By Harsh Mander
The local administration and police in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand stirred a storm by “advising” owners of eateries along the highway of pilgrims of the annual Kanwar Yatra to mount sign-boards in their shops that prominently displayed their names.
Because names in many parts of India are markers of religion and often caste, this obviously a device to identify Muslim-owned establishments. The administration also “advised” Muslim shop-owners to shut down their shops for the period of the Kanwar Yatra, and for Hindu shop owners to send their Muslim employees on forced “leave”.
The Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage of devotees of Shiva. In this, men dress typically in saffron vests and shorts and walk, often barefoot, hundreds of kilometres to Haridwar to collect water from the sacred Ganga. This they then carry in earthen pots hung from a bamboo stick strung over their shoulders. The water they carry to pour over the Shiva lingam in Shiva temples.
Until the 1980s, this religious performance was undertaken by small numbers of often older men. In recent years, fuelled by massive patronage by Bharatiya Janata Party governments and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers, the numbers of devotees who join the Yatra have swelled to, according to some estimates, two million. This Yatra is second now in scale only to the Kumbh.
Explicit and extravagant state support by BJP governments in recent years has burgeoned, with senior police officials showering petals from helicopters on the Kanwar walkers and chief ministers greeting them with flowers and garlands.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.