Uttarakhand’s raging rivers may have washed away entire towns but belief in the bizarre remains intact in the hill state.
Garhwal’s village folk, known for their childlike adherence to superstition, have now shifted the blame for the devastating flash floods and landslides of last week to the act of shifting the idol of Dhari Devi from its riverine home in the middle of the Alaknanda at Srinagar.
Dhari Devi is an avatar of Kali, and is widely believed to be the guardian angel of Char Dham pilgrims. Dunked in the middle of a growing controversy related to its imminent submergence by the expansion of the under-construction Srinagar Hydropower Project, the idol was cut away from its base by employees of the Alaknanda Hydro Power Co. (AHPC) Ltd, a subsidiary of infrastructure giant GVK, and shifted out from the Dhari Devi temple at about 7.30 pm on Sunday, June 16, by priests and locals.
Lightning flashed and a thunderstorm broke even as the idol was being moved to its new location on a raised platform above the old temple. The Alaknanda was in spate soon after, devastating Srinagar as it raged and surged through the town.
Former secretary of the Dhari Devi temple committee Devi Prasad Pandey says, “By the evening, the temple was under knee-deep water. There were reports that heavy rainfall would take place in the night, so shifting the Dhari Devi statue was the only alternative left. We shifted the idol by 6.30 pm and had we not taken the step we would have failed to save the Dhari Devi statue, which would have also got swept away.”
10 kilometres downstream of the Dhari Devi temple, construction work of the 330 MW Alaknanda Hydro Power Project is underway. The project, which should have been completed by 2011, has faced tough opposition from local residents as well as the BJP. In 2012, BJP leaders, including L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley petitioned the prime minister against the project.
GVK was in 2006 tasked with completing the project that had remained frozen for the past two decades. Petitions filed in the Uttarakhand High Court and later in the Supreme Court had sought a stay on enhancement of the project from its originally planned 200 MW to 330 MW, a development that would submerge the temple. AHPC Ltd planned to save the temple by raising the temple on vertical beams.
The idol of Goddess Dhari Devi, an avatar of Maa Kali, was housed in an ancient shrine on the bank of the Mandakini
The environment ministry had on May 7 issued a stop work notice on the temple’s relocation, revoking its order later the same month after criticism from the apex court which is yet to pronounce its final order on the issue.
VHP leader Ashok Singhal says: “People staged protest against the hydro-power project and opposed the idea of raising the statue. Despite this, the Dhari Devi idol was removed from her temple on June 16 and placed on the platform. The goddess exhibited her anger and Kedarnath and other parts suffered damage. Dhari Devi wanted to teach the atheists ruling this country a lesson and to tell them not to touch the Himalayas and its rivers.”
Professor Anand Kumar, sociologist, Jawaharlal Nehru University says: “In matters of faith there is no logic. And this has always been a source of anxiety. All over the world holy places have been shifted. At times changing river courses have flooded temples and mosques and they have been moved to different places. Nature’s supremacy has been accepted by all. But the shift of the Dhari Devi temple and the flood is mere coincidence.”
Professor Akhtar-ul Wasey, director of Zakir Hussain Institute of Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, agrees. He adds: “The most important thing to remember is the treatment meted out to the hills and nature. This had to happen. Beliefs have their own place and those who believe in them can stick with them. But this was a disaster in the making.”
Dhari Devi is a much-worshipped goddess of the region. Garhwalis say that the stone deity changes its countenance from that of a girl to a woman and then to an old lady as the day progresses. The legend of the temple has it that the idol was trapped against a rock near the village of Dharo during a flood and was found only when villagers heard it wailing. It was then that a divine voice directed them to install the idol there. That’s how the temple came into being.
On June 16, the Dhari Devi was removed from the temple and placed on a raised platform so it doesn’t submerge
source:::::mailonline.com India
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