Chinar has stood testimony to the ever-changing history in Jammu Kashmir for so many decades. But over the years their numbers have been drastically decreasing. And now to keep the numbers from further decreasing, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has started geo-tagging them.
One just has to follow Google to locate chinar trees in Kashmir. NDTV tracked an old chinar tree to Nishat Bagh where it has been standing tall for the last 380 years.
“It’s the oldest chinar here but now its trunk is shrinking due to soil not being put around its roots methodically,” one of the gardeners told NDTV.
A 380-year-old Chinar tree in Nishat Bagh.
According to him, as many as 145 chinars are there in Nishat Bagh alone. “Some of them are dying and it’s sad that the government is planting other trees around here,” he stated adding that the adjacent Mughal garden has about 185 trees and it’s the same story there too.
Recently, the forest research department also conducted a census of chinars in Kashmir wherein it was discovered that the oldest chinar is in Chadoora in Budgam district.
As per census numbers, fifty years ago there were about 42,000 chinars in the valley but now less than 20,000 are there. Out of them, one-third are either diseased or damaged.
Following this, the government also took a programme of conservation of chinars. “Three of four chinars were damaged in the 2014 flood under this programme we transplanted three trees,” a senior officer explains.
According to him, although chinar belongs to Greece, as per history it was introduced in the valley from Persia. “Later Mughal rulers treated it as a royal tree and planted them everywhere in the valley,” he said adding that as as many as 1,100 were planted by Mughals in Naseem Bagh at the site of Kashmir University.
Dogra rulers also preserved the heritage and declared chinar as government property. In fact, cutting a chinar was declared a crime. But locals say, in the name of development and broadening of roads, many have been cut in the last few years.
“Almost 75 chinaars were cut to broaden Srinagar Qazigund highway,” said one shikarawala.
As per census records, the maximum number of chinars, apart from Srinagar, can be found in Bijbhera, Budgam, Kokeenag and in Anantnag.