featured-image

Shiv ki baraat mein DJ nahi bajayenge toh kya shav yatra mein bajayenge ? (If DJs don’t play at Shiv’s wedding procession, where will they play? At funerals?)” is how Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath justified kanwariya s (devotees of Shiva who go on the Kanwar yatra ) travelling with DJs blasting music on loudspeakers along what was once a traditional pilgrimage path used to transport holy water from the Ganga to other cities. Not only have decibel levels gone up manifold, the DJs are accompanied by women dancing with them on open trucks as they snake their way from Haridwar and Varanasi. So important are these kanwariya s for the ruling dispensation that helicopters are hired (on Adityanath’s instructions) to shower rose petals on them as they make their merry way, fed and feted every few yards.

During the last five years, their numbers have increased. Last year, the government calculated that there were over one crore kanwariya s using different routes: via Ponta Sahib down the 111 km stretch along the Upper Ganga Canal from Purkazi in Muzaffarnagar via Sardhana and Jani in Meerut to Muradnagar in Ghaziabad. To ease the way for these crowds that surge down the highways, the state government has proposed that over 100,000 trees and shrubs planted along the Upper Ganga Canal be axed in order to widen the road built along the canal.



This road widening exercise will cost the state exchequer over Rs 1,000 crore. Two years ago, when the citizens of Meerut fir.

Back to Beauty Page