Origin from 2023
On 5 January 2023, India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued an office memorandum staying all tourism and eco-tourism activity under its own eco-sensitive zone notification for Sammed Shikharji, the Jain pilgrimage site on Parasnath Hill in Jharkhand's Giridih district where tradition holds that twenty of the twenty-four Jain tirthankaras attained liberation. The order followed weeks of nationwide protests and a hunger strike by Jain communities after the Jharkhand state government moved in December 2022 to develop the site as an eco-tourism destination, a plan the community feared would compromise its sanctity as, in the ministry's own words, the world's most sacred and revered pilgrimage site of the Jain faith. The ministry directed the Jharkhand government to take immediate steps to protect the site and later constituted a monitoring committee that includes representatives of the Jain community.
Facts
Dates
StatusEstablished marks the central government's own order halting tourism activity and the protest that produced it, not a claim about the site's final legal status or the separate dispute with local tribal communities over Parasnath Hill's access, questions this atlas does not adjudicate here. Connections
Associated With
This source names Sammed Shikharji directly: "eco-sensitive zone notification for Sammed Shikharji, the Jain pilgrimage site on Parasnath Hill in Jharkhand's Giridih district where tradition holds that twenty of the twenty-four Jain..."
Source Sammed Shikharji Eco Sensitive Zone Tourism Stay (Press Information Bureau, Government of India)
Occurred In
Source Sammed Shikharji Eco Sensitive Zone Tourism Stay (Press Information Bureau, Government of India)
Spread Event Of
Closes a 12 year gap since 2014's India Grants Jains National Minority Status, the most recent event already on Jainism's map, with the same national government acting again, this time to protect the community's own holiest site from development.
Source Sammed Shikharji Eco Sensitive Zone Tourism Stay (Press Information Bureau, Government of India)
Sources
1. Sammed Shikharji Eco Sensitive Zone Tourism Stay (Press Information Bureau, Government of India)
Facing Protests by Jains, Modi Govt Stops All Tourist Activity at Jharkhand Shrine Site (ThePrint)
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