Rishikesh

Rishikesh is a town on the Ganges where the river leaves the Himalaya, in Uttarakhand. Its place in Sikh life is as the gate of Sri Hemkund Sahib, the shrine in Chamoli district that pilgrims reach by road to Govind Ghat and then on foot. Pilgrims register and gather at the Hemkund Sahib Gurdwara in Rishikesh, and many stay the night there because the road ahead is long and hilly, running on through Dev Prayag and Srinagar (Garhwal).

Key moments

• 1932 to 1937: Sant Sohan Singh Tehriwala sets up a memorial at Hemkund in 1932, building of the shrine begins in 1936 and the Guru Granth Sahib is installed in 1937.
• 1951 and 1960: the Chief Khalsa Diwan is given the upkeep of the shrine in 1951; in 1960 Havaldar Modan Singh creates a seven-member body, the Gurdwara Shri Hemkunt Sahib Management Trust, which looks after the shrine and the gurdwaras near it.
• 17 May 2023: Uttarakhand Governor Gurmit Singh and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami flag off the season's first batch of pilgrims from the Hemkund Sahib Gurdwara premises in Rishikesh. The gates were to open on 20 May and more than 2,000 had registered.
• 29 May 2024: SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami objects that pilgrims are being let through only after they take a Char Dham Yatra registration card issued from Gurdwara Sri Rishikesh. The SGPC asks the Uttarakhand government to withdraw the rule or give Hemkund pilgrims a separate registration, saying it “hurt the Sikh sentiments”.

What it means today. For the Panth, Rishikesh is a staging post rather than a shrine in its own right. The Tribune reported in 2000 that the whole pilgrimage normally takes about seven days there and back and that the shrine stays open for about four and a half months a year, so the arrangements at Rishikesh decide how smoothly the season runs. The 2024 objection shows that rules made for a Hindu pilgrimage circuit can reach Sikh pilgrims on the way to their own shrine.