Katra: In a speech attacking the National Conference-Congress alliance at a poll rally in Jammu and Kashmir’s Katra last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi slipped in a line about his commitment to the welfare of the Baridar community.
Nationally, the PM’s speech made headlines for his allegations that the agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s opponents was aligned with that of Pakistan, overshadowing the brief outreach to the little-known community. In Katra, however, a minute-long clip where the PM is addressing the Baridars went viral and continues to dominate poll chatter.
In the newly carved out Shri Mata Vaishno Devi assembly constituency in Katra, the Baridar community is behind the challenge confronting the BJP in the J&K elections.
The Baridars—consisting of Brahmins and Rajputs—were the custodians of the holy cave shrine of Vaishno Devi until the government stepped in and took over the temple’s management in 1986.
The community is settled across villages nestled on the foothills of the Trikuta Mountains, where the Vaishno Devi shrine is located. An estimated 15,000 Baridar voters reside in the constituency, around 45 kilometres from Jammu. For a seat which has barely 55,000 voters, 15,000 is a make-or-break number.
“The BJP runs in our veins but we want to ensure its defeat this time. Don’t be surprised if they lose this seat like they were defeated in Ayodhya,” said Om Prakash Sharma, a member of the community.
Though concerned about its prospects, the BJP isn’t entirely lacking in confidence. The party hopes that people will reward it for the very act of carving out Vaishno Devi as a separate constituency.
“It was only after (Narendra Modi) took over as Prime Minister in 2014 that the holy town of Katra & the Holy Shrine started getting the deserved attention. Baridars’ issue included in BJP Election Sankalp Patra 2024,” said Dr Jitendra Singh in a post on X.
“For decades together, people of this region made certain genuine demands but successive governments headed by Congress and its allies were always indifferent. So also was the case of “Baridars”, who had certain genuine issues after the enactment of the Mata Vaishno Devi
1/2 pic.twitter.com/7LPnCRibkC— Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) September 17, 2024
Modi’s rally has also boosted the spirits of the local workers.
“The fact is, Modi ji launched his 2014 as well as 2019 prime ministerial bids from Vaishno Devi. It was in 2014 that he flagged off the first train from the Katra station. Now there are two Vande Bharat Express trains to New Delhi from Katra. Roads have come up. The temple is being redeveloped under the Centre’s Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme. There is no reason for people to look elsewhere,” said Pradeep Gupta, a local businessman who volunteers for the BJP.
Resentment over an ‘unfulfilled promise’
Baridars, for the first time, are aggressively backing an Independent candidate—Sham Singh—turning the contest in the constituency, which falls in the Reasi district, into a four-way fight. The other three candidates are the BJP’s Baldev Raj Sharma, Bhupinder Singh of the Congress, and former Congress MLA Jugal Kishore, who is running as an independent candidate.
Adding to the party’s issues, the announcement of Sharma’s candidacy sparked a wave of anger within the local BJP unit, with supporters of Rohit Dubey, the district president of the party, bristling over the fact that the latter was denied a ticket.
Matters were made worse after it emerged that Dubey’s name had figured as the candidate from the Mata Vaishno Devi constituency in a list of candidates that was later retracted by the BJP. J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina had to rush to the area to pacify the protesters, but they only relented after an appeal from Dubey.
Members of the Baridar community, though, are in no mood to give in. Their resentment against the BJP flows from a promise that Modi had made in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, when he was the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the first time. He had vowed, at the time, to come up with a “permanent solution” for their woes regarding the temple—an issue that dates back decades.
“He (Modi) swayed us by his false promise in 2014. We kept voting for the BJP hoping he would keep his word. We had no grand design to defeat the BJP by fielding our own candidate, but we were left with no choice,” said Balbir Sharma, a taxi driver.
According to Ved Pujari, an elderly member of the community, it all began two hours after midnight on 30 August 1986, when the Jammu and Kashmir administration under then governor Jagmohan forcibly removed the Baridars, who traditionally served as priests and sevayats at the shrine, from premises of the temple.
“For generations, we were custodians of the temple, but within minutes we were on the streets,” Pujari told ThePrint on the sidelines of a gathering of the community Sunday in Kadmal village, on the outskirts of Katra.
‘An unaccountable and corrupt body’
The local belief goes that the goddess, Mata Vaishno Devi, had appeared in the dream of one Baba Shridhar, who subsequently took it upon himself to perform duties in her service. He also obtained the right for his descendants to continue as custodians of the temple. The tradition was upended in 1986 after the government handed over the reins of the temple to a board, citing growing footfall and mismanagement on the part of the Baridars.
The Jammu and Kashmir Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Act, 1986, was introduced to empower the new management of the temple. Later, it was replaced by the Jammu and Kashmir Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Act, 1988.
The move sparked protests with the Baridars hitting the streets against the takeover of the temple by a shrine board. The community also approached the courts but the case remains unresolved to date.
In 2020, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court issued notices to the administration of the Union territory and the shrine board after the Baridar Sangharsh Samiti filed a petition arguing that the 1986 move was a “brazen violation” of articles 14 (equality before the law) and 26 (freedom to manage religious affairs) of the Constitution.
On its website, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board says the takeover of the temple was necessitated “considering the poor state of things and the absence of facilities for the pilgrims. Before the takeover, the pilgrims reached the holy town of Katra from all over India with devotion and faith in their hearts, but were often met with all kinds of hardships and insensitivity”.
“Ever since the takeover of the management of the shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi Ji from Baridars in 1986, and the constitution of a board for the management and governance of the shrine, the yatra to the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi ji has become an altogether different experience,” it said.
The Baridars describe the shrine board as an “unaccountable and corrupt body”. The eight-member board is chaired by J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and also includes RSS ideologue Kulbhushan Ahuja, author Neelam Sareen, retired IPS officer Ashok Bhan, and retired IAS officer Baleshwar Rai, among others, as members.
Demand for reservation in the shrine board
Anil Samhotra, a member of the Baridar community who is unemployed, said the community lags in most social parameters because of a lack of education and sources of income.
“Most of our youth used to make a living by ferrying pilgrims on horses and donkeys but the shrine board has stopped issuing new identity cards even for them,” he said.
Pujari said that the community’s key demands include rights to conduct prayers at the shrine and reservation for its members in jobs available with the shrine board. “It’s a question of our survival, believe me,” he said.
The constituency will go to polls in the second phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on 25 September. The third phase will be held on 1 October before the results are declared on 8 October.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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