Lessons we won’t learn — from Joshimath, Dharali, Harsil…

The last decade, our prime minister insists, has taken India’s places of worship (you know the ones he’s talking about) to dizzying new heights. India has apparently ‘rediscovered’ its soul, and the devout have turned the great Char Dham shrines at Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath into ‘living sanctuaries’. Just look at the figures, oh ye of little faith: religious tourism alone earned the government around $56 billion in 2024!

The question is: at what cost? Has the ‘development’ of these religious hotspots transformed the lives of locals or improved the environment of the Garhwal hills, where the dhams are located? While the push for religious tourism may have grown the hospitality sector, people living in and around these sites tell a very different story from the narrative the government is peddling.

The development paradigm — if such a term can be applied to such reckless construction — was entirely handled by the PMO, with the makeover of Kedarnath and Badrinath being Modi’s personal projects. A Rs 2,000 crore contract to beautify these two locations was handed to INI Design Studio, an Ahmedabad-based architectural firm.

The reconstruction of Kedarnath has been implemented in two stages. The first phase involved building a 70 ft wide concrete road connecting the temple and the Kedarpuri suburb.

In addition, an 850 ft long three-tier retaining wall was built along the Saraswati river and a 350 ft protective cover along the Mandakini. Both these rivers flow along Kedarnath, which hasn’t forgotten the devastating fury of the 2013 floods.

Experts don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Was the bund put up along the banks of the Kheer Ganga in Dharali able to withstand the force of the raging waters and debris on 5 August?” they ask. There too, crores were spent, in vain.

The 3,000 priests known to conduct various rituals at the Kedarnath shrine have other objections. Most had opposed the decision taken by the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) — headed by RSS nominee Ajay Ajendra — to gold-plate the walls of the sanctum sanctorum. The original silver, they said, was more in keeping with the ascetic Lord Shiva.

“Our objections were overruled, and the BKTC gold-plated the walls. Surprisingly, it was done just one day before the temple doors were closed in 2022. So, most priests did not get a chance to see what was being done,” says Santosh Trivedi, vice-president of the Char Dham Mahapanchayat.

To top it all, the sanctioned gold went missing. On 16 June 2023, Trivedi raised the alarm when he entered the temple and found brass in place of gold. “Overnight, Rs 100 crore worth of gold had turned into brass,” he claimed in a widely circulated video, placing the liability for the “missing gold” squarely on the BKTC.

“The dignity of Kedarnath has been destroyed,” says another senior priest who goes by the name Shuklaji. “Pilgrim centres are open to rich and poor alike. But today, the older dharamshalas, which provided clean and inexpensive lodging for visiting pilgrims, are being torn down and replaced with five-storey hotels that charge [up to] Rs 20,000 per night.”

Additionally, he is aware that no attention is being paid to the town’s vulnerability to subsidence. Instead, bulldozers — flown into Kedarnath on Chetak helicopters — work round the clock to level the land above the temple.

The redevelopment of Badrinath has also upset locals, the majority of whom are shopkeepers. Two years ago, a series of videos posted by Dinesh Chandra Dimri, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, revealed the extent of demolition around the Badrinath temple to create space for parks and parking lots. Why weren’t shopkeepers like him given prior notice? Why weren’t they let in on the master plan, instead of being bulldozed this way?

The excessive use of concrete is raising concerns that Badrinath may be going the Joshimath way. Dr S.P. Sati, geologist with the Ramchauri College of Forestry, warns that heavy machinery and extensive cutting of mountainsides accelerate subsidence. “Badrinath town is located on glacial moraine, which is loose and unsettled. The monsoon only serves to worsen the situation,” Sati said.

The excavations are drying up the natural springs and non-glacial rivers, which were a key source of drinking water. Social activist and Magsaysay award-winner Chandi Prasad Bhatt points out that the ‘beautification’ drive has dried up the ‘panch dharas (five streams)', which also hold tremendous religious significance.

The situation is no better in Gangotri. The main access road is cut off, and over a hundred people lost their lives in the recent catastrophe in Dharali and Harsil.

This June, environmentalists took up cudgels against the activation of a solid-waste incinerator installed inside the Gangotri National Park. The park is located near a glacier, and falls within the Bhagirathi Eco Sensitive Zone (BESZ). Set up under the Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme of the Union ministry of tourism at a cost of Rs 3.1 crore, it was meant to dispose of organic waste generated by the 800,000 pilgrims who visit Gangotri each year during the Char Dham Yatra.

Despite the catastrophic consequences of unabated tourism in the Char Dham circuit in Garhwal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi now wants to extend the same model to Kumaon. Its ancient sites, such as the Jageshwar temple complex near Almora, must apparently be developed as centres of tourism.

The BJP has been making a systematic effort to wrest control of Kumaon’s historically significant temples from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Two years ago, the Uttarakhand government announced the Manaskhand Mandir Mala Mission to develop 15 key temples in Almora.

Since Independence, the Bagnath, Bageshwar, Jageshwar, Suryadev and Nanda Devi temples have been under the care of the ASI. Built in CE 1450 by the Kumaon king Laxmi Chand, Bagnath has, according to the ASI, Sanskrit inscriptions that go back 2,500 years.

The duty to preserve these rare epigraphs seems to no longer lie with the ASI. The idols have been painted orange, and puja is performed on the premises.

The ASI had stipulated that no structure can come up within 200 metres of the monument. Will the masterplan for the Jageshwar temple complex adhere to that? What’s to stop the authorities from razing homes and taking away the land of those who live around these locations? The project, which is to be developed along the same lines as Kedarnath and Badrinath, has already been awarded to the same Ahmedabad-based firm.

The ministry of tourism claims, ‘In this new Bharat, tourism isn’t seasonal — it is civilizational. It is where darshan meets development, where pilgrimage meets progress, and where festivals meet infrastructure.’

The locals, who have had to bear the brunt of nature’s fury, can’t wait any longer for this ‘development’ nightmare to end.