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JAMMU, INDIA, June 22, 2004: Hindu groups are mounting a protest against the Jammu and Kashmir government for what they term its interference in the “religious affairs” of the community, including an annual pilgrimage to a Himalayan cave shrine. As the first mark of protest, a dozen youths got their heads tonsured here Tuesday after a gathering of several hundred people at Gumat in the walled city of Jammu shouted slogans against the government for restricting the pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine to one month. The protests were led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Shiv Sena, which are demanding that the period for the pilgrimage to the cave shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva be extended.



These groups have threatened to intensify the protest and mobilize public opinion against the state government’s policies across the country. At the same time when the youths were getting their heads tonsured, Dipinder Giri, the spiritual head of the Amarnath pilgrimage, threatened a countrywide protest if the government did not withdraw its restrictions on the event. The government of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and the Amarnath Shrine Board are locked in an intense battle over the period of the pilgrimage and facilities provided to pilgrims.



This is the first time that such a controversy has dogged the pilgrimage, which attracts over 150,000 Hindu pilgrims from across the country to Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. Pilgrims reach the shrine, located at a height of 13,500 feet in south Kashmir, after a 46-km trek from Pahalgam, a tourist resort located about 80 km south of summer capital Srinagar. While Hindu groups are citing religious honour and dignity as the reason for their protests, the state government has said its objections are based on difficulties in maintaining security along the route for a period of two months. It is also worried about pollution caused by the pilgrimage. Anti-India Muslim guerrillas had struck consecutively for three years beginning in 2000, when they massacred 35 pilgrims. All these attacks occurred when the pilgrimage was already in progress.

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