Swami Amaranth ji yatra (an annual pilgrimage)…….

Politics ruins /mars the spirit of anything it touches…………………..& the politicians fan it to the maximum to fulfill there horrific/hidden agendas.
My first yatra happened in year 1985, Why I said happened is because, I never knew the significance of the yatra, as I was just a class third student and never thought about the trade/barter attached to it (Lord, I’m coming to your adobe and in turn want all my wishes to be fulfilled).
I just needed some breathing space and wanted to run away from the chaos, which suddenly & dramatically engulfed us after the untimely demise of my father.
Luckily, one of our tenants had planned a holy trip to swami Amaranth ji and on my mother’s request, he agreed to take me along. It was a week’s trip but the impact was everlasting.
Lord Shiva inspires me for the annual pilgrimage/yatra almost every year & now if I look back, I have completed 18 yatra, including the unfortunate one, with very bad memories, yes I’m talking about 1996.The natural calamity took many lives and incidentally, I had stepped into my adolescence and was full of courage & passion. I pumped all my energy in rescue operation run by the army & spent five sleepless nights at Panchtarni.
After the Swami Amarnath ji Yatra disaster of 1996.Twenty major recommendations, were put forward by the By Nitish Sengupta committee.one of which was activisation of the shorter Baltal route to the holy cave in order to ease the hardship on the traditional route via Chandanwari and Sheshnag. Another was to set up a trust/board for Swami Amarnath ji on the lines of the trust for the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine. All the twenty recommendations were accepted and things moved on smoothly.This year too the yatra is on, but the atmosphere has become extremely murky and tense on account of the parallel and opposing agitations in the Valley and in Jammu.

The agitation in the Valley,no doubt backed by separatist elements,is against allotment of about 100 acres of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board to construct temporary shelters for use by pilgrims during the yatra,which normally lasts for a month or at most for six weeks.The agitators argue that this amounts to changing the demographic composition of Kashmir, by settling in a large number of non-Muslim "outsiders" in this area.So serious was the agitation in the Valley that it caused loss of life and property,forcing the state government to eventually cancel the allotment and transfer the land in question back to the forest department.This in turn led to a fierce agitation in Jammu against the state which, by bowing down to Muslim extremists,was accused of hurting Hindu sentiments.

Something was clearly a miss.To start with,there was a definite communication gap between the government and those who spearheaded the agitation in the Valley.It was never properly spelt out to the people that there was no proposal to transfer this land permanently to settle non-Muslims in the area.In any case,how many people can be settled on a stretch of land which is no larger than the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium?

Swami Amarnath ji yatra lasts for around a month and pilgrims come only during that period.They would use these shelters for only two-three days during the yatra, and would thereafter leave the Valley.How could this be viewed as settling non-Muslim "outsiders" in the Valley and "permanently" changing its demographic composition?

The government failed completely to project the true picture and correct the mistaken impression in people’s minds as a result of false propaganda and I think there were also serious lapses by intelligence agencies as they were unable to anticipate the activities and the strategy adopted by pro-Pakistan elements,and to advise the government properly on what course of action to take.

When the state government, somewhat awkwardly, cancelled the allotment order,this was deeply resented by the people of Jammu,who in turn launched a large-scale agitation — which led to many casualties,loss of and damage to property, including uprooting of the rail track connecting the Valley with the rest of India, which is now under construction.
Had the issue of constructing temporary sheds for pilgrims been properly explained to the people in general and to the agitators in specific,some of the unfortunate developments could have been avoided and in turn could have averted the damage to lives and property.The draft/passed resoltions by the state legislature should have been clearly spelt out,which did mention that there was no plan to put up permanent structures where people could settle — and that ideally the Valley’s Muslims could donate this land for temporary use by the pilgrims — and that nothing was being done which would in any way change the Valley’s demographic character.

This was simply not conveyed to people.The fact that the Amarnath shrine board is dominated by people from outside Jammu and Kashmir further fuelled the agitation. Incidentally, when we,the Kashmiri pandits were driven out of the state in 1991-’92, in the wake of the insurgency which began in 1989, was that not a huge disturbance in the "demographic balance" of Jammu and Kashmir?

It is high-time to let sanity reassert itself. Even at this late stage there should be a concerted effort to let people know the facts: there will be no permanent structures and what is proposed is construction of a few temporary huts like those which already exist at Chandanwari and Sheshnag to provide shelter for pilgrims only for the eight to sixteen weeks that the yatra lasts. Also, efforts should be made to set up a shrine board which would mostly include people from Jammu and Kashmir, which should go a long way to remove the "locals versus outsider" mindset.

putting restrictions on the number of pilgrims allowed to go to the Amarnath cave at any given time: there should not be more than 20,000 pilgrims at a time on the high ranges, namely the stretch between Chandanwari and the holy cave. This is just to ensure that in case a natural disaster occurs, the effect on pilgrims is minimal. If there are larger number of pilgrims on the high ranges and say a cyclone or natural disaster occurs, casualties might be high. As long as only 20,000 pilgrims are there, they would be able to take shelter in existing huts and be safe. This year, unfortunately, this restriction on numbers is not being observed, and a much larger number of pilgrims have been allowed on high ranges. This should be Strictly avoided.

It is heartening that in the midst of these agitations, not a single Muslim voice has been raised in the Valley over the continuance of the Amarnath yatra. Kashmiri Muslims have,in fact,given categorical assurances that they would themselves ensure that devotees would be able to undertake the pilgrimage peacefully,without disturbance.

We also have to deal with the resentment of the people of the Jammu region who feel that they have been treated as second-class citizens within their own state for the past several decades. They are unhappy that not a single politician from Jammu has been able to become chief minister of the state,and that the rest of India — when it turns its attention to Kashmir — focuses exclusively on the Valley. They compare this unfavourably to the situation under the maharajas’ rule in the pre-Independence period when people from Jammu comprised the ruling elite. This deep-seated resentment is also something that needs to be tackled on a long-term basis.

Unfortunate episode of the artificial Lingam,tampering with the sanctum sanctorum and other developments have already marred the spirit of the annual pilgrimage,so it's quiet necessary to keep it out of any political interferrence.Commercialisation of yatra is fine upto some extent but this annual pilgrimage can not be compared with the pilgrimage of Mata Vaishno devi due to geo/socio/religious/political reasons and can not be put on the same lines for development as proposed by the Ex Governor and Ex CEO of the SASB ( Sh.Amarnath Shrine Board ).

Lastly,The Shrine board should be reconstituted and headed by a public figure and the best chioce Could be the Mahant of the Charri mubakh Swami Amarnath ji, as he is rel/off custodian of the holy mace and above all has the best avaialble expertise on the annual pilgrimage.Board can be reconstituted comprising of Divisional Commissioner and eminent personalities (from within the state) from different walks of life to take measure of all the arrangements connected with this annual pilgrimage.