National Highway

by Shivam Vij in Baltal

[An edited, pruned version of this aticle by me appeared in Sakaal Times on Monday, 8 July 2008. Pictures by SHOWKAT SHAFI]

“Kabhi bulawa nahin aaya (God never called us),” says Subhash Adlakha, explaining why he never visited Amarnath before 1989, even though he had often visited the Vaishnu Devi. A retired government officer from Gurgaon, is head of Jai Baba Shri Amarnath Sewa Samiti - “Registered,” he says proudly – which collects donations from industrialists in Gurgaon, some 20 lakhs this year, and uses them for free ‘langars’ or food and accommodation in Manigam, half way between Srinagar and Baltal. 

As he waits for ‘yatris’ who will return in the evening, have food and perhaps halt here rather then go to Srinagar, he shows around the arrangements. “We have excellent food,” he says as he offers us lunch, “and arrangement for as many as two thousand people to sleep.” 

Next to his langar is one run by an association of traders from Lucknow’s busy Pratap market. “They are much bigger because they have been doing this for 17 years,” says Adlakha. Pilgrims coming from Srinagar have to compulsorily halt here and then the cars and buses leave for Baltal in a convoy escorted by heavy-duty CRPF security.

“The Mohandans in Baltal are very hostile to us,” says one of Adlakha’s assistants, “they extort money in Baltal by charging as much as five thousand ruppes a day for a tent!” When we reach Baltal we find the tents to be just a hundred rupees per person per night.

On our way, just a few kilometers ahead of the Manigam langars, a cleric’s Friday sermons from an old mosque were loudly heard in Kashmiri, exhorting the local population to ‘love’ Hindus and Sikhs just as they lovedfellow Muslims. But perhaps Adlakha’s assistant didn’t know Kashmiri. He also forgot to mention that these ‘hostile Mohandans’ didn’t trouble them at Manigam even as their protest processions passed by the previous week, demanding the revocation the government’s decision to transfer the Baltal site’s ownership to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board.

120 kms from Srinagar, in Ganderbal district, Baltal is a bit of a mela - tents as far as you can see, stalls selling artificial Shivlings and over-priced Pepsi, a large helipad with helicopters disappearing beyond impossibly high mountains, taking six hundred yatris every day to the holy cave. Prefabricated huts and heavy security – CRPF, Army, J&K police, all of them. Langars with religious flags and messages of service, ponywalas and ‘doliwalas’ taking pilgrims on the 14 kilometres long route. “But 90% pilgrims walk; the difficulty of the  trek is part of the pilgrimage,” says BS Negi, a langar manager from Ludhiana adding that the traditional route, “as recommended by the scriptures” is the Pahalgam one, which requires 32 kilometres of walking.

“India can build large dams but not even a road up the mountain?” asks a pilgrim, oblivious to Negi’s idea of treaking up a treachrous mountain as part of the pilgrimigae, the ‘bulawa’. Legend has it that the Amarnath cave, where a lingam-like ice structure is formed, has existed for ages, but was ‘rediscovered’ by a Muslim shepherd from Batakot, Buta Malik, in 1848. Until some decades ago, it was visited by only a few hundred sadhus, led by the head priest of the Dashnami Akhara in Srinagar. Malik’s family would receive a third of the offerings, and also involved was the Purohit Sabha, Mattan. 

When the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board was created, all three parties were devoid of their role in organizing the yatra - Mahant Depender Giri of the Dashnami Akhara only performs the ‘chari mubarak’ ceremonies to begin and end the yatra a the Akhara in Srinagar. He is opposed, however, to the establishment of the shrine board, its decision to extend the yatra from 15 days to two months, its communal decisions such as removing the Malik family, a symbol of Kashmiri syncretism, and also the provision of the Governor as chairman of the shrine board ‘only if the Governor is a Hindu’. Should the Governor be a Muslim, he would appoint a Hindu to head the Shrine Board.

