When Uttarakhand’s indigenous Rung community stopped a group from installing a Shivling near Om Parvat, which they consider sacred, the dispute was about far more than an idol. Ishita Mishra finds that the Rungs, who worship Shiva in the form of mountains and rivers of the Himalayas, feared the installation would mark the beginning of a larger transformation, which would erode their centuries-old traditions and turn a sacred natural landscape into a commercial pilgrimage site