China’s reluctance delays Kailash Mansarovar yatr

NEW DELHI: The Kailash Mansarovar yatra has been delayed and the visit of two batches of pilgrims cancelled due to the Olympic games leading to speculation that the yatra might not take place at all this year.

The Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on Tuesday announced that the pilgrimage which was supposed to start on June 1, has now been postponed to June 13 and that the first two batches have been cancelled. ���The government China conveyed to the ministry that on account of domestic reasons they would not be in a position to receive pilgrims before June 21, 2008,��� MEA spokesperson Navtej Sarna said in a statement.

Coincidentally, the Olympic torch relay, which was paused for three days of mourning for the victims of last week���s earthquake in Sichuan province, is supposed to arrive in Lhasa around June 20 to 21. China is clearly jittery about allowing Indians into Tibet in the run-up to the Olympic Games and particularly during the Olympic torch relay. Anyway, the Chinese government has been cutting down access for foreign nationals to Tibet after protests broke out in Lhasa leading to the death.

Even though the MEA spokesperson said that the ministry is trying its best to accommodate the pilgrims of the first two batches in subsequent batches, the yatra is fast becoming an embarrassment for the government. Denying reports that the pilgrimage has run into trouble, the government had emphatically announced on May 7 that the pilgrimage would start as usual on June 1.

The government had chosen 16 batches of 960 pilgrims but China had conveyed to India that it would not be able to accommodate the usual number of batches. China had subsequently given permission for only eight batches to visit Kailash Mansarovar this year. Now with the cancellation of the first two batches, the batches have been further cut to six.

As a result only pilgrims slotted in batches three to eight have been given their departure date, while pilgrims who are in subsequent batches are either being told that they are on the waiting list or that they are not being shortlisted, sources said.

Unfortunately for the government China had informed India that it would not be able to accommodate the normal 16 batches only after the government had gone through the entire rigmarole of choosing the pilgrims and informing them about their batches.