SAMEER YASIR treks up to the Amarnath cave shrine via Baltal in Sonmarg. He is appalled by the amount of pollution the annual pilgrimage inflicts in the mountains and at the display of callous disregard for the fragile Himalayan ecology.

Amarnath MessEvery June hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees make their way to the Amarnath cave shrine in the Kashmir Himalays. The route to the cave is challenging and death sometimes is inevitable. The shrine, which houses an ice lingum (stalagmite) at a height of 12, 756 feet, is approached from two areas of Pahalgam and Sonamarg in South and North-east of Srinagar respectively. But despite the unfavourable terrain and unpredictable weather, after the emergence of militancy in the state, the number of pilgrims dramatically went up. Before the 1990’s the Yatra used to be a low-key affair. Most of the pilgrims used to be Sadhus, but then the corporate India started providing financial assistance to people going to Yatra and the rush increased.

There are two routes leading to the shrine, one is the traditional route in South Kashmir’s Pahalgam- Chandanwari area. It is a three to four day trek in the Pirpanchal mountains. On non-traditional route of Sonamarg-Baltal, it is one-day trek, exposing pilgrims to very steep climb without acclimatisation. That may be the reason more than eighty people have already lost their lives during this year’s Yatra.

Last week- pre dawn- from Srinagar I travelled through the beautiful green fields and along forested mountains towards Baltal. Passing and manoeuvring through thousands of vehicles carrying Yatris, chanting Bam Bam Bole! The atmosphere leading was electric. Yatris, apparently angry and enthusiastic, shouting at passing vehicles, as if trying to make a point of India’s dominance in the region.

At Baltal, the base camp looked like a big tent city accommodating tens of thousands of pilgrims at a time. It looked no different than pre-portioned Sudan. Mirroring the refugee camps, wherever the human eye goes you can only see red, blue, green, white, black plastic tents. The lined spaces between them filled with human waste, bottles, and plastic bags. Surrounded by huge mighty mountains, the glacial water in the spring in the middle of Baltal has turned muddy and the stream is filled with plastic waste. Horses, pilgrims, military and civilian vehicles are being washed in the same stream.

Before the journey starts everyone has to get registered and receive a medical check-up from a doctor. I pushed my way though hundreds of tents and finally to a small tent, which was filled with people trying to get attention of a doctor who will decide whether they are fit for the trek up the mountains to the cave shrine!

I offered myself for the check-up. The doctor complained he was sick himself and had seen more than 600 people up to the four that afternoon, providing certificates, white and blue cards. But people even travel with fake health certificates.

On the second day as I left at 4am I saw a huge number of Yatris pushing one another for a bit of space on a track towards the gate at Domail crossing which begins the Yatra.

My journey from Baltal to Barari, Sangam, then to Panjtarni at roughly a height of 12,000 ft, and from their up again to the cave that took me almost a day. It is the most exhaustive route towards the cave. But if one wants to know what the Yatris have done to the Pir Panchal Mountains you must take this route. You will get just a glimpse.

Crossing through army camps and thousands of young and old pilgrims it was a journey of a lifetime. But the insensitivity towards the environment by Yatris catches your attention as soon as the journey begins.

A narrow slippery and dangerous route takes you through the mighty Himalayan Mountains. After every five hundred meters people selling lime juice and other beverages. I pushed my way through a mass of people, walked fast, and caught up with the first few people who had started their pilgrimage early in the morning that day.

As I turned back, I noticed four people carrying a 60-year-old man. These four men were carrying a bulky man from Gujarat on a palanquin all the way to the cave. One among them was Ghulam Hassan Khan, in his mid sixties himself. He has been carrying pilgrims for many years from Baltal to the cave shrine on his shoulders. It has made him an experienced ‘helper’. I felt outraged and disgusted. I asked him why he did this job, was there nothing else for him? He said that he made his living as a carpenter in Anantnag.

“It is only in this month that I do this job. You get good money but it is killing. It is humiliating.”

Khan walked past me as I looked at him but he never looked back and walked away. After a four hour trek I reached Sangam and then to a nearby place Panjtarni and then from there to the cave. This is not the traditional route but I wanted to see the impact of Yatra on this one. The impact, which is less noticed and talked about – the environmental impact.

Near Sangam, a glacial stream had dried up; today there are plastic bottles, potato wafer covers, Gutkha packages and all human waste. Everything except water which once used to flow here.

Even the Langer, the makeshift community kitchen that has been set up here, leaves the waste in the glacial stream. Here more than a thousand people had gathered, some trying to find their lost bags; some trying to get free ration, and tea; some just watching the magnificent view of the helicopter, which flies over every five minutes ferrying pilgrims to the cave. It is a small plateau, which has makeshift tents and a Langers, but from above you can only see heads of humans nothing else. it is filled with Yatris.

From Sangam yatries go up to the cave, which is about a three kilometres long steep climb. I asked a policeman if he could open the concertina wire barrier for me to let me go through. He looked at me and obliged.

On way to Panjtarni I noticed a huge gap in a glacier. It was stunning to see a glacier so close, but with a devastating impact the waste left by yatris has on the ecology of this beautiful place just makes one sad and wondering. Almost every glacier I crossed through appeared receding fast.

Photo: Bilal Bahadur

“The impact of the plastic and human waste is intense. There is no waste disposal mechanism. So the waste left along the route remains there and it won’t go anywhere,” Sandeep Sharam a PHD student and environmentalist from the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore told me. “Only the signs are visible but it is a disaster in the making,” he said.

At Panjtarni a young software executive from Delhi told me she has been coming here for the last three years.

“It had become easy to travel to the cave, but we should take care of the environment too.”

The food continues to be provided free to the yatris all along the route. It is hard to count how many Langars have been set up.

From here one can see long lines of yatris that look like a huge snake approaching the cave shrine. All you hear is yatris shouting Bam Bam Bole.

A water bottle sells for 50 rupees here, a cigarette packet for160. A serving of rajma-rice costs 180 rupees.

In the wee of hours of the next morning, I feel my back is stiff. The atmosphere resounded with the chants of Bam Bam Bole even at that hour. It was a different world and we all made long cues to entre the cave.

I noticed five (makeshift) washrooms constructed by the SASB for the Yatris. Not even a single one was working. The toilets were jammed and locked from outside. So, everyone defecates in the open. The human waste had covered both sides of the mountain along the track that leads to the shrine. There is not a single patch were human waste is not visible. Even outside the tents, everywhere, wherever the eye can see.

The tent owner, a very sharp middle-aged man offered me his tent for 2000 rupees to stay in for a night. The concession I got was a free bucket of warm water which otherwise sells for 30 rupees.

From the main market there are two paths to go to the cave, one for poor and second one being used by the rich people who arrive on the shoulders of labourers or horsebacks.

As against 3.50 lakh registered pilgrims, the official figure had crossed the 4.9 lakh on the 15th day of the pilgrimage. The discrepancy in the figures shows more than one lakh pilgrims were unregistered. Over five lakh pilgrims have paid obeisance at the 3,880-metre high cave shrine.

“As many as 5,00,586 yatris have visited the cave shrine housing the naturally formed ice-shivlingam since the commencement of the yatra on June 25.

As I was climbing down I saw Ghulam Hassan Khan once again making his way up again carrying someone on his shoulders in a palanquin. I looked at him, he smiled and said, “this is life”. I looked back he disappeared in those long lines.

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