Snakes dangling from pilgrims, police indifferent despite order from top

A sight of some Kanwad pilgrims treading down the Kanwad Patri Marg with snakes dangling from their necks is becoming common during this pilgrimage season. The devotees of Lord Shiva are in fact emulating their adored Lord Himself whose most popular image is sitting still in a meditative posture with a snake coiling round his neck. With the devotion manifesting in this queer manner, both the forest department and the district administration are choosing to look the other way, no matter whether this amounts to a violation of the forest act. This despite the fact that the senior police officers have asked for strict action against those found carrying snakes in violation of the provisions of the forest Act. The pilgrims are unfazed by the order. They say that they are just following a long-time tradition. Snake spiritually representing control over the occult world and fearlessness, they say they are quite right in invoking the power during the pilgrimage.  

However, the common people who are seeing the pilgrims holding reptiles on their persons are neither spiritually stimulated nor are they simply amused. They are scared lest the snakes come upon them and bare their fangs on them.     Mangey Lal, who runs a dhaba near Shankaracharya Chowk, said, “A group of around 50 Kanwadias arrived here from Ghaziabad. When the trolley stopped we found them dancing to the tunes of a Garhwali song. There were some in the group who were attired like Lord Shiva with faces painted blue. They carried grim-looking snakes with them. They were playing with them.They said that there was no venom left in them. But we were not convinced.”

Asked about his reaction over the snakes becoming a part of the Kanwad pilgrimage, the president of Ganga Mahasabha Purushottam Sharma Gandhiwadi said that this was a perverted form of the pilgrimage. “They are being seen dancing wildly while flaunting snakes. This was something unthinkable till some years ago. They used to come in February and July from villages to collect Gangajal for Lord Shiva. The pilgrimage had a distinct sanctity as devotion was what was behind the arduous pilgrimage. Now, the soul has left and a perversion has set in the form. This is unfortunate,” he said.   

Speaking of the symbolism inherent in snake coiling around the neck of Lord Shiva, Mahant Ravindra Puri of Niranjani Akhada said that the snake tied around the neck signifies a sublimated ego. “It means that the ego can be transformed into a divine substance, meaning total surrender to the Power and it acting as an instrument of the Power. There is, however, another interpretation. According to it, the serpent coiled round Lord Shiva’s neck represent the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth,” he said.

In directives issued to the City Magistrate, SSP Haridwar has strictly prohibited the use of hockey and baseball sticks, tridents, staffs and polythene by the Kanwad pilgrims. On the use of music systems and DJs, the order clearly stated that no amplifier exceeding the limit of five decibels would be allowed during the pilgrimage in accordance with the ruling of the Supreme Court. The disabled and the elderly people alone would be allowed to carry sticks, the order said, adding that anyone found carrying the banned articles would be subjected to penal action.