yasyeme himavanto mahitvā yasya samudram rasayā sahāhuh|
“His, through his might, are these snow-covered mountains, and men call sea and Rasā his possession: His arms are these, his are these heavenly regions. What God shall we adore with our oblation?”—Rig Veda
Ancient Hindus believed that the Himalayas were the abode of the gods and holy men. Here, the sages sat for millennia, pondering over the mysteries of the Universe and its creator. Here, the ancient Hindus believed lies Gyanganj, a secret kingdom of enlightened and immortal beings, free from karmic burdens.
Reaching the Himalayas, however, now are not yogis, but mortals with greed in their hearts and ignorance in their minds; who call themselves Hindus, simply because they may be visiting temples, and fasting on holy days. Is the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel collapse a warning to man from Nature, to desist from violating the sacred mountainsides?
Reuters cited the member of an environmental panel, who placed the responsibility for the cave-in on government engineers digging through a ‘shear zone’—a vulnerable part of the Earth’s crust. Ecologists have identified more than 200 likely landslide points, forming as a result of excavations and choked water flow during tunnel construction. Development requires the sacrifice of unsuspecting victims: in February 2021, a glacial lake burst almost submerged the Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project, killing more than 200 people. The bodies of drowned labourers remain uncollected till today because the debris choking the destroyed tunnel mouth is preventing entry.
To meet the pressure of India’s mammoth population, governments are expanding roads, blasting new ones, boring tunnels and dynamiting mountains. Progress in Himalayan towns means building multi-storeyed hotels and apartment high-rises, which destabilise the terrain. Forgotten is the brutal lesson of Joshimath, which once teemed with illegal buildings and rampant tunnelling. Drainage systems were ignored in a frenzy of unabated construction—data tabled in Parliament in 2019 noted that more than two-thirds of the total waste from 10 Himalayan states of India goes unprocessed, and are discarded in landfills and garbage pits.
Many scientists and environmentalists have warned of inadequate planning and insufficient ground surveys harming Himalayan ecology. The walls of homes in many mountain villages are cracking. One such village, beneath which a railway tunnel has been built, trembles and shakes whenever a train passes. India’s hill stations, once idyllic retreats from the blazing plains in summer, have become toxic cankers infected with slums, bumper to bumper traffic, water queues and pollution. The Himalayan heaven is now a mountainous nightmare of pecuniary and political ambitions. The mountains are shedding their man-made burdens. The rivers are claiming their primeval courses. Retribution has begun.
Many religions predict that the world will be destroyed by natural disasters incurred by man’s travesties, which have invited the wrath of God. The Agni Purana describes the end of mankind in a global drought after man has depleted the earth’s resources. In Hindu cosmology, prakritipralay (flood) happens, caused by divine rain, after Agni consumes the world and the ashes of civilisations have been dispersed.
When Shiva opens his tresses and unleashes the primordial waters, the fury of the Himalayas will wreak destruction. Only Gyanganj will remain untouched. Pilgrim, look for it, not by making a booking on Airbnb, but by travelling within, to touch the essential Hindu within us all.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com