AMARNATH, HINDU GOD DISCOVERED BY MUSLIMS

After a gap of two years due to Covid-19 pandemic the Amaranth pilgrimage started from Jammu with the first group of devotees setting off on the yatra amid highest ever security. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and drones surveillance is being used to ensure the pilgrims’ security. This year’s Amarnath Yatra would be “historic” with the Jand K Government expecting thousands of pilgrims. It is a different matter that the Yatra remains suspended due to sudden cloudburst which took as many 15 pilgrims lives while some are still buried in mounds of mudslides. In 2019, the last time the yatra was held, the government had cancelled the pilgrimage mid-way, ahead of the constitutional changes in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Interestingly, though Amarnath Yatars is a mega Hindu event, the organizers and all the logistic support providers are mostly Muslims. The annual pilgrimage has been a part of the pluralistic ethos of Kashmir for the past hundreds of years. According to folklore, the cave was discovered by a Muslim shepherd named Buta Malik in 1850. He had been grazing his cattle in the mountain when a Sufi saint gave him a bag of coal, which turned out to be gold later. He went back to thank the saint but found the cave and the Shiva Linga !

In fact, Kashmiri Muslims have been a part and parcel of Amarnath Yatra for the past hundreds of years. They have been facilitating the holy pilgrimage by ferrying pilgrims to the cave shrine on ponies, providing them with tents and other logistic support. Even in the past when the track to the holy cave shrine had not been developed, locals used to ferry pilgrims to the holy cave shrine in palanquins. Even today the senior citizens and others who cannot travel on ponies are carried by the locals in palanquins.

More interestingly, attempt of the terrorists have not stopped the Muslims who are arranging the whole show. After the Pakistan sponsored insurgency broke out in the Himalayan region in early 1990s terrorists made many attempts to disrupt the yatra by targeting the pilgrims but they were always given a befitting reply by the devotees, who despite facing threats and intimidations arrived in Kashmir in large numbers to pay obeisance at the holy cave. From 1990 to 2017, Amarnath pilgrims were attacked by the Pakistan sponsored terrorists on 36 occasions killing as many as 53 pilgrims. Terrorists have not succeeded in keeping locals away from the pilgrimage. Kashmir Muslims have never shied away from providing their services to pilgrims to make yatra successful.

The first security threat to the pilgrimage came in 1993, when the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul- Ansar announced a ban on the yatra — ostensibly to protest the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and to demand the removal of bunkers at the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar. There was widespread condemnation of the diktat, and the yatra progressed unhindered
through the years of peak militancy. Incidentally, while demolition of Babri Masjid evoked widespread Hindu Muslim riots in most parts of the country not a single such incident was reported in Kashmir. But the first direct attack on pilgrims took place in 2000 — 25 people, including 17 pilgrims, were killed in a massive militant attack on the Pahalgam base camp. Over the next two years, several yatris were killed in big and small attacks. Despite all these disturbances the yatra remained unaffected despite   the massive protests against the transfer of government land to the Amarnath Shrine Board in 2008.

Mohalla committees belonging to both communities organised langars for yatris in Srinagar and Ganderal districts. Peace continued through the 2010 and 2016 summer uprisings and thereafter. But the Amarnath Yatra originally intended to be on till August 15 2019 was abruptly cancelled by the Government reportedly on security concerns. “Keeping in view the latest intelligence inputs of terror threats, with specific targeting of the Amarnath Yatra, and given the prevailing situation in the Kashmir Valley, in the interest of safety and security of the tourists and the Amarnath yatris.

Amarnath Yatra is one of the few pilgrimages in the world which binds Hindus and Muslims so strongly. Devotees are Hindus and organisers are Muslims. The pilgrimage reflects the core human values of the gentle and peace-loving people of Kashmir and their resolve to accept every religion and culture. Locals associated with yatra every year wait for the pilgrimage to commence as it provides them with a chance to earn their livelihood too.

The Amarnath Yatra to the cave of Lord Shiva, perched high in the Himalayas, is considered to be one of the most revered pilgrimages in the country. Each year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims travel to the shrine. Based on a legendary account, when Lord Shiva decided to tell Parvati the secret of his immortality (Amar Katha), he chose the Amarnath cave, located deep inside the Himalayas in south Kashmir.

Source: Himalayan News Chronicle