Kashi corridor: Highway of faith or narrow lane of communal politics?

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the grand corridor to the Kashi Viswanath temple on December 13, nostalgic memories swept over me. The earliest, from my childhood in the mid-1950s, is of an enterprising Vadyar — a Sri Vaishnava priest — who organised an annual pilgrimage tour by hiring a bus, complete with provisions, cooks and utensils, to visit the holiest of the holy temples of India, from Tirupati to Kashi and Badrinath in the Himalayas. He arranged night halts in Dharmshalas, was fluent in Sanskrit and Hindi, knew the rules of these temples, was well-versed in the Puranas and scriptures and enthralled the pilgrims with legends and lore associated with the deities and the mythic rivers over the 45 days of the tour.