Attempts to turn Kashmir into a global golf destination in the world continue. State officials in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent have voted to spend around $6.2 million to build a golf course in its winter capital, Jammu.
Gadling reports that after 18 years of militant violence, Kashmir wants to rebrand itself to a global golfing destination.
Kashmir probably does not evoke emotions of vacationing and relaxation in most people. After 18 years of militant violence, Kashmir wants to rebrand themselves from a heavily militarized Himalayan region to a global golfing destination.
According to The New York Times, even though many have questioned the wisdom of spending so much money on building golf fields in Kashmir, its government believes that golf can attract the attention of tourists from all over the world.
In late March, Kashmir looked just as the brochures portrayed it. The landscape, budding into spring, was bewitching. The trees were heavy with pink and white blossoms; tulips and pansies were blooming; and the willow trees were bursting into leaf. Horses pulling cartloads of vegetables trotted through the streets. But the brochures make no mention of the disquieting presence of an estimated 600,000 Indian soldiers, some of them visible at intervals of around 100 yards along the roadside, in bullet-resistant vests, rifles dangling at their sides.
The paper also quotes Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, commenting on the government’s desire to see Kashmir as “an international golfing hub.”
“There is a need to mobilize golfers across the world to come and play the game here,” he said.
Photo:© ChuKi
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