In male-dominated Kanwar Yatra, women pilgrims struggle to find space

Defeating all odds, Munni Devi, 32, a resident of Usmanpur, Shahdara, completed the Kanwar Yatra on Tuesday, carrying pots of water from Ganga in Haridwar on her shoulders and covering a distance of over 240 kilometres on foot.

Ms. Devi, a devotee of Lord Shiva, who undertook the pilgrimage with her 12-year-old son, Pappu, said that finding a place in rituals and space in the male-dominated pilgrimage was more challenging than physical endurance. “I participated in the yatra this year as my son desperately wanted to go for it. I did not want him to take the yatra in the company of other men,” Ms. Devi, sews/embroiders clothes for a living, said. Her son is a school dropout

Amid hundreds of male pilgrims at a camp in Shahdara, Kiran Devi, 40, was trying to find a covered space to change her clothes and take rest.

A Tikri border resident who has been participating in the yatra for five years, Ms. Kiran Devi told The Hindu that the organisers had “ignored the needs of women participants”. “Ever since my husband fell ill, I have been going for the yatra. To date, I have not found a separate washroom or resting space for women in any camp across the route,” she rued.

She said with no separate space for women pilgrims, she had to take rest in the common area of the camp.

Pilgrims felicitated

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday visited a camp at Shastri Park, north-east Delhi and felicitated the kanwariyas returning from Haridwar.

“It is an arduous journey, especially when it rains. But the camps set up by the Delhi government were equipped to meet all our needs,” said Ranjeet Paswan, 22, a migrant worker from Sitamarhi, Bihar, who was felicitated.

With the yatra ending on Wednesday, Delhi Police heaved a sigh of relief as managing traffic and unruly elements had kept the force on edge.“There were various incidents of kanwariyas creating a law and order problem,” said a senior police officer.

The officer said multiple complaints of loud music being played by the kanwariyas en route had also been received. “However, there was no complaint of vandalism,” the officer added.

The yatra also kept food stall owners in several areas on the edge. At a pizza joint in Shahdara, the manager and staff said they had been tense ever since a viral video of a popular food chain in Ghaziabad being targeted by kanwariyas surfaced. “We put the guards on alert, just in case a large number of kanwariyas enter,” the manager said.

Rajat Kumar, 55, a street food vendor, complained that a group of six-seven kanwariyas ate at his stall, then got into a verbal spat, and refused to pay him. “They said they did not like the taste and left,” he said.