CHAR DHAM-A Man Made Disaster? I had visited the Char Dham some ten years before. My elders had instilled in me the thoughts of its historic importance since the Maha Bharat days, before some 7K years and the magnificent reconstruction of the Kedar Nath shrine by Adi Shri Shankaracharya some 13 centuries before. Some 50 years before, when pilgrims used to embark on the Char Dham Yatra, they used to bid final farewell to their near and dear, for there were no motor able roads to reach these difficult terrain and therefore no certainty that they would return alive. It was a Yatra in its trues sense then, for you had to undertake extreme physical tortures to see these holy places. There used to be an all-pervading atmosphere of purity, serenity and peace. There used to be nature in its full bloom, pious rivers, rivulets, and waterfalls flowing unhindered. Forests and trees resplendent with flora and fauna-blissful silence, meandering footpaths, man made caves, greenery, wood, foliage, fruits and natural herbs. All ethereal elements used to be clear and pure. Sadly, my preconceived ideas about the magnificence of the places received a crude and unexpected jolt during my sojourn. Excellent infrastructural facilities such as motor able roads, easy availability of transport- buses, cars, SUVs, ponies, choppers, doli’s etc., electricity, water, telecommunication, security, countless hotels and inns, places to eat, thriving bazars, etc. has made these places a picnic spot rather than a pilgrimage. It is not that I am critical of these facilities. For me, it would not have been possible to undertake this pilgrimage in the absence of these facilities. But what disillusioned me was the depriavation of the natural scenic beauty, the unruly traffic, the rat race to move ahead, the mad honking of horns, the noxious petro fumes, the traffic snarls, overturned vehicles testifying to human follies, mad and impatient sea of humanity, the jostling and bustling, the din and buzz, all pervasive atmosphere of commercialization, the unending fleecing of gullible pilgrims, stinking joints and wash rooms, ubiquitous squalor dirt and waste collection, proliferation of plastic waste, water bottles, gutka pouches, discarded food packets and what not. Century old trees have been mowed down for wood, paving way for roads, laying of infrastructure, for construction of dams and hydro projects, for human habitation and for national security. Proliferation of unauthorized inns, hotels, resorts, ashrams, temples precariously perched on the river banks is endemic. What surprised me disagreeably was construction of large dams on holy Ganges, hydro projects, boring of endless tunnels, canals, etc. I may be over reacting when I visited the monstrously big Tehri dam, especially, after shivering and gut wrenching experience of the tremors of the earthquake in Gujarat. Believe me, the road near the dam was found giving tremors and imperceptible quakes. God forbid, should some disaster happen or mischief perpetrated to the reservoir, the resultant deluge would wash away the entire North India to the Bay of Bengal as informed to me by locals. The recent holocaust has been attributed to blocking of waterways and indiscriminate commercialization-to human greed to make a fast buck. Isn’t it a wakeup call to all thinking Indians to resist from gross commercialization of such holy places to preserve our centuries old legacy? Or are we waiting for a far greater calamity?
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:39:28 +0000
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