The story of Sopore is one of Kashmir’s most poignant urban trajectories—a historical tale of an economic powerhouse, an intellectual cradle, and a cultural capital that gradually slipped into infrastructural decay and political marginalization. It derives its name from the famous engineer Suyya, the irrigation minister of King Avanti Varman, who drained the marshy land and regulated Jhelum to save Kashmir from floods. He named it Suyyapur . The name over centuries as a phonetic corruption came to be known by its present name. To understand Sopore is to understand how the shifting winds of Kashmiri politics, trade dynamics, and decades of conflict reshaped a city that once rightfully earned the epithet “Chota London.”

The Epoch of “Chota London” and ModernityIn the early and mid-20th century, Sopore was far ahead of its time. Its proximity to the Mohra Hydroelectric Power Project—built on the Jhelum River in 1905 during the reign of Maharaja Pratap Singh—gave the town an unprecedented advantage. Sopore received electricity before the summer capital of Srinagar, powering the dredgers used to clear the Jhelum and protect the valley from floods. This early access to infrastructure, combined with its central geographic position along the Jhelum River, turned Sopore into a vibrant commercial hub. Trade flourished along its waterways. The town was so wealthy, fashionable, and bustling with enterprise that locals and visitors dubbed it Chota London (Little London).

Sopore was also a formidable intellectual and political epi-centre. During the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s, as the Indian subcontinent moved toward Partition, major political stalwarts—including Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and key leaders of the National Conference—converged in or around North Kashmir to deliberate on the post-partition reality. The town produced some of Kashmir’s finest minds, academics, and business magnates. In terms of doctors Dr Shahnawaz Kaloo, Abdul Ahad Guru, Mohammed Sultan Khuru........

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