Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
In the hills of Uttarakhand, cricketers and Bollywood stars are emerging as major brand promoters. One such example was of married couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s visit to a holy area, Kainchi Dham. The Indian team captain – who had been performing rather poorly – went back from this trip and scored a century, starry-eyed folks will tell you. In their eyes, this is the miracle of the Kainchi Dham. The ashram has since suddenly catapulted into prominence. It is Neem Kaoli Baba’s ashirvad, ashramites believe, that saved Indian cricket and Kohli’s career, in that order.
Lore has it that the ashram was founded by Baba Neem Karauli sometime in the early 1960s. It began as a small Hanuman shrine and a hut, but now the sprawling ashram can be seen from afar, close to the mercurial river Kosi. Since the ashram is located next to one of the busiest motor roads ferrying visitors and locals into the interior of the Kumaon hills, lack of a proper parking area causes major traffic jams on the narrow two-lane road prone to landslides. Often as taxis, buses, cars and trucks huff and puff downwards from Bhowali, a long line of vehicular traffic snaking around the road downhill becomes visible, driving the travellers into a frenzy. Since religious feelings have become notoriously prone to getting hurt and retaliations can be ugly, most people just sigh and bear the discomfort. Seasoned travellers avoid festive days and the evening arti time when traffic snarls are common.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The ashram was nearly washed out during the Kosi floods two years ago, but has soon been rebuilt. It now houses the original shrine and several others, along with cottages of numerous babas and matajis, and the road is narrowed further by countless shops selling religious trinkets. In summer months, when hordes of tourists and important government officials and netas come riding their SUVs, the jams turn into mega jams and the policemen turn extra careful about blocking the road till the VIPs have had their darshan. Most are also ardent bhakts. Tilak-flaunting bhakti today may or may not pave their way to heaven, but it sure as hell helps paves the government functionaries’ path to higher posts.
This year, a row of posters greeted visitors to Uttarakhand. They announced that on June 15, the Kainchi Ashram was celebrating its Foundation Day or Sthapana Divas. There is no way, said taxi drivers, that one can take the usual route up until the 15th. The police had blocked the entire Khairna road stretch, they said, to facilitate the bhakts congregating for the holy occasion. All non-bhakts must take a bypass directed by the traffic police that was checking each vehicle very strictly.
But as the hapless travellers soon discovered, you can bypass Baba’s ashram, not his bhakts. They were everywhere in the area, lodged in little village homestays for the Vishal Sthapana Divas. All roads were full and the hills were alive with the sound of cacophonous horns. The posters on both sides of all roads bore the familiar face of an amused looking Baba peeking out of his signature black blanket. Next to him stood the beaming, bespectacled young chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami .
The word kainchi – used commonly for scissors – means a holy meeting place of two rivers, a sangam if you will. When we were in school, this is where a Baba known only as Neem Karauli (bitter as neem) had set up a modest shrine for his god, Hanuman. One heard of various people including local politicians and officials also visiting him and asking him for not-hard-to-guess boons, in the shape of electoral victories and plum postings. Nothing was recorded of course, nothing was known for sure.
It was hard to believe, in the face of such cheer and spiritual bliss, that almost next door in the same state, the Uttar Kashi district was under curfew. The district administration had to impose Section 144 in the town as communal tempers were running high between majority Hindus and Muslims over an elopement since resolved. In the traditionally peaceful little town, tension ran so high that a civil society group (Association for Protection of Civil Rights) petitioned the Supreme Court to disallow a mahapanchayat one Devbhumi Raksha Abhiyan had organised on June 15 to discuss the issue of ‘love jihad’. The body consisted of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and local traders’ bodies. Ultimately the issue was put up at the state high court in Nainital. The said mahapanchayat has since been called off but the city shops remain closed and an uneasy calm hangs over the area.
Also read: In Uttarakhand’s Purola, Controversial Mahapanchayat Cancelled But Tensions Still High
If Haldwani was all about the Kainchi Dham Sthapana Divas cheer, it was soon dispelled by chaotic traffic scenes. Buses full of pilgrims with the landmark poster and saffron flags, cars and SUVs met ordinary travellers. The state police, alerted to the swelling number of visitors fanning out all over the state, were checking briskly with many barricades. After identifying their end destination, they allowed only the pilgrims for Kainchi to take the familiar route, all others were being tediously re-routed through various roads. It was a hot and dusty day in June and tempers were flying high. But the police were unrelenting in their disciplinary action: “We cannot deviate from orders from above. We have to control the traffic.” People grumbled but did not disagree.
Control, check, divert and reroute were the operative words.
All over the northern plains we hear these words from the compliant officialdom boom: Babus, Bada Babus, the police, maintenance crews and traffic controllers.
Control, check, divert and reroute.
Have your IDs handy, Aadhar card is a must even at the crematorium. Banks ask for KYC again and again. Separately for joint or single accounts and safety lockers.
For your own safety, the officials say each time.
In her classic work (Eichmann in Jerusalem) chronicling the life and death of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt wrote that Eichmann was a dull man, neither intelligent nor venal. He was a bureaucrat whose hands were bloodied only by paper cuts. He personified “the banal face of Evil”. The real evil ones: Hitler, Milosevic, Mussolini or Saddam, were all vulgar geniuses who came up with and spelt out the ultimate solutions to be applied for cleansing.
Meanwhile the machinery gets busy spreading tales of deaths, thuggery, conversions and elopements, none of them reliable and often retracted after the damage is done.
Away from Uttarkashi, here in Kumaon, the wretched communal mess seems improbable, as unlikely as night descending on your neighbouring hillside, while your own hillside is bathed in golden sunshine. But you know the truth in your heart of hearts.
Once upon a time, the drive along the Kosi river from Bhowali, in an area known as Ratighat, was a treat to travellers sore from the heat and dust of the plains. The early part had various little eateries that offered cool and tart lemonade and snacks or simple thalis of home cooked food for weary travellers. The drive onwards took you along the sparkling river flowing between mountains, to the Khairana bridge gateway to popular destinations towards the border areas and towns like like Ranikhet, Almora, Mukteshwar. No more.
Today, Kainchi Dham stops you in your tracks.
It is a disturbed universe, with global warming drying up the land and water resources and setting forests on fire. In times like these, as environmental migrations increase, slowly the blade of Hindu dharma may begin to be sharpened on the flint of myth. And god forbid, if it falls in the hands of some evil genius, it may be used to carve territory and people. The idea appears grotesque in the balmy air of a serene pine-encrusted village. But evil does not need us to believe him. It just needs to make us doubt the truth and sit on our hands while its banal fetchers and carriers of orders do the rest.
Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.
