Sindhu Darshan Festival

Sindhu Darshan Festival is a festival of India held every year on full moon day (on Guru Purnima) in month of June. It is held at Leh, in Ladakh District of Jammu & Kashmir. It stretches for three days. It was first started in the October, 1997 and continues to be held every year since then, attracting large number of foreign as well domestic tourists.

The Sindhu Darshan Festival, as the name suggests, is a celebration of River Sindhu, also known as the Indus. The main reason behind the celebration of Sindhu Darshan Festival is to endorse the Indus River (Sindhu River) as an icon of the communal harmony and unity of India. The festival is also a symbolic salutation to the courageous soldiers of the country, who endanger their life to save ours.

Mr. Lal Krishna Advani,and Mr Tarun Vijay a veteran journalist re-discovered the Sindhu river flowing though Ladakh, when they visited Leh in January 1996. Mr tarun Vijay conceived the idea of a festival on its banks as it has given the identity to India as the names India, Indian, Hindu and Hindustan are derived from indus and Sindhu. Since then it has been attracting people from all walks of life, castes, reliogions and places specially becoming a pilgrimage for Hindu Sindhis, who in pre-partition days, used to worship her ( in Sindh ), now in Pakistan. For, the purpose that, people of India, know the importance of Sindhu River, Lal Krishna Advani, in 1996, himself a Sindhi, visited Choglamsar ( 8 km from Leh ) and started Sindhu Darshan Abhiyan, with handful of Sindhis.

The first time this event was held in form of Sindhu Darshan Festival was in October, 1997.

Later on in year 2000, on 7 June, Sindhu Darshan Festival was held with much pomp and show and was inaugurated by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then the Honorable Prime Minister of India at Shey (15 km away from Leh).The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of the Sindhu Cultural Center and also inaugurated the new office complex of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council. The complex has an open-air theater, an exhibition gallery, a small library and a music room. Auditorium in the center of the complex can accommodate 500 people at a time. People attending the festival can also shop for exquisite Ladakh handicrafts available at the stalls within the premises.

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