Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: It survived wars and a bloody separatist rebellion, but now Kashmir’s famed gun-manufacturing art may soon be extinct.
‘Made-in-Kashmir’ rifles, prized by game hunters for long, could be out-of-production in the near future as gun manufacturers in the strife-torn valley are deeply worried about their business shrinking due to government regulations.
Fearing their misuse by militants after the eruption of an armed uprising against Indian rule in the early nineties, the Home Ministry had imposed a ban on the gun factories.
The ban was lifted later, but a quota system has ever since been imposed on these factories. It limits the number of guns that can be made in one year.
“We are allowed to make only 300-400 guns in a year,” says a gunsmith, Shafat Ahmed. “It takes us only a few months to make them and we have to sit idle for the rest of the year.”
Ahmed says the quota system has “strangulated the trade”.
‘End of a Legacy’
Noted Historian, Fida Hasnan says there were around 22 gun factories in Srinagar before the partition of India in 1947. But only two of them-Zaroo and Subhana gun factories-survived. Hasnain says “After 1947 the government just stopped patronizing them (gunsmiths).”
But even the two factories are ailing now, for a different reason though.
Most of the gunsmiths here are old men and now fear that they may have no successors; this because their children are unwilling to carry on the legacy due to shrinking profits in the business.
Zahoor Ahmed, a graduate, who chose to be a gunsmith like his elders believes gun-making is no longer a bright career for youth like him. “My grandfather was gunsmith and so are my father and my uncles. But my brother is a manager in a company. He did not want to join them,” Ahmed says.
“Why should I make guns when I can earn more and that too without sweating it out?”
‘Glorious Past’
Historian Hasnain says he was surprised to see an old painting portraying Kashmiri gunsmiths at a museum in London. “That showed our guns were exported to Europe also,” he said.
Although the trade has been constricted, yet made-in-Kashmir rifles are still in great demand in many Indian states such as Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
But the chances of the industry’s survival are bleak.
There are no signs that the quota system will be lifted anytime soon as Indian authorities are still uncertain if peace in the valley will sustain for long.
