Kashmir 'ecovillage' undertakes mission to promote sustainability, local culture

By Hilal Mir

GANDERBAL, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) – Fayaz Ahmad Dar, a sustainable development practitioner based in Indian-administered Kashmir, believes culture can’t be preserved in museums but by practicing it.

Founder of Sagg Eco Village, which is a smorgasbord of eco-friendly food and activities, Dar says as a kid his father sent him to school against his wishes, leaving him wondering why a productive farm boy should be subjected to institutionalized learning rather than producing food grains.

After higher secondary education in the early 90s, Dar moved to New Delhi for work to support his education. After doing more than a dozen jobs – from a homeopathic doctor’s assistant to an official at the United States-India Educational Foundation, and an MBA later – Dar went to the US for a degree in sustainable development.

The education and the experience gained from the wide variety of jobs, Dar told Anadolu Agency, exposed him to different cultures and made him realize that unbridled capitalism alienates people from their settings and that the “template of exploitation is the same everywhere.”

- Ecovillage

After returning to Kashmir in 2010, Dar did a lot of brainstorming with a lot of people and stitched together a team of 20, from students to professionals, gaining insights into what people wanted from sustainable development initiatives.

Thus, the Mool Sustainability project was born with the aim to inspire youth to build local resource-based, environment-friendly, and independent livelihoods. Mool is the Kashmiri word for root.

Over time, the team got thinner as the members moved on to other careers. Only Dar stayed. The most conspicuous and the biggest outcome of those beginnings under the Mool project is the Sagg Eco Village.

It is not a village though. To be exact, the “village” is one-and-a-half acres of a rocky piece of land midway up a vast hilly wilderness punctuated by orchards and fenced tin-roofed houses.

“At first, I wondered what we would do with this desolate piece of land. People in the neighborhood, with whom we intended to work, also were apprehensive. They didn’t understand what was happening here. We were growing vegetables without using fertilizers. We were building earth and timber huts, and earthen wood stoves,” said Dar.

The idea gradually seeped in. Within months, Dar started getting job requests from the villagers, as laborers, masons, apprentices for organic pickle making, housekeepers, and part-time chefs.

Sagg Eco Village today is a retreat, where city dwellers come to spend a night in a mud and timber hut in which the only thing modern is an electric bulb, much like traditional Kashmiri homes that don’t need a fan in the summer.

The huts in the Sagg could be warmed up in winter with a small wood stove using twigs collected from nearby fields as fuel.

- Sustainability, integration

Landholdings in the fertile Kashmir Valley are small, about less than an acre per capita. Although horticulture ranks as one of the biggest sources of GDP, large-scale farming as the mainstay of an average rural household’s source of income remains untenable. And with an undeveloped private sector or large industries, the youth lust after government employment.

Vast swathes of agricultural land have been devoured by unchecked constructions and the once food self-reliant Valley imports most of the food grains and livestock from various Indian states. Food security, sustainability, best agricultural practices, and organic farming haven’t taken root yet.

In Dar’s imagination, Sagg Eco Village was meant to be a mini-laboratory where these phenomena will be conceived, discussed, practiced, and disseminated to the larger public.

“Sagg is also a business model, a place where we could develop a mindset that is needed in a place like Kashmir for running a sustainable business. Sagg aspires to be a model for a village, a venture that integrates most life activities,” Dar said.

Among other activities, Sagg undertakes or facilitates natural farming, traditional food preservation methods, camps for schoolchildren with campfires and barbecue parties, eco-building methods, seminars, training, trekking and mountaineering expeditions that can involve locally-bred horses on demand, and marketing locally-produced honey and other farm products.

Even government agencies have started taking notice. Dar, who has been joined by his wife Lubna, organizes programs in collaboration with private and public agencies at the place.

Celebration of the spring’s arrival has become one of the popular Sagg events. Families and individuals drive from various areas for a day or two of traditional music and food. On normal days, local women and children are allowed free entry.

“These activities at Sagg are aimed at fostering community bonding,” said Dar.