Kedarnath Gold-to-Copper Controversy Shows Waning Trust in Govt

The controversy about the alleged disappearance of gold plating on the sheets adorning the sanctum sanctorum of the Kedarnath temple refuses to die. Allegations about a ₹125 crore gold ‘fraud’ surfaced when social media users found religious figures and others claiming in widely-circulated videos that the gold had been replaced by brass in the Uttarakhand temple town.

The ensuing outrage has forced the State Minister of Tourism, Satpal Maharaj, to order a time-bound enquiry into the “missing gold”. The allegations raise many questions regarding how the state government is developing the Kedarnath shrine and its neighbouring region.

Three thousand priests conduct various rituals at the Kedarnath shrine. Most of them had opposed the decision, taken last year, of the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC), headed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh nominee Ajay Ajendra, to replace the silver plates on the Kedarnath temple walls with gold plates. They had said it was against the ascetic traditions that Lord Shiva symbolises.

“Our objections were overruled, and the BKTC gold-plated the walls. Surprisingly, it was done just one day before the temple doors were closed in 2022. So, most priests did not get a chance to see what exactly was done,” says Santosh Trivedi, vice president of the Char Dham Mahapanchayat.

The public was told that the gold-plating cost Rs 125 crore. “We knew little about who the donor [of this money] was since he wanted to remain anonymous,” Trivedi says.

On June 16, Trivedi raised the alarm, saying that when he entered the temple, he found the gold had been switched to brass. “Overnight, Rs 125 crore worth of gold had turned to brass,” he accused, in a video that circulated widely on social media. He put the liability of the “missing gold” on the BKTC.

Trivedi’s complaint reflects the angst of other priests and many Kedarnath and Badrinath residents, who say they are not informed about the developments in their towns. The towns are apparently turned into “spiritual smart cities”, but the bedrock of trust has been broken in the process.

Another senior priest, known as Shuklaji, is incensed at the redevelopment work being carried out, which he says is all at the behest of the central government.

“The dignity of Kedarnath has been destroyed,” says Shuklaji. According to him, the tradition of opening the doors to pilgrimage for all is being eroded. For example, the older dharamshalas in the town provided clean and inexpensive lodging for visiting pilgrims. “They have been broken and are being replaced with five-storey hotels that charge [up to] Rs 20,000 per night,” he says. The government has also built a massive 850-foot three-tier wall along the Saraswati River, and another 350-foot wall along the Mandakini River. “This government is foolish enough to presume that a wall can withstand floods or glacial landslides,” says Shuklaji.

He was horrified at how a ghat at the confluence of the Mandakini and Saraswati rivers was first built, then broken, only for the authorities to start rebuilding it. “With Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally supervising this redevelopment work, money is flowing like water,” says Shuklaji.

The ghats on either bank of the Alaknanda River are being broken, and as heavy rains pour on the region, residents are afraid the river will breach its banks and flood the town.

“No attention is being paid to this town being located on a geological point that makes it vulnerable to much subsidence. Instead, bulldozers have been flown into Kedarnath on Chetak helicopters, which work round the clock to level the land above the temple. Is the government blind to diesel fumes, which will only accelerate glacial melting?” Shuklaji says.

BKTC chairperson Ajendra Ajay has clarified that only around 23 kilograms of gold worth around Rs 14.38 crore was used to decorate the temple. The gold was mounted on copper sheets valued at Rs 29 lakh and weighing 1,001 kilograms.

They were gold plated under the supervision of IIT Roorkee’s Central Building Research Institute, Ajendra has explained.

The fact is nobody seems to have believed these clarifications. Now, only the state government probe will reveal the truth. Since the temple is said to have been built around 1050 AD and is under the care of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the BJP’s top brass, finding itself in an embarrassing situation, has claimed that the gold-plating was done with the consent of the ASI.

But senior ASI officials claim on condition of anonymity that they were not in the loop about the gold-plating plan.

Uttarakhand Congress president Karan Mahara made the same allegation when he emphasised that the BKTC was trying to hide its “illegitimate actions” by hiding behind the ASI. “The government needs to come clean on whether any expert body tested the gold before it was installed in the temple,” says Mahara.

The redevelopment of Badrinath has also upset residents, the majority of whom are shopkeepers who need summer tourists to make ends meet. Sixty-year-old shopkeeper Dinesh Chandra Dimri is one of many shopkeepers who has posted videos to show the demolition of shops in Badrinath. He and his six brothers, all of whom sold religious items next to the Badrinath temple, had their shops demolished without prior notice.

In both religious towns, an Ahmedabad-based architectural firm, INI Design Studio, has been hired for redevelopment work. They have prepared a new master plan for Badrinath, which, predictably, requires creating space around the temple, providing parks and better parking space, given the jump in tourist inflows to these shrines.

While Badrinath residents don’t question the need to redevelop the city, they believe they should have been given a copy of the master plan and allowed to raise objections rather than being “bulldozed”.

Like in neighbouring Joshimath town, Badrinath residents have come together to form a community of angered citizens to raise their demands before a government that has consistently refused to listen to them. The Badrinath Sangharsh Committee chief Jamna Prasad Rewani says that Varanasi residents were compensated when their houses near the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency were demolished for the Kashi Vishwanath corridor. In many cases, that compensation was far more than the market value of their houses.

“But in Badrinath, houses have been demolished without even seeking the owner’s permission. Nor have they been offered proper compensation,” Rewani says.

He is apprehensive about the construction methods used in his town for their excessive reliance on concrete. “Badrinath is already facing the risk of subsidence, and we will soon go the way of Joshimath,” he fears.

It is not an unfounded concern or Rewani’s paranoia. Geologist Dr SP Sati from the social sciences department in the College of Forestry at Ramchauri warns that heavy machinery and extensive cutting of mountainsides will accelerate subsidence. “Badrinath town is located on loose glacial moraines which are loose and unsettled. Indeed, monsoon onset will worsen the situation,” Sati says.

He’s not alone in this view. Scientists across the country warn against the skewed development model which ignores the fragility of the Himalayas despite the situation worsened by climate change.

Residents say the endless excavation in their towns has dried up natural springs integral to the local landscape. Sushila Bhandari and other dedicated environmentalists in the villages around Kedarnath are distraught at how springs and non-glacial rivers are drying up fast.

“We used to get our water from these springs, but massive construction and unscientific excavation have dried up these water sources on which people’s livelihoods depend,” says Bhandari.

The GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment has confirmed that uneven development across the state has seen 50% of villages lose their traditional water sources.

Social activist and Ramon Magsaysay award-winner Chandi Prasad Bhatt has expressed apprehensions at the reconstruction and “beautification” work in the dhams. Badrinath residents say the water flow of the Kurma Dhara and Prahlad Dhara, two of the five ‘panch dharas’, which have a tremendous religious significance, have dried up. They fear the same fate awaits their other springs.

The author is an independent journalist. The views are personal.