeps a record of the visitors, told Gaon Connection.
Praying for peace
From the border area, it is easy to spot the Pakistan army’s posts, just a stone’s throw away. Most of the villagers living in Suchetgarh originally hail from the Punjab province of Pakistan. They settled here after the partition in 1947.
“Most people from here are in the army. Those who are not, cultivate rice and wheat,” said Davendar. The villagers hope this time around the ceasefire is followed in letter and spirit without any violations. That was not the case in 2003, when India and Pakistan had signed another ceasefire pact. That did not work after the Mumbai attacks.
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Between 2005 and 2018, over 10 lives were lost in the shelling, recalled Abdul Gani, a 50-year-old farmer in Suchetgarh who owns three acres (1.2 hectares) of land near the border. Many farmers suffered great damage to their homes and fields in the shelling.
“We can now go to our fields and cultivate crops without any fear,” Gani said and added it was time the two countries develop friendly relations so that people on both sides of the border areas could live a peaceful life.
Tourism picks up
Meanwhile, things are looking up for the folks at Suchetgarh as tourists are coming in good numbers. The BSF that is defending the borders, has also put up posters welcoming them.
“It was my dream to visit the border. I saw Pakistan rangers from very close, and also visited various bordering villages,” Tanusha Sharma, a tourist from Delhi who had come to the border along with her husband and two children, told Gaon Connection.
While the tourism department and the BSF have created a park and a few conveniences for the visitors, more needs to be done.
“The government should create better facilities here. The roads are not in good condition. It should be developed on the pattern of the Wagah-Attari border in Punjab,” Sharma said.
Wagah is a village which is famous for border ceremony and also serves as a goods transit and a railway station between India and Pakistan. It is located 24 kilometres from Lahore in Pakistan and 32 kilometres from Amritsar in India.
“Tourism in bordering areas of Jammu has been the government’s top priority. There is a demand from locals to bring Suchetgarh at par with Wagah border which will generate thousands of job opportunities for people,” a senior official of the tourism department told Gaon Connection. He pointed out that unlike other border areas, Suchetgarh was close to Jammu city and easily accessible.
An added attraction is the Gharana wetland in R S Pura near the border that is being developed for bird watching. A lot of migratory birds visit the wetland every year in the winters.
“Facilities are being upgraded at Suchetgarh for the convenience of visitors and many other areas in Jammu are being developed as border tourist destinations,” Baseer Ahmad Khan, advisor to the lieutenant governor of J&K, Manoj Sinha, told Gaon Connection.
