Too crowded at the top

The disaster in Uttarakhand where 6,000 people are missing, presumed dead, is a prime example of a place of pilgrimage overburdened with rampant construction and unchecked numbers of pilgrims. But unless lessons are learnt another, equally deadly, disaster awaits us in the Kashmir Valley during the Amarnath Yatra.

“This yatra is a cocktail of politics, ecology and religion being played out 3,888 metres above sea level,” says Srinagar businessman Sarwar Hussain, who has stakes in tourism. As he and his family have a cottage in Pahalgam that they visit regularly, they see the transformation that the little shepherd’s village ( pahal is shepherd; gaam , village) undergoes during the 55 days of the yatra . “Suddenly, there are long, snaking lines of buses and poorly maintained trucks spewing diesel fumes, waiting at the toll gate of Pahalgam. There are throngs of pilgrims, some of who are in patently bad health.” It is not only Hussain who is alarmed at the ever-increasing crowds and mounting piles of rotting garbage, but just about every resident of Pahalgam, from pony-walas onwards.

Says the owner of an upmarket hotel in Pahalgam, “One look at some of these pilgrims with their frail, old bodies and cotton saris, and you realise how unprepared they are for the trek ahead.” This particular owner has a Bangalore-based friend whose maid received a pamphlet exhorting her to make the pilgrimage to Amarnath. “It’s politically motivated, there’s no doubt about it,” is the remark of this hotelier, who feels that there is a not-so-subtle move to change the demographics of Pahalgam. “Look at it this way,” he says. “When I was growing up in Pahalgam, the yatra was only for 15 days during the month of Shravan and every pilgrim used to approach it from the Pahalgam side. Now, there is the far shorter, but much steeper route from Baltal near Sonamarg too, and the yatra lasts 55 days.”

“From ancient times, temples and holy places of worship have been built on isolated hilltops, far from human habitation. Those areas became strong centres of spiritual power and enlightenment,” enunciates Hussain. “The problems set in when hordes of pilgrims are juxtaposed with little infrastructure. In the case of the Amarnath Yatra, it is only during the fortnight when the ice stalagmite, believed to be a lingam , forms, that the pilgrimage is held. In other words, no lingam , no pilgrimage. But with the way the environment is being disregarded, there’s a very real danger of the lingam not forming at all.”

Says Srinagar-based environmentalist Z.A. Ashiq, “There are three main points of concern. The first is the elongation of the yatra from 15 days until two decades ago to 55 days. The second is the sheer number of pilgrims: from 50,000 in any given year up to the 1990s to 6.55 lakh in 2012. The third is the unchecked refuse that clogs the very glacier on which the cave is situated. Human excreta, plastic, cooking fuel and non-biodegradable rubbish that pollute the water of the Lidder river, which supplies drinking water to the whole of South Kashmir.”

While the hotelier is aghast at the lack of potable water at those high altitudes — “Friends of mine who have been on the yatra are reduced to carrying their own bottled mineral water”, Ashiq says there is a very real fear that in a few years the stalagmite may not form at all if the glacier has receded at the level at which it is currently disappearing. Hussain is appalled at the apparent lack of a blueprint to check the progress of the yatra . “Now, Rs 4,800 buys you a seat on a helicopter from Pahalgam to the Cave and back, so that you can have the darshan and be down in two hours. With around 500 yatris making the trip by helicopter from both Baltal and Pahalgam every day, you are looking at a disaster in just two or three years,” he says. “The helicopter sorties are heating up the air at that altitude to an alarming degree, and it is putting the all-important Sheshnag glacier in jeopardy,” he warns.

One promising sign is the setting up of broad norms by the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) and its current Chairman, Navin Chaudhary, after a Supreme Court warning, which itself was due to the tireless work by the Kashmir press and environmentalists. “The number of pilgrims going up to the cave is being strictly enforced at 3,500 per day,” says one official communication from the SASB. “No pilgrim above the age of 75 and below the age of 13 will be allowed,” says Chaudhary. Reportedly, in a single day in early July this year, 12,000 pilgrims were turned back as their registration papers were not in order.

Local Kashmiris point out that this seems to be a case of too little too late. “Just remember 2006 and act accordingly,” Hussain says. That year, the ice lingam melted completely, due to prolonged human activity around the area. “There was an ugly fracas when reports said that an artificial ice lingam would replace the natural one. Yatris who were on their way to Pahalgam or Panchtarni (a few kilometres short of the Cave) were appalled, as much for the religious significance as for the futility of their ill-spent resources. Well, one day we could be looking at a scenario where there is no glacier and no ice lingam whatsoever.”

Scary thoughts indeed, and as dismaying as the ecological fallout would be, one near-perfect symbiotic relationship between Muslim ponymen, porters and taxi drivers from Kashmir and Hindu pilgrims from the plains will be washed out in the floods and mass destruction.

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