THREAD: Six years ago, in July 2013, I was in #Kashmir. My stay there for work and travel purposes coincided with the onset of #AmarnathYatra due to which never ending convoy movement & overwhelming troop deployment on various Yatra (religious pilgrimage) routes. (1/n)

The Yatris comported themselves as militant Hindu nationalists, carrying the bhagwa & Indian flags. They aggressively shouted slogans like- Bharat me rehna hai, bam bam bhole kehna hai” (“If you want to live in India, you have to chant Shiva’s name”). (2/n)

They littered the place with garbage heaps, washed clothes and themselves openly. Recently, pictures of open defecation have gone viral on social media. Absolute disregard for cleanliness and the environment was palpable in their behavior. (3/n)

Over the years Amarnath Yatra has been weaponized as a military exercise to serve 2 purposes: 1) as optics to show growing religious tourism as ‘normalcy’ & ‘peace’. This regardless of the fact that 271 people were killed in last 6 months alone. (4/n)

Out of 271, 43 are civilians, 108 armed forces personnel & 120 are militants.
2) to inscribe the land of Kashmir as a sacred Hindu geography. Both these are enabled through the nexus of religion-state-military-tourism. (5/n)

Last year J&K police sought an additional deployment of 22,500 paramilitary personnel, which took the total number of personnel to 40,000- the largest security cover ever for a pilgrimage. This when Kashmir is already the most militarized place in the world (6/n)

Extreme Militarization: There is overwhelming presence of military in armored vehicles, a huge assortment of CCTV cameras & drones, a record number of mobile bullet-proof bunkers & semi-permanent observation posts have been set up all along the yatra routes. (7/n)

In 2008, Rajnath Singh in his presidential address in a national executive meeting said: "During the 2 months of pilgrimage the interior parts of Kashmir valley get emotionally integrated with rest of India.Therefore, this pilgrimage symbolizes national integration…" (8/n)

@mjunaidr writes that, “coming to Kashmir is like a nationalist pilgrimage. The more Indians make the trip, the harder the nation integrates.” It is seen as an extension of traditional military roles of safeguarding sovereignty. (9/n)

As the ex J&K CM while addressing the Travel Agents Association of India says, “The way a soldier fights at the border; fights against militancy in Jammu & Kashmir, that is one way of fighting. The other way to fight is that you [tourists/tourism promoters] come here”. (10/n)

“We should not limit our beliefs to worshiping our gods and religions but, we should also be faithful towards our National Integrity by coming forward to visit and worship such places and organize or be a part of such yatras,” declares the pilgrimage’s official website. (11/n)

VHP's Rajesh Gupta: "once the Yatra is conducted regularly, after 10-15 yrs, the younger generation would be made to believe that this was an ancient Yatra & this new generation would keep the Yatra alive, thus lodging itself in the memories of the coming generations" (12/n)

Both Singh and Gupta are evoking Jagmohan who viewed Kashmir as a “beautiful cradle… of ancient [Hindu] culture” (13/n)

The Yatra is an ecological hazard & a threat to the environment. A study undertaken by Department of Earth Sciences at Kashmir University found “huge quantity of garbage, in dispersed form, is being disposed of around this (Amarnath) area and finds its way into the Lidder.” (14/n

Greater Kashmir:Every year,1000 metric tonnes of human excreta, 3million ltrs of liquid waste,>100 tonnes of plastic is added to the ecosystem. With no structured waste treatment options this is discharged directly into the environment, polluting glaciers, rivers & forests (15/n)

The privileging of non-native bodies restricts access to road infrastructure for Kashmiri themselves. They are being harassed on the highway and are under a rigorous surveillance grid. (16/n)

Religious tourism within a broad ambit of olive tourism which is willingness to wade through the uniformed soldiers or endure military checkpoints precisely because militarization evokes sense of safety and is not an anomaly is a practice of Indian (Hindu) territoriality. (17/n)

In brief, Amarnath Yatra is what @jkccs_ calls, a Militarized Pilgrimage. Its objectives are far more insidious & dangerous as it seeks colonization through appropriation of land & natural resources dismissing or delegitimising Kashmiri metaphors & meanings of the Yatra. (18/18)