Frontline ·
Sacrificed to the shrine
The expansion of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board’s institutional empire has come at the expense of numerous displaced families now locked in legal battles over compensation, raising difficult questions about what “public purpose” means.
Kashmir Chand’s two-room tin-roofed house stands on an 18-marla (1 marla=272.25 square feet) plot in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district, about 35 kilometres from the renowned Vaishno Devi shrine, in a settlement described in official records as a “colony”. There is a small kitchen, a courtyard, and a dilapidated bathroom near the entrance. That is all that remains of the economic security of a family that once owned and cultivated 12 kanals of land about 25 years ago (1 kanal=0.125 acre).
“When we had land, we used to store enough food rations for 7-8 months at home,” said Chand (70). “Now, if we do not work for a day, we do not know about tomorrow.”
When the land was forcibly acquired in 2000, villagers like him who resisted the displacement faced police action, and first information reports were lodged against several protesters. The consequences of the dispossession and displacement have unfolded now. “Once we had adequate land, livestock, fruit trees, and a big house. Now, we have just two rooms,” said Chand, whose son works as a contractual/casual employee at the Jal Shakti Public Health Engineering Department, earning about Rs.9,000 a month.
