Skip to main content

Unstated, subtle competition is "turning" religious tourism into big business

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Last year the number of foreign tourists who came to India was about 90 million. By contrast domestic tourism totaled over 1,400 million visits, clearly suggesting that its implied economics are far bigger than the foreign business. It also suggests that very many of our people make several trips for tourism every year.
While the concentration of the central governments tourism promotion efforts focus on the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur “golden triangle” the highest number of foreign tourist arrivals (20.1%) are in Tamil Nadu. Delhi draws half that.
The southern states see the most foreign and domestic tourist traffic because of the number of important religious places like Tirupati, Madurai. The location of Tirupati within it makes Andhra Pradesh India’s biggest domestic tourist destination. Religious tourism is now very big business. What does this suggest? Must we be worried?
A Pew Global Attitude survey study shows that more than 25% of Indians reported having become more religious over the past 4-5 years. The trend is valid across religions and in keeping with other attitudinal surveys.
Between 2007 and 2015, the share of respondents in India who perceived religion to be very important increased by 11% to 80% now. The National Sample Survey report shows that average expenditure on religious trips has more than doubled during this period. Clearly this is a rapidly expanding business sector also given trends, the sky is the limit (no pun intended).
While the economic activity and the employment it generates is a cause for happiness all around, we must also ponder about the other ramifications of this growing religiosity?
The growth of blind faith, superstition and aggressive religioneering (my coinage) presents a clear and present danger to India evolving as a modernized society which values reason and tempers collective behaviors.
The building of temples is a profitable business. That’s why public spaces are increasingly usurped by unscrupulous entrepreneurs and social scoundrels to build shrines. And we know from experience that once gods and religious figures get installed in a place, they cannot be dislodged. A good share of our traffic bottlenecks are due to them.
Sant Kabirdas posed this telling question in a simple and beautiful verse: "Pathar puje hari mile, to main puju pahar/ tante te chakki bhali, pis khaye sansar?" Sadly the truth now is that a stone idol (now increasingly often made of POP and plastic, sometimes from china) offers a better rate of return (RoR) than a chakki, which calls for enterprise rather than irrational faith. Thus, with religiosity and religioneering big business now it is increasingly common to see governments promoting "religious tourism."
Actually there is increasingly an unstated and subtle competition now implying my idol is better than yours. The Venkateshwara temple at Tirumalai is India's biggest money-spinner. This Vaishnavite shrine attracts 40 million devotees each year. Telangana has now embarked on promoting the Yadagirigutta temple near Hyderabad to become a religious tourism draw. This is also a Vaishnavite temple, but devoted to a different avatar of Vishnu, and manifestations of that avatar - Jwala Narasimha, Gandabheranda Narasimha and Yogananda Narasimha. Under the CPM government Kerala temple boards actually advertise the magical powers of their stone idols.
Communism was supposed to make us rational and believe God was a figment of mankind’s fervid imagination. After all what else can be expected from a philosophy that derives inspiration from mummified corpses in the Red Square and Tiananmen?
Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister and foremost founding for the new India then contemplated the new India to be guided by reason and infused with the scientific temper. Instead we are now increasingly a people driven by dogma and blind faith. Religion and blind faith are our biggest faultlines and the cause of much social friction and breakdown of orderly public behaviour and order.
To make a point Nehru never visited religious places lest it be seen as an endorsement. We now increasingly see our constitutional authorities and prominent personalities making highly publicised visits to places of faith but also of unreason.
Recently the President offered puja at the Venkateshwara temple at Tirumalai. or the PM at Kedarnath or someone else at Ajmer Sharif any different from Sharukh Khan holding a Coke bottle? If they believe that let them then do it at their own expense and not inflict the cost on the people. Or is this expense to be considered as a part of business promotion?
---
*Policy analyst. Source: Author's Facebook timeline. Contact: mohanguru@gmail.com

Comments

TRENDING

'Enough evidence' in Indian tradition to support legal basis for same-sex marriage

By Iyce Malhotra, Joseph Mathai, Sandeep Chachra*  The ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage provides space for much-needed conversations on issues that have hitherto remained “invisible” or engaged with patriarchal locker room humour. We must recognize that people with diverse sexualities and complex gender identities have faced discrimination, stigma and decades of oppression. Their issues have mainly remained buried in dominant social discourse, and many view them with deep insecurities.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

Victim of communal violence, Christians in Manipur want Church leadership to speak up

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ*  The first eleven days of May 2023 have, in many ways, been a defining period of Indian history! Plenty has happened in a rapid-fire stream of events. Ironically, each one of them are indicators of how crimes and the criminalisation of society has become the ‘new norm’; these include, the May Day rallies with a focus on the four labour codes which are patently against the rights of workers; the U S Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its Annual Report on 1 May stating that conditions for religious freedom in India “continued to worsen in 2022”; the continued protest by the Indian women wrestlers at Jantar Mantar for the expulsion of the chief of the Indian Wrestlers Federation on very serious allegations; the Elections in Karnataka on 10 May (with communalism and corruption as the mainstay); the release of the fake, derogative and insensitive film ‘The Kerala Story’; the release of World Free Press Index on 3 May which places India

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Delhi HC rules in favour of retired Air Force officer 'overcharged' for Covid treatment

By Rosamma Thomas*  In a decision of May 22, 2023, the Delhi High Court ruled in favour of petitioner Group Captain Suresh Khanna who was under treatment at CK Birla Hospital, Gurugram, between April 28 and May 5, 2021, for a period of eight days, for Covid-19 pneumonia. The petitioner had to pay Rs 3,55,286 as treatment costs, but the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) only reimbursed him for Rs 1,83,748, on the basis of government-approved rates. 

Unlike other revolutionaries, Hindutva icon wrote 5 mercy petitions to British masters

By Shamsul Islam*  The Hindutva icon VD Savarkar of the RSS-BJP rulers of India submitted not one, two,or three but five mercy petitions to the British masters! Savarkarites argue: “There are no evidences to prove that Savarkar collaborated with the British for his release from jail. In fact, his appeal for release was a ruse. He was well aware of the political developments outside and wanted to be part of it. So he kept requesting for his release. But the British authorities did not trust him a bit” (YD Phadke, ‘A complex Hero’, "The Indian Expres"s, August 31, 2004)

Polygamy in India "down" in 45 yrs: Muslims' from 5.7 to 2.55%, Hindus' 5.8 to 1.77%, "common" in SCs, STs

By Rajiv Shah Amidst All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) justifying polygamy, saying it “meets social and moral needs and the provision for it stems from concern and sympathy for women”, facts suggest the the practice is down from 5.7 per cent of Muslim families in 1961 to 2.55 per cent in 2006.

India joining US sponsored trade pillar to hurt Indian farmers, 'promote' GM seeds, food

Counterview Desk  As many as 32 civil society organisations (CSOs), in a letter to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and India joining the trade pillar, have said that its provisions will allow the US to ensure a more favourable regulatory regime “for enhancing its exports of genetically modified (GM) seeds and GM food”, underlining, it will “significantly hurt the livelihoods of Indian farmers.”

Modi govt 'wholly untrustworthy' on Covid data, censored criticism on pandemic: Lancet

By Rajiv Shah*   One of the world’s most prestigious health journals, brought out from England, has sharply criticised the Narendra Modi government for being “wholly untrustworthy on Covid-19 health data”, stating, the “official government figures place deaths at more than 530 000, while WHO excess death estimates for 2020 and 2021 are near 4·7 million.”