By Liz Harris
Holy water has flown in from all four corners of the earth for the consecration of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya. But one donation came from an unexpected source.
It’s an unremarkable package but has been on a remarkable journey to Uttar Pradesh, northern India. The two-litre plastic bottle of holy water swaddled in dull yellow tape travelled more than 10,000 miles across two continents, passing from one person to the next in a divine relay race until reaching its final destination: the temple dedicated to the Hindu deity-king Ram.
More than 150 countries have sent water to be used for the jalabhishek ceremony, where devotees use water, milk or other liquids to bathe or pour over a deity’s idol or image as a symbol of reverence or purification.
Donations have arrived not just from Hindu or Buddhist majority states such as Nepal, China, Laos and Mongolia, but from Muslim and Christian nations as well. Hindus in Saudi Arabia and Sikhs in Kenya contributed, as have Muslims in Iran. Even Uzbekistan — birthplace of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire and whose mosque was torn down in 1992 to make way for the temple — sent an offering.
But none of these has made the same splash as the bottle that turned up from India’s next-door neighbour: Pakistan.
Tanveer Ahmed, who is Muslim, collected the water last July from a kund or tank at Sharda Peeth, an ancient Hindu temple in the Kashmir region of Pakistan dating back to the eighth-century AD.
He is a member of the Save Sharda Committee Kashmir (SSCK), which campaigns for the right of Hindu pilgrims from India to cross into Pakistan to visit the holy site and has members in both countries.
The story created quite a ripple in India, where historic tensions between the two states have often taken on a religious flavour.
When India was partitioned and Pakistan created in 1947, Kashmir was divided between the two. India and Pakistan have since fought several wars over the territory, which is split by the so-called “Line of Control”. In 1989, a Muslim-led separatist insurgency — fuelled by Pakistan — broke out on the Indian side and continues to this day. In 1990, up to 100,000 Kashmiri Hindus, known as pandits, fled the Kashmir valley after a series of attacks on their community by Muslim militants. They have never returned.
Speaking to the Religion Media Centre from Pakistani-administered Kashmir, Tanveer Ahmed emphasised he sent the water out of goodwill to his colleague in the SSCK and not expressly for the Ram Mandir.
“The water was sent because they see it as sacred or holy and we do that with the motivation of bringing the people of Jammu, Kashmir and allied areas into the national fold … If any Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Christian, or any person of any religion, asks me for something which is within the bounds of humanity, I feel duty bound to help them.”
Postal services between India and Pakistan have been suspended since 2019 when India bombed an alleged terrorist training camp in Balakot, Pakistan. Despite the temple being only 16 miles from the Line of Control, the de facto border with India, the holy water faced a long trip.
It was taken to Islamabad, then flown to London, where it was picked up Mr Tanveer’s daughter Maghribi. She delivered it to Sonal Sher, a Kashmiri Pandit who fled the Kashmir Valley with her family during the 1990 exodus, and now lives in Woking, Surrey, where she is chair of an interfaith network. She then took the water with her on a family visit to India last August.
“The water came with me to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, then Jammu,” Sonal told the RMC. “Everyone kept asking me why I was carrying it around!”
In Jammu, she handed it over to the next courier who took it to Delhi where it was given to Ravinder Pandita, president of the SSCK. On 18 January, it was delivered to the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Sonal was surprised at the reaction in India: “I didn’t think it was a big deal, but it’s been amazing. I’ve been sent some links and apparently it’s all over India because it was a Muslim man who sent the water across and that was a huge thing.”
She added: “I think measures like this are always helpful because it helps both sides understand the other is human — that they are happy, sad, they love, they hate, they have the same emotions. And culturally, obviously, across the border we are very, very similar to each other. I think there is more in common than there are differences.”
