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Land takes precedence over god in Gangotri

Sharat Pradhan in Gangotri

The priests at the Gangotri temple -- among the most important temples in the country -- appear more interested in land-grabbing than in spiritual pursuits.

"If the administration concedes our long-pending demand for entrusting the 14 km area in and around the temple to the temple management, I am sure you will witness a change in the state of affairs," says Ashok Kumar Semwal, secretary of the temple samiti (management). According to him, this area was traditionally a part of Ganga, so it would be in the fitness of things to hand it back to the Ganga. Meaning, of course, the temple committee.

Semwal and the 250 members of his family have enormous clout in Gangotri since the temple priests must necessarily belong to this clan. They have written to the government seeking that the administration should legalise all land in the name of those already in possession of it.

Since much of the land is in the possession of one panda (priest) or the other, such a situation would naturally benefit them greatly, points out Brinda Prasad, a former samiti secretary who eventually revolted against the gross irregularities in the running of the temple.

He alleges there are financial irregularities that can be avoided if a government-run trust runs the temple. But the samiti has been opposing the proposal tooth and nail with the administration choosing to keep them in good humour. Meanwhile, land grabbing has become a brisk business and all one has to do to get it is to acquire a saffron outfit and float an ashram.

Administrative indifference could be gauged from the way Uttarkashi District Magistrate Venkateshwar Loo threw up his hands. "What can the administration do? The pandas run the show here," he said.

But he took no initiative to improve the current state of affairs, even during the current pilgrimage season. The other two key shrines in the region -- Badrinath and Kedarnath -- have managed the crowds better.

"But it is a government-sponsored trust which runs the Badri, Kedar temples," is how Prasad explained away the functioning of those temples.

So now there is garbage everywhere, sewers emptying into the Ganga, shops encroaching on the only road and an apology of a local hospital, run from a 8 by 12 foot rented room. There was no ambulance to transport to the district hospital 100 km away two people seriously injured when an army truck rammed a tea stall last week. They died due to inadequate medical treatment.

"This is an annual feature," said Shailesh Prasad, manager of the local Birla dharmashala. But he was not apathetic enough not to wonder why certain facilities could not be provided at least during the yatra.

Though heads of successive governments and other dignitaries have been coming to the shrine every year, barring former governor Motilal Vora, none expressed any concern about the deterioration of the town. Vora got a Rs 360 million scheme drawn up for improvement and beautification, but expectedly there was no one to follow it up.

Eleven years ago, the government then created a Greater Gangotri Special Area Development Authority, but it still does not have an office. Datta Deen Pasi, a senior Provincial Civil Service officer posted as its secretary, functions alone, without staff, telephone, office, or even a residence.

"I have been virtually getting a pension at the government guest house where I live and from where I function," he said. And the district magistrate -- the ex officio chairman of the authority -- has no answer about why the authority has not got going even after a decade.

"What can I do?" he asks.

In a public interest litigation, the high court directed the divisional commissioner on August 12, 1997 to personally trek from Gangotri to Goumukh and provide a first hand account of the damage done to the local environment and the hardship faced by ordinary devotees. The commissioner is yet to carry out the high court's directive.

If there is any agency other than the samiti that gains in such circumstances it is the new crop of non-governmental organisations that have mushroomed in the name of preservation of Himalayan wealth. The most prominent Gangotri Conservation Project has spent tens of millions of rupees on meetings and workshops at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi, an incinerator that works occasiionally, impressive hoardings and the handful of mandatory garbage bins in and around the temple town.

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