4 min readAug 11, 2026 06:36 PM IST
First published on: Aug 11, 2026 at 04:58 PM IST
Tuesday, August 11, marked the end of this year’s kanwar yatra. The thousands of devotees who thronged the national capital marked Sawan Shivratri with a jalabhishek ritual and ended their journey. But the conversation around the yatra, and the mostly young men that undertake it, isn’t about devotion, spirituality or the hardships that so many go through for the sake of their faith — at least among a certain class of relatively well-heeled city dwellers.
What do we talk about, really, when we talk about the kanwariyas? The most common refrain is the myopic, upper-middle-class, car owners’ obsession with traffic disruptions — used to criticise every form of protest and public gathering. Then there is the fear, perhaps justifiable but sometimes exaggerated, of safety being threatened by revelling young men, present across the city with seeming impunity. These anxieties are not unique to the kanwar yatra alone, and are almost part and parcel of a fear of crowds in a deeply stratified society. What is perhaps unique to the kanwar yatra is various government authorities, notably since 2014, trying to “facilitate” the yatris. In doing so, they are not only undermining the secular foundations of the Indian state — the Union of India has no religion — they are also falling into an old trap, which is both dangerous for the Republic and patronising to the believer.
There are, in multi-cultural, multi-religious societies across the world, people who look at people with faith through a purely political-tactical lens. Often, they are not religious practitioners or believers themselves, but they seek to speak for and of those who are. Both Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar — arguably representing the two extremes in the spectrum of political ideas in the Subcontinent — fall into this category. Perhaps both meant well. Yet, their attitude towards the many millions of believers — Hindu and Muslim — was patronising at best and instrumentalist at worst. A non-believer, especially if she is a rationalist, cannot really comprehend the believer’s comfort with the unknown and the unknowable.
For all its cynical use of religion, politics has a rational, secular aim — power. How that power is exercised, and in whose name, tells you a lot about those wielding it. If the governments of the day stopped at crowd control and even ensuring a smooth journey for the pilgrims — as it does for many religious gatherings and events — few, except die-hard anti-religion rationalists, would have major objections. But, notably since 2014, a line has been crossed. Governments are not merely respecting and facilitating the kanwar yatra; they are imposing assumed taboos and even prejudices.
Since 2023, the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have often curbed and even banned the serving of non-vegetarian food along the pilgrims’ route. Orders have been passed mandating that shopkeepers, including roadside vendors, display the proprietor’s name, a dog whistle to food segregation and against minority-owned and run businesses. Earlier this week, four people were detained in Bareilly, UP, for serving non-vegetarian food and shops razed. And, in Prayagraj, senior police and district officials, including the IG and DM, showered flower petals on kanwariyas.
Has there been an outpouring of demand to target Muslim businesses from the young pilgrims? Have they demanded floral showers?
The governments’ and officials’ actions are, of course, deeply disturbing from a constitutional perspective. But they also show how little they think of those who believe in the divine. A kanwar yatri is no less a citizen, no less rational and no less demanding of their government than the student protestor in Jantar Mantar and Jharkhand. To use their devotion as an excuse for exclusion and targeting minorities, to deify them with floral symbolism, is to act in bad faith.
Perhaps, the powers should listen to the pilgrims — ask them why the release of religious revelry matters so much to them, why they undertake the journey, what they pray for when they do. Then, maybe, they might do what governments are supposed to, instead of believing that pandering is the only politics the pious understand.
The writer is associate editor, The Indian Express. aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
A kanwar yatri is no less a citizen, no less rational and no less demanding of their government than the student protestor in Jantar Mantar and Jharkhand. 
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