(TibetanReview.net, May22’25) – China’s plan – in agreement with New Delhi – to open western Tibet’s Purang county of Ngari Prefecture for pilgrimage to Mt Kailash and Lake Mansarovar has moved forward with a total of 750 pilgrims being selected on May 21 for their Jun-Aug 2025 yatra (pilgrimage) after a gap of nearly five years. The lucky winners have been chosen through a computerised draw of lots.
India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh, who conducted the computerised draw, has said the pilgrims were selected through a “fair, computer-generated, random, gender-balanced” selection process.
Chosen from a pool of 5,561 applicants – including 4,024 men and 1,537 women – the pilgrims will travel in five batches of 50 each via the Lipulekh route in Uttarakhand state and 10 batches of 50 Yatris each through the Nathu La route in Sikkim.
“Both routes are now fully motorable, and involve very little trekking,” a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs, which is organizing the pilgrimage, said.
This year’s pilgrimage will begin in June and continue until August, the ministry has said.
The resumption of the Yatra is seen as a step forward in attempts to normalise India-China relationship that was severely hit by the eastern Ladakh border standoff in 2020.
The Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra was suspended in 2020 initially because of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently because of the military standoff between the two sides on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan valley.
Mt Kailash is sacred to Hindus as well as Jains, Buddhists, and the followers of Tibet’s pre-Buddhist religion Bon.