From Ritual to Resilience: A September Test for Jammu and Kashmir

Kumar Rohit

write2kumarrohit@outlook.com

Fragile mountains are not protected by reflection alone. Earlier this year, these columns recognised Jammu and Kashmir as India's Crown and the subcontinent's water tower. That recognition was only a first step. September now offers a test of whether environmental awareness can translate into better governance.

Four United Nations observances fall this month - Clean Air for Blue Skies on September 7, preservation of the ozone layer on September 16, World Cleanup Day on September 20 and World Tourism Day on September 27. Together, they point to one Himalayan challenge: how to develop a mountain region without weakening the natural systems that sustain its people and economy.

Too often, these dates are observed separately - a seminar on air pollution, a cleanup drive and a celebration of tourist arrivals. In the Himalayas, such fragmented thinking is a luxury we cannot afford. The challenge is to turn these concerns into a single approach to resilience.

Its mountain ecosystem is an interdependent continuum: forests regulate water flows, wetlands help absorb excess water, and rivers sustain agriculture and drinking-water needs far beyond the mountains. Damage to these systems affects public safety, livelihoods and economic security.

The question is unavoidable: can growth, highway expansion and mass tourism continue without undermining the ecological systems on which they depend?

Recent disasters have made that question more urgent. Official data placed before Parliament recorded 199 deaths in weather-related disasters in Jammu and Kashmir in 2025, more than 8,400 damaged houses, nearly 11,700 livestock lost and crop damage across about 77,900 hectares. On August 14, a cloudburst struck Chasoti in Kishtwar on the Machail Mata route, claiming 68 lives. Twelve days later, a landslide near Ardhkuwari on the Vaishno Devi track killed 34 pilgrims. Mudslides in Reasi and Ramban buried homes, disrupted National Highway 244 and affected infrastructure in the Chenab basin.

Extreme weather cannot always be prevented, but human decisions can worsen its consequences. Unscientific hill-cutting, unsafe slope excavation and dumping of muck into streams can turn heavy rainfall into destructive debris flows. Resilience must begin long before the next emergency - in how slopes are cut, roads built and waterways protected.

Air quality is another part of the same challenge. In valley basins such as Srinagar and Jammu, winter inversions can trap smoke, vehicle exhaust and dust close to the ground. Transport workers, vendors and daily-wage earners who spend long hours outdoors face greater exposure.

At the same time, pollutants like black carbon settle on snowfields. They reduce reflectivity and hasten glacial melt. The 1987 Montreal Protocol offers a broader lesson: sustained, science-based action, common standards and effective enforcement can produce results when environmental protection becomes a continuing institutional responsibility rather than an occasional campaign.

Jammu and Kashmir has improved weather monitoring through Doppler Weather Radars and automatic weather stations under Mission Mausam. The next step is coordinated planning across valley airsheds and vulnerable mountain districts.

Plastic bottles and multilayer packaging discarded along slopes and in ravines can fragment into microplastics and enter snowmelt and mountain springs.

During peak season, tourism is reported to generate more than 40 tonnes of solid waste a day across the Valley. Local bodies face pressure, while waste near drainage channels can worsen the effects of intense rainfall. Anti-polythene check posts, Eco-Task Forces and segregated bins in ecotourism areas provide a useful foundation. What is needed now is consistent implementation by urban local bodies and panchayats - including source segregation, composting and greater producer responsibility for commercial packaging.

This leads directly to tourism. Tourism is indispensable to Jammu and Kashmir, supporting hospitality, transport, handicrafts and livelihoods. In 2024, the region recorded 2.36 crore visitors. But tourism's success cannot be measured by footfall alone.

When visitor numbers exceed what a fragile destination can safely accommodate, the costs appear in traffic congestion, pressure on water resources, waste and unplanned construction. Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonamarg illustrate the challenge: the tourism economy depends on the very landscape that excessive and poorly managed tourism can gradually degrade.

Scientific assessments should guide carrying capacities. Rural homestays can distribute tourism income more widely, while cleaner public transport can ease congestion. Better planning can allow local communities to benefit from tourism while protecting alpine meadows and water sources.

What Jammu and Kashmir needs is a shift from reacting to disasters to building resilience before they occur. The administration must mandate carrying-capacity assessments for all hill stations. Slope-stabilisation standards must be enforced, and muck dumping into waterways stopped. Local bodies need systems that make waste segregation routine. Citizens and visitors, too, must recognise that mountain landscapes have limits.

As India works towards Viksit Bharat @ 2047, development in the Himalayas cannot be judged simply by the amount of road, concrete or tourist infrastructure added each year. A more meaningful measure is whether development leaves the mountains safer, the air cleaner and watersheds stronger.

The real test of environmental observances is what remains after the commemorative days have passed. For Jammu and Kashmir, the goal should be simple: turn awareness into institutions, institutions into everyday practice, and development into resilience.

(The author is Director of the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya National Academy of Social Security (PDUNASS), New Delhi, and Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner (Hq). The views expressed are personal.)