Administration failed the Kanwar Yatra

In this satire, Tau argues that despite 12 years of a friendly sarkar, the biggest gift the kanwariyas got was a flower shower from a chopper. He asks why the administration doesn't build them a dedicated petal-covered corridor.Kanwariyas are forced to share the same stretch of road with regular commuters every year. (Image: PTI)The administration has failed the Hindus of North India. There, I said it, and I mean every word. We have corridors coming up at every pilgrimage centre in the country, Kashi got one, Mahakal got one, Kedarnath is getting one, but there's no corridor where it's actually and desperately needed. The Kanwariya corridor. For the safety of the kanwar, and for the safety of the rest of NCR from their devotion.It's that time of the year. You know the kanwariyas are near because your windows start shaking and your car starts bobbling on the road, a few kilometres out. The government also knows it's that time of the year, well in advance, because there's a month in the Hindu calendar called Shravan. It has nothing to do with Shravan Kumar who carried his blind parents on a kanwar and, notably, never once dropped either of them on a passing motorist or beat up someone with a rod. One devoted son, zero FIRs. Some of us peaked early as a species.The kanwariyas do something even better than Shravan Kumar. Not for the selfish interest of their parents but for the peace and wellbeing of the entire village, community, and the nation. They carry water from the holy Ganga all the way to their village, Shivalas, in this August month, which doesn't always fall in August but often does, because Lord Shiva needs Ganga's cold water on his head after gulping the visha that came out of the Great Churning of the Seas, so the devas could have their amrita in peace. For humanity's sake, he turned Neelkanth, blue-throated. The early kanwariyas never once smashed anyone's windscreen about the puranic katha, which frankly shows more restraint than the entire Muzaffarnagar highway managed this Shravan.The humans carrying his water, some of them are high on rather less holy substances, but nobody's infuriated until somebody has a scrap with them. The kanwar cannot be khandit, so they warn you well in advance, very politely, and then act with furious anger and great vengeance if one still ends up touching it, crossing its path, or just crossing them. That's when the fury comes out, and my word, does it come out generously, with interest, and occasionally with a cocky hockey stick or a calmer cricket bat. Over 170 men were booked for hooliganism in Uttar Pradesh in five days this Yatra alone, which for context is a strike rate most IPL batters would kill for. A pickup truck got its windscreen smashed for the crime of driving too close to a kanwar, and a school van full of children got its windows put through by men so lost in devotion they couldn't tell a bus of seven-year-olds from a carload of adults spoiling for a fight. Truly, nothing says Bol Bam like a rock through a school van's window. Somewhere Shravan Kumar is learning things about kanwar never mentioned in any holy text.But this piece isn't really about them. Boys with Bhole bhakti in their hearts, too much bhaang on their mind and too little to do at home will always be boys with too much bhaang, that's practically a law of physics by now. The real culprit, the one who had 12 years and every excuse in the book and used none of them, is the government, and it's about time somebody said so plainly instead of dressing it up in a saffron robe. Central Delhi and Haryana took a Right turn in 2014. UP followed in 2017. The kanwariyas understood, more or less, that a friendly government was finally in charge, and they'd stop being treated like villains and hooligans in the evening news. The promise that a caring, devoted government will look after your holy month. Well, they're still in the evening news, still called hooligans, and the government has delivered precisely one thing in 12 years: a helicopter, and some rose petals to drop out of it. That's it.Every single year, the same rose petals, the same helicopter, the same photo op, while down below the kanwariyas walk choke-a-block on a national highway shared with trucks, buses and the odd bewildered bovine, on a road paved with good intentions, broken glass and stray spare parts as sharp as a bureaucrat's gaze on your wallet, penetrating the skin underneath.If the government actually meant it when it called this a priority, would it really take this long to build one dedicated walking path from Haridwar so the kanwariyas don't have to share their pious path with regular traffic every year? You need petals strewn on that path so the weary feet of the pilgrim land on a soft bed of roses. Rose petals showered on their heads have little or no effect on things already spinning. The petals go under the feet, not over the head. The official respect shown has gone over the head, literally.Instead of a saatvik food corridor along the route, some genius officer decided the fix was ordering roadside dhabas to print the owner's name on the signboard, which the Supreme Court promptly slapped down. The actual emergency is onion and garlic-laced food sold right along a route where the devout are supposedly observing the most saatvik fortnight of their calendar. Somebody solved the wrong crisis with tremendous confidence, which is, come to think of it, this government's signature move. The problem is a suspicion of an onion trace can cause real trouble. And it does.Kanwar seva kendras off the highway, where the seva samitis could actually do their seva without blocking somebody's commute? Not built. Schools along the route just shut down without addressing the root cause, apparently it's easier to cancel a few lakh children's classes than lay a footpath away from the highway. Cause and effect, taught in Class 6, evidently not attended by whoever drafted this year's Kanwar Yatra circular.The police spend the fortnight not knowing whether they're protecting the kanwariya from the public or the public from the kanwariya, and manage to do a thoroughly mediocre job of both, an equal opportunity failure if nothing else.The society has failed in enforcing the traditional rules of carrying a kanwar: no substance abuse, no music, only chants, no indulging in entertainment, only devotion in hearts and the lord's name on the lips, no harsh language, no abuses uttered and so on. But the society has no tools to enforce the rules. The law enforcement has.There are decibel limits on paper for residential, commercial and industrial areas, and not one DJ truck's subwoofer has ever heard of their existence in any way, because try hearing anything when the system is subwoofering. The government knows the great Hindutva subaltern awakening mandates subwoofers loud enough that sound isn't measured in decibels anymore but on the Richter scale, and somehow still hasn't found the fortitude to enforce its own rule.For whom the desi bells toll, they are on a roll, and the noise inspector, wherever he is, has clearly gone home for the season. Even the Supreme Court finally asked the Centre this August why, after all these years, there is still no proper plan for a pilgrimage everyone can see, and definitely hear, coming from a mile off. I'd love to hear that answer. I suspect it involves another helicopter, possibly a bigger one this time, for optics.Subwoofer se neeche sub barabar hain! The government likes to say, everybody's equal. Except for one fortnight a year, when the kanwariyas are supposedly the first priority, in name only, forced to share the same stretch of road with regular commuters trying to get home.Twelve years of a friendly sarkar, and the biggest gift the kanwariyas got was a flower shower from a chopper that lasts four seconds and trends for four hours. You'd almost call it devotion, except it's the government that's been going through the motions, not the kanwariyas. They at least walked the distance. Zor se bolo, Bol Bam. Saare bolo, Bol Bam.(Kamlesh Singh, a columnist and satirist, is Tau of the popular Teen Taal podcast)- Ends(Views expressed in the piece are those of the author)Published By: Shounak SanyalPublished On: Aug 12, 2026 15:01 IST