In today's HERALD. the column by Tomcat briefly heaped scorn on the link made by Churchill Alemao between the Amarnath imbroglio in J&K and the Mopa airport project here in Goa. Alemao of course (well, off and on) wants Mopa to be a nonstarter. So what is Amarnath all about? Here is a primer of sorts in ET: Cultural nationalism at work 14 Aug, 2008, 0000 hrs IST,TK Arun, ET Bureau <Kashmir is raging against India. Jammu is raging against Kashmir. Two sets of political formations are happy with all this rage. One set comprises the separatists in Kashmir and Islamic fundamentalists who want all Muslims to see themselves primarily as members of a religion under siege around the world and only thereafter as normal human beings with worldly goals, affinities and affiliations. The other political formation smacking its lips at the communal wash spewing out from Jammu and Kashmir's turbulence is the Sangh Parivar...What is the agitation in Jammu all about? The issue at stake is not a few acres of land. Rather, at stake is a syncretic tradition of Kashmir, of Muslims facilitating a Hindu pilgrimage. Pilgrimage, let us be clear, is as much tourism as it is piety. Tourism is a modern-day phenomenon, when material prosperity makes travel for pleasure seem an entirely legitimate undertaking. In pre-industrial times when bare subsistence was the norm for the bulk of the population, it was immoral, if not impractical, for people to abandon their normal occupation of eking out a living just to travel. But travel is in the human gene. Otherwise, Homo Sapiens sapiens would not have moved out her home in Africa to spread out over the expanse of the planet. So, travel people did, even those who could barely make both ends meet, and justified it as pilgrimage, that is, travel in pursuit of piety. Tourism generates jobs and incomes, whether the said tourism is dressed up in sacred garb or unrobes to show off its hedonist core. It is no different with the Amarnath yatra... The sangh parivar ... seeks to rid Hinduism of traditional non-hostility to other faiths and convert all non-Hindus into second class citizens, living in India on Hindu forbearance. In Amarnath, Hindus and Muslims are mutually engaged, even in a Hindu pilgrimage. This is abhorrent to the sangh parivar, as well as to Islamic fundamentalists. Both kinds of exclusivists are inimical to the idea of India as envisaged in our liberal democratic Constitution, a plural state where people of different faiths can live together in harmony and dignity. The violence in Jammu and Kashmir is a good sampling of what the BJP's exclusionary goal holds in store for the country. It poses the biggest threat to India's internal security and economic prosperity. > Irreconcilable differences, tourism, livelihoods, economic betterment etc etc. Anyone want to attempt a similar linkage between the opponents and proponents of Mopa in Goa?
