Is India misusing a Hindu pilgrimage to counter a separatist movement in disputed Kashmir?
From a distance, several Indian soldiers blow whistles and wave their right hands frantically while holding AK-47 assault rifles chained to their bodies on the left. This is an order for all vehicles to pull over and stop on the main highway that links India-administered Kashmir to the rest of the world.
The summer heat turns vehicles into furnaces and many travellers get out, but the sun, which throws harsher light at high altitudes, drives them back into their vehicles. A few cars that break out of the line are allowed to proceed towards the Indian mainland because they carry the Indian pilgrims who were returning after glimpsing the ice lingam. Kashmiri travellers fume.
Some pilgrims film the fabled natural beauty of the place with their mobile phones and some chant slogans for the Shiva. At some places, they have been heard shouting provocative political slogans. They greet the soldiers whose relationship with the locals is anything but cordial.along the routes and around pilgrim camps and community kitchens, making this annual journey one of the most militarised affairs. Tens of hundreds of policemen perform other related duties.
“Yesterday a woman came to my shop and requested if she could sit here for a while. She was travelling in a taxi which was stopped when thebuses passed by and her six-month-old baby wouldn’t stop crying because of the heat in the vehicle. The ceiling fan in my shop calmed the baby.He added that his daughter, who is studying in a college in Anantnag town, about 20km away, had skipped her classes for three of the five days since July 1, when the 45-day yatra began.
This reporter reached Anantnag town at around that time to catch up with the pilgrims. Soldiers didn't let any vehicle to stop or park by the otherwise congested road. The convoy arrives and leaves the area relatively quickly. While it passes by, four to five army jeeps drive parallel to it on the facing road. A little ahead, where the road forks, civilian vehicles have been stopped. A man gets out of his car and cools off his feet in what used to be an irrigation canal. Many other commuters do the same. A young girl in a passenger taxi wipes sweat off her forehead, and looks with embarrassment at the people around.
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