How displacement, memory and three decades of public service shaped one of Jammu and Kashmir’s persistent voices on ecological protection and sustainable agriculture.

There are lives that are shaped by personal ambition, and there are lives in which history leaves an unmistakable imprint. The story of Anuj Kumar Verma belongs to the latter.

His journey from a family displaced during the upheaval of 1947 to becoming an advocate of sustainable agriculture and environmental protection is, at its core, a story about memory. But it is also a story about what people choose to do with the inheritance of memory.

Verma’s family traces its roots to Muzaffarabad, from where they were forced to flee during the violence that accompanied the tribal invasion of 1947. They left behind a home, agricultural land and a landscape associated with the Kishanganga River. Like thousands of displaced families, they arrived in Jammu with little more than what they could carry.

For the family, displacement was not a chapter in a history book. It was lived experience.

His grandmother, Sita Devi, carried memories of the lost homeland into the family's life. She spoke about the fields, the river and the life they had left behind, but also about the fear and uncertainty of those days. Those recollections, passed down to a young Anuj, appear to have acquired a meaning beyond nostalgia: they became an early understanding of how deeply people are connected to land.

His father, Om Prakash Verma, was himself a survivor of displacement. Growing up in difficult circumstances, he completed his education and secured a clerical position. Along with Anuj’s mother, Nirmal Gupta, he built a life through education, discipline and work.

Nirmal Gupta, a teacher, also became an important influence. Her commitment to education and public service earned her the Best Teacher Award from the then Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, L K Jha.

The family’s circumstances were modest, but the values they passed on were not. Education, dignity, hard work and service became the real inheritance.

That inheritance found a new expression in 1995, when Verma entered government service.

His work brought him into close contact with farmers across Jammu and Kashmir. It was there that his interest in the environment moved beyond personal sentiment and became a professional concern.

He saw farmers struggling with declining soil health, indiscriminate use of agricultural chemicals and weak returns from their produce. The problem, as he came to see it, was not simply agricultural. It was ecological, economic and ultimately social.

His response was to encourage farmers to look beyond conventional practices and consider more sustainable methods. He worked to promote better soil management, responsible use of agricultural inputs and improved approaches to producing and marketing farm commodities.

For farmers, the value of such interventions is often measured not in official files but in whether someone is willing to listen to their problems. Verma’s approach, according to those who worked with him, was rooted in that engagement.

After three decades in government service, he retired as a District Officer in July 2025. By then, however, his engagement with agriculture and the environment had already moved beyond his official responsibilities.

His second innings has largely been through the written word.

In recent years, Verma has written extensively on sustainable agriculture, pesticides, rivers, pollution, development, water bodies and the environmental consequences of unchecked construction. His articles have appeared in newspapers and news portals in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.

The subjects vary, but the underlying argument remains remarkably consistent: development cannot be sustainable if it destroys the natural systems on which society depends.

That argument is particularly relevant to Jammu and Kashmir.

The region's mountains, rivers, forests and agricultural landscapes are not merely scenic assets. They are economic and ecological infrastructure. They support farming, tourism, drinking-water systems and biodiversity. When rivers are encroached upon, forests degraded, mountains destabilised or agricultural soil exhausted, the consequences eventually reach ordinary households.

Verma’s writings on pesticides and sustainable agriculture have therefore attempted to connect environmental protection with public health and farmers’ livelihoods. His concerns over the continued use of hazardous chemicals, for instance, are framed not merely as an environmental issue but as a question of what ends up in the food chain and what happens to the soil over time.

His criticism of unplanned development follows the same logic.

The choice facing Jammu and Kashmir should not be presented as a simplistic battle between development and the environment.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelRoads, buildings, tourism and infrastructure are necessary. But the question is what kind of development the region can sustain without compromising its mountains, rivers and fragile ecosystems.

The answer cannot be endless construction followed by emergency measures when floods, landslides or water shortages occur.

Verma's environmental advocacy has also been shaped by his work with the We The Humans Forum for Nature and Mankind, where he served as Organising Secretary.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the organisation undertook relief work across several districts of the Jammu region. According to the account of the organisation, around 300 quintals of ration were distributed, more than 3,000 hygiene kits were provided and over 50 awareness camps were organised. Blankets and sewing machines were also distributed, with relief reaching Jammu, Samba, Udhampur, Kathua and Doda.

The episode is significant because it illustrates another dimension of environmental work: the idea that protecting nature cannot be separated from protecting people.

A river is not merely a water body. It is a source of livelihood and drinking water.

A forest is not simply a patch of green. It regulates water, supports biodiversity and protects communities.

Healthy soil is not merely an agricultural resource. It is the foundation of food security.

And a farmer cannot be expected to adopt sustainable practices if the economics of farming make sustainability unaffordable.

This interconnectedness is at the heart of Verma’s public writing.

His recent articles — on sustainable agriculture, the condition of J&K’s rivers, excessive pesticide use, development in mountainous areas, flooding, plastic pollution and environmental health — reflect a consistent attempt to bring ecological questions into mainstream public discussion.

But advocacy also demands scrutiny. Environmental arguments must ultimately stand on evidence, credible data and practical alternatives. Raising an alarm is important; explaining the scale of the problem, identifying responsibility and proposing workable solutions is even more important.

That is the larger challenge before Jammu and Kashmir today.

The region needs development. It needs better roads, stronger public infrastructure, modern agriculture and employment opportunities. But development that ignores carrying capacity merely shifts the cost into the future.

The floods and ecological stresses of recent years should force a more serious conversation about planning. River channels cannot be treated as vacant land. Mountain slopes cannot be endlessly altered without consequences. Agricultural land cannot be exposed indefinitely to practices that damage soil and water. Waste cannot simply be moved from one neighbourhood to another and called management.

Jammu and Kashmir's environmental crisis is therefore not only a government problem. It is also a public responsibility.

Citizens, farmers, businesses, policymakers and civil society all have a role.

For Verma, that responsibility appears to have personal roots. His family's displacement began with the loss of a homeland. Decades later, his public work has focused on preventing another kind of loss — the gradual disappearance of the natural landscape that gives Jammu and Kashmir its ecological and economic identity.

There is a certain irony in that journey.

A family once forced to leave its land now has a descendant arguing that the land people still possess must not be allowed to deteriorate through neglect.

That is perhaps the most compelling part of Anuj Kumar Verma's story.

His journey is not simply from a refugee camp to government service, and from government service to environmental writing. It is a journey from inherited loss to public responsibility.

The Kishanganga of his family's memories may belong to another political and historical reality. But the larger lesson of those memories remains relevant: once a landscape is lost, rebuilding a home is possible; rebuilding an ecosystem, a river or a forest can take generations — and sometimes may not be possible at all.

Jammu and Kashmir cannot afford to learn that lesson too late.

Its development must continue. But so must its rivers. Its mountains must remain standing. Its soil must remain productive. Its forests must remain forests.

That is the central message running through Verma's work: development is necessary, but nature is not expendable.

And perhaps that is why the journey from displaced roots to environmental voice matters — not only as one man's personal story, but as a reminder that the strongest environmental commitments are sometimes born from the deepest memories of what it means to lose a place called home.