VRINDAVAN RESIDENTS WANT IDENTITY RETAINED, OPPOSE MERGER WITH MATHURA

 

Vrindavan October 4 (IANS)

 

Local politicians, activists, numerous heads of ashrams and spiritual centres in the holy town of Sri Krishna-Radha have opposed UP government's proposal to merge Vrindavan with Mathura to form a new municipal corporation with a population of more than a million.

 

Last week the UP urban development department issued a notification which allows district magistrates to directly recommend to the state government any changes in the administrative set up without the consent of the concerned gram panchayats. Decks are now clear for merging the Vrindavan local body with the proposed Mathura Municipal Corporation.

 

Vrindavan's Lakshmi Gautam, an activist says "the two cities have separate identities. Radha is identified with Vrindavan and Krishna with Mathura. Radha never left Vrindavan which had a dozen dense forests around it through which the Yamuna flowed. Vrindavan was the centre of Gopis, even Sri Krishna entered Vrindavan as a gopi while Mathura was a political centre of power whose suzerainty extended all the way till Bateshwar south of Agra." She suspected the new move was motivated by the lobbies of builders and colonisers who wanted high-tech smart city developed in this essentially religious and cultural area. 

 

The isue had been hanging fire for over a decade and a degree of urgency was injected after the UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav assuring a year and a half ago that both Ayodhya-Faizabad and Vrindavan-Mathura would be upgraded to full Corporations. 

 

In the changed scenario, the permission of the affected gram panchayats would not be a pre-requisite for district magistrates to demand administrative restructuring through merger, amalgamation, integration of upgradation of local bodies.

 

People in Vrindavan are neither happy nor excited about the proposal. They smell a conspiracy to end the special heritage status for which demands have continuously been made.

 

"For a very long time we have been demanding the heritage-town tag for Vrindavan for its special features that need recognition and conservation. Already the Mathura-Vrindavan Development Authority (MVDA) has done enough damage to the ecology and the pristine ambience of Vrindavan by letting land sharks gobble up all green space which was the distinguishing feature of Sri Krishna-Radha's leela bhoomi. The forests have disappeared and replaced by concrete structures. Once Vrindavan becomes a part of the bigger administrative set-up, the locals will have little say and would be at the receiving end of all predatory governmental acts,"  reacted Jagan Nath Poddar of the Braj Vrindavan Heritage Alliance.

 

Mathura activist and author Ashok Bansal said "instead of merging Vrindavan and Mathura, the right step would have been to integrate Mathura with Agra as a defined tourist circuit. If you go back  into history, Agra from Bateshwar, close to Chambal river, birth place of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpeyi was once a part of Mathura. The development of the entire Taj Trapezium Zone extending over 10,040 sq km. needs a coordinated and comprehensive framework which addresses the needs of the tourism sector, the religious segments and the needs of the local population which has so much in common from the language to the eating and cultural habits." What they have done is to create numerous bodies that have conflicting interests and perceptions, Bansal added.

 

Officials in Mathura said the new municipal corporation can be formed only when the population of the area a million figure and this can be done only when new villages are added to the urban body.  The proposal therefore has been made to add  28 villages of the Mathura block, 12 of the Vrindavan block and a dozen odd from the Goverdhan block in Mathura city.  The gram panchayats of these villages had been blocking the move.

 

Now under the new notification the gram panchayats have been bypassed and the district magistrate can directly move the papers to the urban development ministry. "This undoubtedly is a blow to the rights and authority of the gram panchayats which enjoy a special status under the Panchayati Raj system," says a rural development specialist Shravan Kumar Singh, associated with the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society.

 

During the last few years, in terms of revenue generation from "religious tourism" Vrindavan has surpassed Mathura. The holy town today boasts of more modern townships and multi-storeyed complexes than its bigger brother.

 

"Vrindavan is the topmost pilgrimage center for hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. Internationally, the number of Krishna devotees is increasing  each day. Most of these people have desire to visit Vrindavan when they come to India. Even in rural India people nurture a desire to visit Vrindavan at least once in their lifetime. Their preconception of Vrindavan is absolutely at odds with the present situation. They imagine a rural and forest environment surrounding a temple town full of sanctity. They visualize Vrindavan as a place fundamentally unchanged from Krishna’s time, just as it is in the devotional literature.

 

Gaurav Kumar of Braj Foundation says "devotees from around the world go to the small villages where Krishna enacted his pastimes. They celebrate Braj Chaurasi Kos Yatra and enjoy the natural beauty of those villages, where some glimpses of wooded land can still be seen." 

 

A highly respected temple head,  Swami Sri Vats ji says "it is important to preserve the unique identity of Vrindavan to promote Braj culture and the religious beliefs of countless Sri Krishna-Radha bhakts."

 

Instead of caring for the Yamuna and conserving the forests of the holy land, they are hell bent on destroying whatever is left, says an angry Mandhu Mangal Pandey, an RTI activist and petitioner in the Allahabad High Court on Yamuna issues. 

 

With the declaration of a Municipal Corporation, huge amounts of money will be given to Mathura for the urban development of these villages, transforming them into suburban townships. Inevitably, these funds will be utilized to inundate the entire area with the artefacts of modern life and completely obliterate the cultural heritage. Trees will be chopped down, more agricultural land will be sold to build residential colonies and high rise blocks," says Damodar Shashtri (president – Gau vansh Sanrakshan Mission).

 

The locals say Vrindavan has a religious and holy character "which would be defiled if it is merged with Mathura which has a sizeable population of meat eaters and liquor consumers, which will impact Vrindavan's population which needs to be insulated from such evil influences of modernity," according to Dhananjay Gautam.  Development based on the western model of growth will undoubtedly usher in all kinds of negative influences on this town and we are very keen that the original ambience and flavours are retained, come what may, adds  Ms Manju Sharma, convener Mahila Adhyatma Samiti.  

 

Taking the media reports seriously, a meeting of the Braj-Vrindavan Heritage Alliance, facilitated by Friends of Vrindavan, was organised at the Bal Krishna Mandir, Mukti Dham, in which the forum decided to send an appeal to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh against the amalgamation conspiracy. The letter was signed by all present in the meeting and sent to the Chief Minister both by fax and registered post.

 

The letter said that Vrindavan’s culture has always been different from that of Mathura. Though Mathura is the district headquarters, there is a big cultural gap between the two cities. Vrindavan was declared as a dry zone with a notification issued by the State Government of Uttar Pradesh in 1959, where the sale of meat, eggs and liquor was forbidden. There is no such taboo in Mathura.  

 

The BVHA activists Ram Narain Brajwasi, vice president of the Panda Sabha, Damodar Sharma, Akashvani artiste, Tota Ram Upadhyaya, president Brahmin Mahasabha, Swami Seva Nand Brahmchari, Anshuman Gopal ji, Pradhumna Pratap Singh, priest Meera Bai temple, Navneet Agarwal, local businessman and Rishi Dixit feared  that the 12 sacred forests of Krishna’s pastimes which exist in the form of village and forestry will be converted into new townships. It will encourage the real estate business. All the illegal colonies, which have been built by changing the land use from the agricultural land, would be legitimized.