Baba Amarnath Yatra

What Really is The Amarnath Issue:

This year, by the end of June 2008, over two and half lakh pilgrims have taken darshan of the holy ice Shivling of Bhagvan Shankarji at Baba Amarnath in the Himalayas in Jammu & Kashmir. The separatist and fundamentalist Muslims in the Kashmir valley could not tolerate this. On J&K High Court orders, the J&K State Govt. allotted 40 hectares of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board for the arrangements of lakhs of Hindu pilgrims pouring in from all over the country. Under the pretext that the Govt. was giving land for settling the Hindus in the Kashmir valley, agitation was started by the Muslim separatists forces in Kasmir valley at the end of June 2008. The general Muslim population in the valley backed it to the hilt by coming on the street in huge numbers and stoning the vehicles of the Baba Amarnath Yatra. Many Hindu pilgrims were badly injured. The yatra was disturbed continuously for 3-4 days. This was a direct attempt to block the darshan of Bhagvan Shankarji and stop the Baba Amarnath Yatra. The demand was put forward to revoke the order of the land allotment to the Amarnath Shrine Board. The Muslim political party, PDP, which was a part of the ruling coalition with Congress in the state govt. threatened to pull out of the govt. if the land allotment was not revoked by 30 th June. This was a blatant support to an anti-national demand keeping in mind the future state assembly elections in November 2008. Eventually, PDP pulled out of the state govt. on the 28 th June to reduce the Congress govt. to a minority. As usual, the Congress bowed down & succumbed to the pressure of the Muslim fundamentalist forces and first stopped the construction work that was going on the tract of land given to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board. Then the Amarnath Shrine Board declared that it does not require the allotment of the land to it. . This was done under the pretext that the Amarnath Shrine Board has agreed to this ( by arm twisting) if the State Govt. assures that if it will do all the necessary arrangements for the pilgrims. The state govt. in the next step, took over the arrangement of the whole yatra from the Amarnath Shrine Yatra rendering it powerless and pointless. A big agitation by the Hindus started in the Jammu region against this and a bandh was called for two days which was extended by 1 more day to 2 nd June. The Bandh was successful and widespread. The national highway to the Kashmir valley was also blocked cutting of supplies by the agitators. The govt. used huge brutal force against the Hindu agitators. The Muslim separatist agitators on 29 th June put forward 2 more really dangerous and anti-national demands. Firstly, a demand was put forward to dissolve the Amarnath Shrine Board. Secondly, the Military should return all the forest land it was occupying in the Kashmir valley. The Militarys stay there was equated with that Israel military in the Palestine! All the demands from the first, were couched in the rosy language of environment and forest protection. But with these two anti-national demands, the true intentions were revealed. This also indicated the future danger (from all the so-called secular forces or the fundamentalist forces opposed to Hindus) to all the Hindu pilgrimage centers which are either situated in the forest or on the mountain tops ( eg. Vaishnav Devi temple, Tirupati temple, Ayyapa temple etc.)