Column | Raja Muzaffar Bhat: Kashmir’s grassroots man

Raja Muzaffar Bhat knows how to read the fine print. Tender documents are like whodunnits waiting to be unravelled for the 49-year-old environmental activist. Bhat, who built his credibility as a Right to Information (RTI) expert and is now chairman of the J&K Climate Action Group, is the tenth generation of his family to live in Wathora village, 12 km south of Srinagar and home to Kashmir’s famous Bhand Pather folk theatre.

He adeptly plays ace detective as he scours the legalese for clues ranging from problematic clauses to forgotten environmental/pollution clearances. He can recite sections of existing laws faster than you can say ‘Vande Mataram’ and he has the skill set required to hold government institutions accountable. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) and the Supreme Court have sided with him in his sustained campaign against illegal riverbed mining in Kashmir.

Bhat was a champion of the RTI movement and helped push through the former State’s RTI Act in 2009. The central Act replaced it a decade later, when the special status of Jammu & Kashmir under Article 370 was revoked. The age of RTIs, when Bhat would file 30-50 applications a month and people referred to him as an “information bank” because he ferreted out details ranging from judges’ assets to the way government schemes were working, has ended.Post-2019, as officials delayed answering RTI queries and a jump in infrastructure and construction projects made Bhat’s paradise look ragged, he turned his attention to the strained natural environment.

He still uses the old skills. Just the day before we speak, he filed an RTI application to find out how many Chinar and other specified trees (more rigorously protected by the law) have been cut across 10 districts in the past two to three years. The petition has been filed in the NGT. 

Some days he may be fighting for the tawny owls that find solace in the Chinars, a key symbol of Kashmiri heritage. On other days, he is raging about the garbage crisis in rural Kashmir or how the Jal Jeevan Mission, a Modi government promise to provide safe drinking water on tap to all rural Indians, hasn’t reached the Chopan. The shepherd community lives near the source of the River Doodhganga — once a milky white, sparkling lifeline for lakhs — yet drink dirty water. “We talk of AI and digital India but when I go to such areas, I see no development,” says Bhat. “The marginalised don’t get access to welfare schemes.”

Fighting a disconnected bureaucracy

Global weather data shows that 95 of the world’s 100 hottest cities are in India. Trees and forests are being decimated at an unprecedented rate to build highways and for other urban development. In this scenario, we need more custodians like Bhat, who know how to marry social media advocacy with grassroots relationships and an understanding of premier environmental bodies such as the NGT.

Thanks to Bhat, the NGT issued an order last year directing officials in Srinagar to tackle a sprawling hill made up of 11.5 tonnes of garbage — festering for decades at a landfill in the city — within two years. The cabinet has approved ₹361 crore to fix the problem.

Both Bhat’s grandfathers were civil servants in Kashmir, men who were deeply connected to the people they represented, and Bhat says he can’t reconcile himself with how disconnected the bureaucracy is today or how officials don’t seem aware of basic environmental laws. 

Another pet peeve about officials? Their written communication lacks dignity, often missing salutations or respectful words of address. In one analysis of around 300 RTI replies to citizens, Bhat found that in 99% of cases, officials didn’t address the applicants as ‘Sir/Madam’ or conclude with the standard ‘Yours sincerely’ sign-off. Even the younger lot who used the RTI and got justice in the earlier days, he says, haven’t lived up to their promise. “I don’t know what happens to them when they enter the bureaucracy,” Bhat adds. “These things trouble me.”

Mobilising support

In another lifetime, Bhat was a dentist who had patients from different regions of Kashmir. “Patients would tell me where they were from and I would write down the names of these faraway places. Then I started going there on my Yamaha motorcycle,” he says. Curiosity drove him to move outwards right to the southwestern boundary of Budgam district that stretches up to the Pir Panjal mountains. “Now, there’s no tehsil or block in the Valley where I don’t have a contact,” he says.

Most of Kashmir’s NGT cases in the past six years have been filed by Bhat. While the orders often back him, enforcing them is the bigger challenge. He uses every trick in the book, from social media to local journalists. He mobilises citizens and phones or meets department heads incessantly. “I don’t believe the narrative that nothing can be done any more,” he says. “I get renewed energy from my victories. I feel like I have done something and that something is happening.”

The writer is a Bengaluru-based journalist and the co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.