Lord Ram is one of the most widely worshipped gods across India, with a vital attraction in other parts of the world, apart from in India, and not just among the Hindu diaspora. Many enthusiasts are, therefore, seeing major tourism potential in the new, or, rather, renewed Ayodhya, which could induce those who visit for spiritual purposes to spend some extra time in the city, generating local business.
The idea of going on a spiritual journey is really part of the DNA of India itself, wrote professor Diana L. Eck in her book City of Light, Benaras. Pilgrimage involves frugal consumption traditionally. Pilgrims, not only those who can’t afford otherwise, walk to these places, as she beautifully described. In modern times, though, pilgrimage also combines more material needs: picnics, sight-seeing and shopping.
The new temple at Ayodhya could draw two, or three, different classes of visitors.
A very large number of visitors with low incomes, who cannot really afford to spend a whole lot more, over and above what has to be spent on travel and food. Some might even walk long distances, carry their own victuals and might not require anything more than rudimentary accommodation for a night, and shopping for simple Ayodhya-branded merchandise, and replenishment of stocks for the journey back home.
Even this class of low-income visitors would generate considerable employment in the town, primarily in the form of crowd management and taking care of cleaning up the after-effects of the presence of large numbers of people at the same time at the same place.
A second class of domestic visitors would be more well-off and inclined to spend more in the town, if the town offers worthy attractions. The Akshardham temples have been conceived as theme parks of sorts, complete with food courts and the works. They showcase water fountain displays and audio-visuals highlighting a version of India’s ancient glory.
The narrative of the Ramayana offers plenty of scope for an extensive theme park. Ideally, the theme park should be a stand-alone operation, which attracts visitors of all faiths keen to understand an important facet of India’s cultural heritage represented by the Ramayana.
Third, the Indian diaspora, estimated to be 32 million strong, a population larger than that of many countries, could be drawn to add Ayodhya to their India visit itineraries.
Plus, there will also be a considerable number of foreigners–the Ramayana is part of the living tradition in the world’s fourth most populous nation, Indonesia. As that country steadily climbs up the ladder of prosperity, it would generate large numbers of outbound tourists.
India is a tourist draw, with or without the Ram temple, but the temple offers a unique marketing opportunity to draw in well-heeled Indonesian tourists. According to a Korean legend, a princess of Ayodhya, Suriratna, travelled to Korea, where she married Korean king Kim Suro. Many Koreans claim her lineage. A new temple at Ayodhya could well prove the tipping point for the many in Korea who ponder a visit to India.
The first thing to do, thus, would be to upgrade the new airport to an international one.
In terms of managing large numbers of pilgrims on short-duration visits, India itself offers powerful examples of the positive and negative kinds. Tirupati, in Andhra Pradesh, offers the right example of running a temple town that remains clean and functional, minus problems associated with poor crowd management.
Another positive example comes from how the government of Uttar Pradesh manages the major Kumbh Mela, which occurs once every four years and attracts millions of visitors. The negative example, from which corrective lessons have to be learned for implementation at Ayodhya, comes from Mathura and Vrindavan, also in Uttar Pradesh.
The management of Kumbh is undertaken by the state government, whereas looking after visitors to Vrindavan is seen as the responsibility of the local municipality. Municipalities in India are structurally under-resourced, financially, technically and administratively.
While this calls for radical reform at the national level, it makes eminent sense for temple towns, pending the national-level reform, to levy a cess on the temples that attract the milling crowds of visitors and see enormous cash flow, to pay for the upkeep of the town.
The longer the time people spend in Ayodhya, the more the need for accommodation, local travel, shopping and cleaning up, all activities that generate jobs locally, in addition to the jobs created outside Ayodhya by voluminous travel to and from the town.
Drawing large numbers of short-term visitors to a place is one thing, managing their stay in comfort, good health and security is something else and is what ensures repeat visits and continuous flow of tourists and pilgrims. That calls for sound investment in municipal infrastructure in terms of roads, sewage network and disposal, clean drinking water provision, garbage disposal and recycling, city governance, healthcare and police administration.
While the temple itself is part of an old settlement, with possible heritage development opportunities, nothing prevents the UP government from building a planned town in the vicinity to accommodate visitors and other attractions.
Funding is unlikely to be a constraint with donations likely to trickle in from the faithful. The government would do well to apply its mind to figuring out how the prospective large revenues of the temple should be insulated from misappropriation by a few and utilized for the welfare of the town and beyond. This calls for reform of how temples are administered and its revenues accounted for and managed.
In South India, kings and, after Independence, state governments, have overseen the boards that directly administer temples. It is unlikely that government oversight of temple trusts would find favour in places where such a tradition does not exist.
It is both unsustainable and unfair, however, to let temple managements and individual priests appropriate the offerings of devotees in their entirety, without sharing the cost of taking care of the hygienic accommodation, security and general well-being of the multitudes of visiting worshippers who contribute those offerings. Institutional mechanisms need to be devised to bring accountable governance and sound financial management to temples.
The Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee is one model–the upkeep of gurudwaras and experience of visiting them is matchless for the hygiene, orderliness, discipline and organisation. But there could be more decentralized and better models, too.
The Ayodhya temple could trigger a paradigm shift in the conceptualization and governance of temple towns and pilgrimage centres, leading to greater economic activity, job creation and collective welfare. If perfected, it’s a model that could be replicated across the country.
