Draft bill for creation of a Shrine Board for Hindu Shrines and Temples in Kashmir valley on the pattern of Shri Amarnath and Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Boards, Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee and Awqaf Boards in the State, was tabled by a senior NC member in the LA during the period when NC sat in opposition. On the insistence of the PDP-Congress Coalition Government, the bill was introduced in the LA by the Government in 2009 along with Shiv Khori Shrine Bill. The last mentioned was moved and passed in one go whereas Kashmir Shrines bill was relegated to pendency. Since then the bill has been hanging fire in session after session of LA despite verbal assurances by sitting Ministers and MLAs that they support it fully.
With the entire Hindu community having exited from the Valley, preservation of these vestiges should rest with the Government. As such the demand of the exited community for the creation of a Board, effectively projected by Kashmiri Pandit community for last two decades, serves as a facilitator. Government’s positive inclination towards Shrine Board bill will be a historic step in the process of confidence building measures as well as spontaneous incentive for the displaced community to return to their roots. Cognizance has to be taken of absolute unanimity among the displaced community members on constituting the board because it serves as the sheet anchor of preservation of their age-old cultural heritage. Preservation of the icons and symbols of their heritage gives meaning and content to Kashmir’s noteworthy composite cultural identity.
The example of extraordinary efficiency and integrity with which the shrines of Mata Vaishnov Devi or Shri Amarnath or Shiv Khori have been run by respective Boards after take over from the trusts, generates hope among the Hindu minority of the Valley that their nearly 650 shrines and temples, including about a dozen of them already run by a local Trust, will find a new lease of life. The Government should not lose time in moving the bill for the Kashmir Hindu Shrines and Temples Board because land mafia goons have already grabbed chunks of prestigious temple lands and have formed nexus in collusion with self-appointed and self-seeking mangers of these community relics.
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