Date:03/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/03/stories/2008070353311002.htm

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Kashmir politics

The article “Piety, paranoia, and Kashmir’s politics of hate” (July 1) says arguments against land use rights granted to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board do not stand on firm empirical foundations and that it is not clear why putting up prefabricated restrooms for pilgrims will increase the environmental threat. The so-called prefabricated structures are actually permanent. As for environmental destruction, it is the increase in the number of pilgrims from 12,000 in 1989 to 4.5 lakh in 2007 that warrants such diversion of land use. This is something even the Nitish Sengupta Committee had warned against.

It has been estimated that every day during the pilgrimage, huge amounts of waste are generated. The degradation caused by buses and other vehicles carrying pilgrims, trucks carrying provisions, and massive deployment of security forces contribute further to air pollution. Another fallout is the threat posed to local inhabitants by crowding of the ecologically fragile area where they have to compete to retain their access and rights to resources, both water and land.

Gautam Navlakha,

New Delhi

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The statement issued by the then CEO of SASB, immediately after the allotment of land, the Hindu right forces’ threat to cut off supply to the Kashmir Valley and the reaction of a PDP Minister added fuel to the volatile situation in the State. Had the decision to make available land to the J&K Tourism Department for Amarnath pilgrims been taken earlier, the situation would not have escalated and the yatra too would have been conducted smoothly.

N.S. Bhat,

New Delhi

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Both in the Valley and the Jammu region, communal passions have been ignited by politicians. Efforts should be made to resolve the issue amicably rather than resorting to bandhs and violence which are against the national interest.

D.B.N. Murthy,

Bangalore

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The developing story in the Kashmir Valley will provide a dream opening for the communal parties when campaigning begins for the Lok Sabha poll. They will exploit the issue to the hilt. Secular politicians across the political spectrum should defuse the crisis before it snowballs into a major communal conflagration.

T.G. Venkateswaran,

Chennai

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The protests in Srinagar against the allotment of land to the SASB for the Amarnath yatra pilgrims deserve to be condemned. Does not the government have the power to create facilities for the pilgrims?

A.H. Srikanta Aiyar,

Bangalore