The Shrine Board was established in 2000 by an Act of the Assembly, passed by the then National Conference government. This was done on the lines of the Vaishnu Devi Shrine Board, set up in 1988, in order to make the pilgrimage more comfortable for modern-day middle class yatris, thus increasing the number of pilgrims every year. As many as 75 lakh pilgrims visit Vaishnu Devi every year. It is a curious fact that the number of Hindu pilgrims to Amarnath should increase despite a deacde and a half of militancy in the state.

“Until 1990 a very small number of pilgrims used to go,” says lawyer Miya Abdul Qayoom, president of the Action Committee Against Land Transfer (ACALT), “but in 1991 Murli Manohar Joshi came with a large number of people in a convoy and went to the cave and put up a BJP flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar and proceeded to the Amarnath cave. That’s the point when the number of yatris started increasing.” This, he says, was a “double provocation: One, to tell the people of Kashmir that you can’t take the Valley from India, and two, to tell militants that we are not afraid of you.”

That sentiment was the reason behind a ban on the yatra by a militant outfit in 1993. The number of yatris that year was a few thousand, and the number reduced substantially again when 200 yatris died in 1996 due to a landslide. The Nitish Sengupta committee then recommended that at one time very few yatris should be allowed to go up to the cave for reasons of both safety and ecology. 
However, the Amarnath Shrine Board has been trying to take as many people as possible, also increasing the duration of the yatra from 15 days to two months in defiance of the J&K government’s refusal. Last year, 2,14,000 pilgrims went to Amarnath for ‘darshan’, this year the number is already over 3.5 lakhs and is likely to cross 5 lakhs by the time the yatra ends with ‘raksha bandhan’ on August 16. The increase has been achieved partly by the opening of the Baltal route some years ago.

Politicians and commoners alike in Srinagar feel that the Shrine Board and its aggressive promotion of the Amarnath is part of a strategy to increase India’s stake in the Valley. This has been accentuated, locals in Srinagar say, by yatris waving ‘V’ signs at armed forces and shouting ‘Bharat mata ki jai’. In Baltal, an army vehicle bringing soldiers back from the ‘darshan’ had an army jawan waving at this reporter, shouting, “Bum Bum Bholay” even as Kashmiri tentwalas looked on. Armed forces’ personnel visiting the shrine are not counted as part of the registered number of yatris, and that is the sort of thing that is confirmation for Kashmiris that Amarnath is more politics than religion. 

Stoking the fears in the current agitation against permanent transfer of the Baltal land to the SASB was the idea that this was similar to what Israel did in Palestine: “civil occupation after military occupation”. The ACALT committee said that the transfer of land was against Article 370, which disallows outsiders from buying land in the state. Technically that is not true, given that the SASB was a body established by the J&K legislature. But people felt it was a violation in spirit, as permanent ownership and residential structures could mean that ‘outsiders’ (Indians) could stay there as long as they wanted. 

The establishment and activities of the shrine board have been dubbed as a deliberate, political act of ‘cultural aggression’ which, perhaps, backfired in the current agitation. The SASB started construction of permanent structures at Baltal even before the land could be officially demarcated, paid for and handed over. This could be done easily because the ‘CEO’ of the SASB, IAS officer Arun Kumar, could get the files signed quickly because his wife was secretary in the forest department. The government denied that permanent structures had been built, trying to save the day by giving the impression that the decision was still under consideration. Kumar, who has maintained that the SASB is not answerable to the government, quickly held a press conference saying that permanent structures had indeed been built. He has since been removed for violation of service rules. “In any case his continuation as CEO of the board was against deputation rules,” says Qayoom.

“And what is the need for langars? Langars are not part of the Hindu tradition,” says one leader, pointing out that businesses by Muslims have been hurt over the years. The culture of langars has seeped into Vaishnu Devi and Amarnath pilgrimages because of Hindus from Punjab, who form the largest regional group amongst the pilgrims, followed by Haryana, Delhi and UP, in that order. A large number of these are businessmen who visit every year, and at some point decide to start langars. These are done by establishing religious trusts.

