Manali Prayer Partnership Bulletin September, 2014 Special Issue: Flooding in Jammu & Kashmir

Manali Prayer Partnership Bulletin, September, 2014

Special Issue: Flooding in Jammu & Kashmir

This issue of Manali Prayer Partnership is prompted by the floods devastating Kashmir, the most northerly region of India; Jammu, which lies just to Kashmir’s south; and Pakistani Kashmir. Flooding has also reached the Pakistani city of Lahore, and Amritsar, holy to the Sikhs and just 50km to the east in India. I gave a paper at a workshop for health workers in Amritsar on September 4, and escaped the flooding the following day.

I’m sending this prayer bulletin to the whole list that normally receives notice of our blog, Manali Missives. Quite a number of people I send notice of Manali Missives do not share my particular religious perspective, but this natural disaster is, I think, reason for us to at least think good thoughts for its many victims. These victims include Muslims in Kashmir and Pakistan, Hindus in Jammu, as the submerged temple shows, Sikhs in the Indian Punjab, and small minorities of Christians and other religions in various places. 

As spiritual leader of the Amritsar Diocese of the Church of North India Rev “Bunu” Samantaroy feels this crisis keenly. This from a post to his Facebook page:

“Devastating flood has crippled life in Kashmir. Flood water entered Srinagar city in the early hours yesterday when most people were sleeping. The All Saints Church was already under 5 ft water in the morning. Till yesterday evening water level was rising in Tyndale Biscoe School. In some areas single story houses were completely under water. Some families were evacuated to higher grounds while others were anxiously waiting for rescue. I am not able to contact anybody in Srinagar or Anantnag because all communication networks are down. Many anxious relatives are phoning me to know about their dear ones. I feel so helpless. I am grateful to all those who are praying for Kashmir. Kashmir disaster needs your intervention.”

I have made 2 visits to Jammu & Kashmir. On the second I helped 4 Christian schools conduct their annual 3 day camps and hikes in mountains near Srinagar. So my concerns are particularly for the mainly Muslims and Christians associated with the Tyndale-Biscoe Boys’ School, Mallinson Girls’ School, The Kashmir Valley School and the Tangmarg  School in Kashmir; the mainly Hindus and Christians associated with the Alexander School in Jammu; and the staff and patients of the John Bishop Memorial Hospital in Anantnag, about an hour’s drive south of Srinagar. Though the schools are Christian by ethos and leadership most of the staff and students are Muslims. I was received and treated with a hospitality, respect and warmth that completely belied the horrors that are being perpetrated by fighters for ISIS in Iraq and elsewhere. During the Kashmiri insurgency of some years ago the Hospital treated the wounded of both sides. Although it was at one point taken over by insurgents, remarkably, an unarmed, female, Christian doctor was able to resume it and its activities.

Of much else to like about this part of the world I think its sheer beauty is remarkable. So I ask for your prayers/good thoughts for it in this hour of need. 

Prayers:

for the people and institutions I’ve mentioned;

for the relatives and loved ones of those who have already died, and those who will die;

for support for building up shattered communities and lives when the floods have subsided;

Give thanks that the Indian government, which has been formed from a party that represents Hindu interests, has nevertheless seen fit to already send a lot of money in relief aid. 

that adequate aid will be forthcoming.

that common suffering might draw the diverse, warring communities of this part of the world together.

There is another matter. My tasks on the camps and hikes were, apart from assisting the less keen and able hikers, to help put students and staff in touch with nature, and to teach them about climate change and human-caused environmental threats of other kinds. I understand that these huge floods have come very much at the wrong time of the year. We all know about the vagaries and excesses of Indian monsoons, but the fields of almost ripe crops being drenched as I drove through the Punjab were testimony to the belief that this should not be happening. Yet all over the world it is. Terrible drought in California, enormous dust storms, then record rain on the one afternoon in Arizona, these floods: the list goes on. 

Beyond asking for your prayers, good thoughts and, as this becomes possible, practical action, probably in the form of donations, towards ameliorating the effects of this and that natural disaster, my deeper prayer is that you will consider well what we are doing to our planet, and take steps to reverse this dangerous process.

Grace and peace,

David Reichardt