Opinion: They Want A Hindu Rashtra With No Safe Home For Gods

The recent flooding of the floodplains of the Yamuna River in Delhi has drawn a lot of attention to the vulnerability faced by one of the largest metropolises. Yet, the hasty diagnosis by newly minted experts failed to point out the line of fault that shook the capital. Had they pivoted their reasoning around the wanderlust trend of "mountains calling," some reflections and enlightenment might have followed.

The mighty Himalayas are mistakenly assumed to be calling people and, in turn, more 'development,' but the mountains would rather keep the rivers flowing in the North Indian subcontinent for people to thrive in the plains. The Ganga, Yamuna, Indus, and all major rivers, along with their tributaries, originate from the mountains, which are geologically young and unstable. For thousands of years, Hindus have worshipped the river goddess and the mountain gods, leading to the moniker of 'Dev Bhoomi' for Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

During this monsoon season, the Gods turned their back on us and showed their tough love by washing away some parts of our material possessions that were encroaching on the Dev Bhoomi. Nature's fury and God's wrath that we witnessed recently have some lessons for the BJP government, which champions Bulldozer justice. This time, however, the tables have turned as infrastructure projects that were permitted on dubious grounds, going against the interest of Himalayan ecology, got bulldozed away by nature.