The Amarnath yatra issue has brought the Islamists back on the streets of Srinagar. The battle, as Ashok Malik writes, is not merely over transfer of forest land to the shrine's custodians. At stake is the very definition of Kashmiri identity

Open to travellers for no more than two months in a year, the Amarnath cave in Jammu and Kashmir is located at an altitude of 13,500 feet. This is almost exactly the same height as Nathu La, the pass in Sikkim that marks a tense border between India and China.

Nathu La is a hazardous, treacherous terrain. Soldiers who serve as its sentinels are looked upon as a special species. A permanent establishment -- with the paraphernalia of a military cantonment, hospitals, schools and the rest -- is impossible there. The pilgrims who undertake the annual Amarnath yatra are no less valorous. The urge to worship the icy lingam in the mountains requires a steely constitution and an iron heart.

Yet, Amarnath is much more than perhaps the most difficult pilgrimage in the world. It is also refutation of the Islamist claim that nobody other than Muslims has claim on the religio-cultural landscape of Kashmir.

For two months of the year, Hindus from all over the country -- many of them Kashmiri Pandits whose families migrated from their ancient land or were thrown out by the terrorists in the early 1990s -- take advantage of the receding snows and visit the cave of Lord Shiva. The larger identity of Kashmir is celebrated. It is an identity that goes beyond Islam and actually pre-dates Islam.

It is the political symbolism of Amarnath that has made it a target of terrorists and separatists who prefer to see Kashmir as one of a series of pan-Islamic battlegrounds, from Palestine to Iraq, Chechnya to Afghanistan. Security has always been a problem. In 2000 pilgrims trekking to Amarnath were ambushed by terrorists in Pahalgam and about 50 were killed. Terrorists attacked the yatra again in 2001 and 2002.

Nature claimed its price too. A severe blizzard in 1996 killed 200 pilgrims. Two committees -- one set up after the 1996 calamity and the other after the 2000 massacre -- recommended better security, facilities and infrastructure for the yatris.

Consequently, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board came into existence after the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly enacted the enabling law in 2000. The Governor of the State was made chairman of the Board.

Slowly things began moving. In 2002, the first temporary shelters for the yatris were deployed but things, to quote a Government functionary who was posted in Srinagar, "were in an embryonic stage".

The tussle began in the summer of 2003. Lieutenant General (retd) SK Sinha had taken over as Governor just six weeks before the yatra was to commence. Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was six months into his job as Chief Minister of a PDP-Congress coalition, having contested the 2002 election with the tacit support of the terror groups and Islamists.

At one of their first meetings, the new Governor asked the Chief Minister for "foolproof security and better facilities" for the yatris. Mufti wouldn't hear of it. "He said," remembers an official familiar with the conversation, "that since peace had returned to the State, there was no need for uniformed personnel on the yatra route."

The Governor was astounded, given the yatra had been attacked for three straight years. As chair of the ASB, he stood his ground. Some 40 km of mountainous route was sanitised, specific duties were assigned to the Army, the BSF, the CRPF and the police. This security matrix has been undisturbed since. For six summers now, there has been no terror strike.

In 2004, due to an unusual occurrence in the Hindu calendar, there were two months of Shravan. The number of pilgrims had also gone up. The Baltal route had developed and was carrying more people than the older Pahalgam route. As such, Sinha suggested the one-month yatra period be extended to two months.

Again, Mufti was the roadblock. There was a political crisis as four Hindu Cabinet Ministers -- all from the Congress -- resigned in protest. Mufti had to yield.

By this time, the Governor was making other plans. He proposed that the ASB would raise money to provide pre-fabricated toilets in place of the unhygienic open latrines for the yatris. He also sought to replace tents with pre-fab shelters that would be more comfortable in adverse weather conditions.

"Mufti again opposed all this," remembers an aide to General Sinha, "he now insisted that the ecology would be spoilt." Harassment followed. An engineer inspecting the site for pre-fab shelters was detained by the State police.

The Governor stuck to his guns. In 2005, the pre-fab shelters and 2,000 toilets were in place. A petition was engineered and became, willy-nilly, a court battle between the State Government and the ASB. A single-judge bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court ruled in favour of the Amarnath Board, giving it autonomy to make arrangements for the comfort and well-being of yatris. The State Government was told to limit itself to security.

An appeal was filed by the Government side and is now pending before a division bench.

In 2005, the Governor had another idea that, even if he didn't know it then, was the prelude to the final act of the Amarnath yatra drama. On the outskirts of the forests of Baltal is a tree-less area that has been the camping ground for Amarnath pilgrims for over a century. Sinha asked for this land to be transferred to the ASB so that it could put up the pre-fab shelters. "Three to four feet bunds were also planned," said an official, "to divert a potential avalanche and, therefore, save lives."

From 2005 to 2008, the proposal to transfer the land was "under consideration". The Government stonewalled. Finally, Sinha spoke to the current Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad -- who had succeeded Mufti towards the end of 2005 -- and found a more sympathetic ear.

In May 2008, 100 acres of land near Baltal was given to the ASB, with the Forest Minister, a PDP man, making the recommendation to the State Cabinet.

Days later, the PDP reneged. Mufti's men and the incendiary Hurriyat leaders charged that a new township -- "Amarnath Nagar" -- was being built, that the pre-fab shelters were actually permanent structures and that a demographic conquest of Kashmir by "outsiders" and "Hindus" was underway. It would allegedly change the "essentially Muslim character of Kashmir".

The wild slogans found their listeners. The consequence is the Valley's biggest firestorm since the forbidding winter of 1989.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, June 29, 2008