Once people avoided residing near Har-ki-Pauri

Sandeep Rawat

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Tribune News Service 

Haridwar, January 31

Haridwar holds an immense religious value for Hindus. It has been a highly revered pilgrimage place and people visit the city to have a dip in the holy Ganga and perform rituals on her ghats. 

A few decades ago, people avoided residing and trading near Har-ki-Pauri ghats. It was then believed that the sanctum sanctorum of Brahma Kund, Har-ki-Pauri, should be used only for taking a dip in the holy river and performing rituals. But with the passage of time, the area of Har-ki-Pauri has developed into a residential and trading hub. Many dharamshalas, hotels, lodges and shops have come up here. Besides saints and teerth purohits, common people, mostly traders, also began to live near Har-ki-Pauri. This led to the expansion of Haridwar towards south i.e. Devpura, Rishikul, Ranipur and suburban Jwalapur in the late 18th century and the early 19th century.

Now, the population of the city under the Haridwar Municipal Corporation is about 2 lakh. The population of the Haridwar district is about 15 lakh.

Sunil Dutt Pandey, senior journalist based at Kankhal, says the absence of a master plan is bound to affect the smooth conduct of the ongoing Ardh Kumbh and the upcoming Kanwar yatra in Haridwar. Pandey has been closely associated with akhadas and has seen many Kumbh. 

Pandey says the district administration has failed to check the mushrooming of residential colonies, commercial buildings, hotels, lodges and markets in the past few decades. “When an over Rs 100 crore budget is being provided for every Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh for infrastructure development, how encroachments have covered the areas near Har-ki-Pauri, Upper Bazaar, Shiv Moorti Chowk, Devpura, Rishikul and even Ranipur. The city came to a standstill during the last Kumbh in 2010 as about 1.63 crore people arrived for the ‘shahi snan’ on Baisakhi on April 13 and 14. Six years hence when Ardh Kumbh is going on, the basic infrastructure, roads and even encroachments are still the same. No alternative road, barring a hill bypass, has been constructed in the past six years nor encroachments have been removed from markets leading to Har-ki-Pauri. Common people face inconvenience, while administration officials and public representatives get easy passage during Kumbh,” he adds.

Arun Ohri, who had a shop at Moti Bazaar in the 60s and now has one in Ranipur, says during those days people used to come to Haridwar on pilgrimage only, while today people visit the city as tourists also.

“Kanwariyas used to walk all the way to Har-ki-Pauri to fetch Ganga jal in decorated Kanwars. During those days, there was no fear of errant Kanwariyas and there were hardly any unruly incidents. But now clashes between traders, pilgrims and tourists are often reported during the Kanwar yatra. Traders too don’t treat customers as pilgrims, which was not the practice with our generation,” says Ohri, who has shifted from selling religious items to running a cyber café.

While Har-ki-Pauri, Bhimgoda, Bhoopatwala, Mayapur and Shiv Moorti Chowk are in the core mela zone, Ranipur, BHEL, Shivalik Nagar, SIDCUL at Roshanabad have emerged as a commercial and industrial hub.

“Till late 80s, people used to walk or pedal cycles to reach Har-ki-Pauri, as public transport was limited to ‘tongas’ and rickshaws. Barring a few hotels, dharamshalas, muths and ashrams mainly provided stay facilities to the pilgrims in the city. Now, there are more than 250 hotels in the city with many near Har-ki-Pauri offering deluxe rooms. Pilgrims earlier shunned comfort while on pilgrimage in Haridwar but now hotels providing air-conditioned rooms and other facilities are the most sought after. Tourism has replaced the deep religiosity inspired pilgrimage of earlier generations,” says Pundit Rameshwar.