“The main reason for increase in number of yatris is langars – free food and accomodation. Some also offer free bus service from Jammu. And the media has played a very big role in popularizing the Amarnath yatra,” says BS Negi.

But the langar trusts aren’t exactly happy with the Shrine Board. “They charge twenty five thousand rupees and don’t provide half of the services they promise,” says Adlakha in Manigam. The SASB collects compulsory ‘taxes’ from various people, but the receipts issued call them voluntary donations. Rs. 1,500 if you want to put up a tent or a stall to sell, money for advertisements from companies, six thousand rupees from ponywalas and doli-walas, and twenty five thousand rupees from langar walas. It spends money on prefabricated huts (for offices, not pilgrims), toilets and water supply. There are charges of corruption against the SASB: “Why don’t they publish their accounts?” asks Miya Abdul Qayoom.

The decision to transfer land came from the Governor and the cabinet passed it. As is well known, the PDP ministers didn’t object. A lot of red tape was expended on whether the Supreme Court’s 2006 ruling that any transfer of forest land would need permission from the apex court applied to J&K, given that the ruling was in the context of a central government act which didn’t apply to J&K, which had passed its own, similar act for forest conservation in 1997. “But then why did the government go to the Supreme Court for permission for building the Mughal road [which connects Kashmir with Jammu’s Muslim-dominated districts], whereas all government departments ruled that they didn’t need to do the same for the Baltal land?”

“We got scared when the shrine board said they were planning to build a dam and generate electricity,” says Dr Mubeen Shah, president of the Kashmir Chambers of Commerce, “so we joined the ACALT committee to protest against the SASB which became a parallel government on the two routes, resulting in losses to the tourism department.” The Baltal land is now with J&K tourism.

What confirmed communal designs for most was the character of Gen SK Sinha’s governorship – he wanted to establish a Hindu university, Sharda Peeth, in Srinagar, and develop other sites of Hindu pilgrimages such as ‘Sita Haran’ in Anantnag, “but he never did anything for Muslims,” says Miya Qayoom.

“Why was a board setup only for Amarnath, why not one to look after the other 200 Hindu temples and shrines in the Valley?” asks Sanjay Saraf, a resident Kashmiri Pandit and J&K president of the Lok Janshakti Party. He also rues how Kashmiri Pandits were marginalized by the shrine board. “We are Shaivites, Shiva is our father, we and the Malik family are the rightful custodians of the shrine,” he says. “When SASB CEO Arun Kumar was asked by the cabinet why Kashmiri Pandits were being kept out, he had the guts to say he doesn’t care for Pandits.” Sikh organizations and many Pandits and in the Valley thus came out in support of the ACALT demand to revoke the order, and have even demanded dissolution of the shrine board, even as Pandits in Jammu and Delhi were, ironically, protesting against the demand.

Separatist leaders and commoners alike have been at pains to explain that this was not a communal agitation. “We have carried Hindu pilgrims on our backs for 150 years,” says a taxi-driver. “The agitation was largely secular and motivated by Kashmiri concerns rather than Muslim ones,” says the CPI-M MLA from Kulwama, Yusuf Tarigami. 

As Jammu simmers with violence, the Valley appeals for calm. Both mainstream politicians and separatists in the Valley have been pointing out how not a single yatri was touched. Indeed, when this reporter arrived on 1 July, it was difficult to get a taxi from the airport because of the general strike: the protestors would pelt stones at vehicles who defied the bandh. But vehicles carrying yatris were not touched. Ordinary Kashmiris and the tourism department both organized langars and free accommodation for stranded pilgrims. “We never touched a single yatri despite six of our people being killed in unprovoked firing by the CRPF,” Yasin Malik of the JKLF clarified to pilgrims at Baltal on 3 July. And the torching of Muslim houses and beating up of Kashmiri taxi drivers carrying pilgrims in Jammu is there for all to see. “So who is being communal?” asks Miya Qayoom.