Dehra Dun, May 20
Protests by Tibetans during the relay of the Beijing Olympics torch in India have cast a shadow on the annual Hindu pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet. The Uttarakhand government that manages the annual pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar situated in Chinese Tibet has decided to postpone the first two batches of the yatra starting from June 1 this year.
“We have postponed the first two batches of the yatra starting from June 1 and June 7, respectively, from New Delhi due to want of permission from the external affairs ministry,” said Uttarakhand tourism and parliamentary affairs minister Prakash Pant.
He further said the delay had been caused following delay in permission from the Chinese authorities to start the yatra on schedule.
It was believed that the Chinese authorities were cautious about protest demonstrations against the Olympic Games scheduled in Beijing this year by a large population of Tibetan refugees living in India.
The Tibetans are staging a chain sit in agitation against the Chinese occupation of Tibet in Dehra Dun and some of the Tibetans, who organised a march to Tibet from Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, are camping at Serighat in border district of Pitthoragarh in Uttarakhand.
The state police has been trying to reason with the
Tibetans to abandon their proposed protest march. The police authorities made it clear that anyone violating the ‘inner line’ area on the India-China border will be arrested. Uttarakhand is home to thousands of Tibetan refugees. The Dalai Lama while fleeing Tibet in the fifties first came to Mussoorie before moving to Dharamsala.
A total of 16 batches, each comprising 30 to 40 pilgrims, move from New Delhi to Pitthoragarh for trek to Kailash Mansarovar over the Lipulekh Pass to the Chinese side. The yatra is known as one of the most treacherous on the Indian side due to a tough terrain, bad weather and non-existent roads. It takes a batch three to four weeks to complete the yatra. “We are waiting for the permission from the external affairs ministry and will take a decision about the next batch soon,” Parkash Pant added.
The Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), a state government tourism corporation, has been managing the entire Kailash Mansarovar yatra starting from Pitthoragarh district. The pilgrims have to trek a distance of nearly a hundred kilometres from the Mangti Nullah to the Lipulekh Pass on foot on dangerous mountain trails. After crossing into China, they are escorted to the Kailash mountains in buses by the Chinese authorities.
Although devout Hindus had been making pilgrimage to the Kailash mountains since ages, the yatra was first suspended after the Sino-India war in 1962. It was again resumed in 1981. In 2003, the yatra was curtailed following the outbreak of SARS epidemic by the Chinese authorities. The yatra started late in that year and only 10 batches instead of 16 were allowed.
“We have no intimation from external affairs ministry to send our advance parties to China to make arrangements,” Amit Negi, Managing Director of the KMVN, told this correspondent on phone.
The KMVN runs seven camps on the Indian side up to the Lipulekh Pass for boarding and lodging while the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) escorts the pilgrims.
