Vaishno Devi pilgrimage

THE Supreme Court has done well to stay the National Green Tribunal’s order on the arrangements for pilgrimage to the Vaishno Devi temple.  The NGT wanted a yet-to-be-completed new track to be opened to the pilgrims from November 24. Nearly 10 million pilgrims make the somewhat demanding trek to the sanctum sanctorum. Quite a number of them, particularly the old and the very young, ride up on ponies; the NGT has opined that the ponies’ waste constitutes a potential cause for environmental damage and wants to reduce the number of ponies, as also pilgrims. The ponywallahs, most of them Muslims, depend on the traffic to the shrine (and the Amarnath Cave), for their economic survival. They are not just part and parcel of the tourist industry in Jammu and Kashmir, but are also a powerful symbol of communal harmony and of the Kashmiri ethos. 

The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board has been managing the yatra since Governor Jagmohan’s first gubernatorial tenure. Over the years successive boards have consistently worked hard to make the pilgrim’s journey of faith easy and hassle-free. It is no surprise, then, that large droves of devotees from all over the country feel encouraged to visit the temple; better connectivity, better air and road links, and better facilities attract more and more devotee traffic. The multi-fold increase in pilgrims’ numbers, inevitably, has a wear and tear cost in environmental terms. The Shrine Board has been very much alive to this aspect; it has painstakingly tried to adopt a scientific approach to environmental issues, yet strike a balance with its primary mandate of facilitating the pilgrimage. 

It is never an easy task to regulate and control the flow of devotees to a place of worship. It is widely conceded that the affairs at the Vaishno Devi have been managed competently and sensitively. The Shrine Board is a fine example of temple management. The NGT is entitled to its vigilance but not to its over-exuberance, and certainly not to its total indifference to the economic and spiritual sensitivities involved.