"People say you need to think out of the box, and so on. That's superficial advice. What you really need is to interact with people who see the world differently than you do, and take the time to occasionally see through their eyes." Bruce Kasanoff
Uttarakhand is a Himalayan State, located in close proximity to globally connected cities like New Delhi, Chandigarh and Amritsar, endowed with magnificent natural landscapes. Everyone, from the head of state to the local lout, recognise the fact that tourism could be one, perhaps if not the only, game changer in the State's gloomy economic scenario giving development the deep penetration into remote mountain villages that it desperately needs. And yet, like everything else in the State, the sector has stagnated due to sheer lack of imaginative thinking.
The State's Cabinet met recently in the Tehri dam reservoir, to make a declaration that the state will henceforth grant industry status to tourism. No doubt, this move will bring in some changes to the business, but unless the fundamentals are restructured, this will remain, like most other things, a mere addition to a list.
The significance of the declaration is not lost on any of the experts associated with the business for decades. Being seasoned operators, they will corner the benefits that accrue as a result of this development. But the challenge before the state is not to benefit the already established players in the tourism market. Of course, no harm done if their incomes are bolstered, but the primary task before governments should be to link remote village communities to the industry in a manner that does not impinge negatively on our vernacular architecture, ways of living and cultural ethos. Sadly, this aspect is completely missing from our plans and policies, and the promotion of the Tehri reservoir, promoted erroneously as a lake, is symptomatic of this malaise.
To begin with, any discerning visitor knows that the water body at Tehri is a water-impounded reservoir, created by the submergence of Tehri town, and not a lake. And it is a very sad looking water body at that, created by obstructing the flow of our most sacred natural site, Mother Ganga. In fact, upwards of Srinagar, on the main pilgrimage routes, the Ganga appears as a stagnant and putrefying river, thanks to several ill-conceived hydropower projects. Coming back to Tehri, there are very few natural features here that define mountain lakes. Moreover, facilities developed at the waterfront are woefully inadequate. Most visitors, who have ventured into the floating marina, as the tin and metal barge is euphemistically called, have either found it locked or inoperative. A large number of villages on the other end of the reservoir have been left stranded because of the 'lake' with no access to the mainland, and very few means of employment. The question is, why lure people into visiting a place with fancy pictures when after arriving they are bound to feel short-changedIJ Perhaps this is the true picture of most of the tourist 'destinations' developed in Uttarakhand, where huge investments are made into infrastructure without thinking of future implications.
Where are we going wrongIJ Perhaps the most obvious mistake is the astounding confusion between pilgrimage and tourism that prevails in the mind of state's planners. Pilgrims are essentially frugal spenders, travelling on shoestring budgets, making miniscule or no contribution to community economies. It is commonplace to see busloads of pilgrims squatting on the roadsides, cooking on their own gas stoves and callously leaving the place strewn with plastic waste once they are done with their meals.
Visitors that do not even spend at the dhabas are only adding to the statistics, not even contributing by staying in the chattis along the pilgrim routes, as they would drive in the nighttime to reach the next temple, avoiding expenses on as many night stays as possible. Consequently, all the chattis along the routes to the Char-Dhams lie in ruins today. This kind of tourism, conveniently passed of as religious tourism, is only adding to the pollution and waste disposal woes of the state, depleting its cultural resources, causing unending traffic snarls and road hazards, effectively keeping the high value tourist away from the state.
The building of all-weather roads on a mass scale will only further encourage such irresponsible and zero-value tourism, increasing traffic to our pilgrimage centres already creaking under the pressure of numbers of visitors, well beyond their carrying capacity.
Rather than have highways, funiculars, floating marinas, metros and such infrastructure, all in the pipeline at various destinations, the need of the hour is to promote slow and experiential visiting. Several surveys and tourism trends indicate that urban souls, the ones with ample purchasing power, increasingly travel to slow down the pace of their hectic and digitised lives. The one thing they want to escape from is infrastructure. Most trends show a sudden spurt in tourists looking for child-friendly ecologically sustainable activities. Such activities are a part of village life in the mountains. People want to participate in them as stress-busters. They would want to stay in homes that have a distinct character and eat food that is organic and unpackaged. They would want to walk through trails, experiencing the rhythms of community life while enjoying the sights of birds, moths, butterflies, trees and farmland. Instead, what we are offering them are hotels, resorts and wide roads!
Highways, large infrastructure projects and dams will only serve to enable visitors to quickly skip through villages in order to reach pilgrim sites and book an urgent darshan. Counter-intuitively, they will serve to bring mountain-dwellers to the cities, compounding the out-migration from mountain villages, already a huge menace in the State. People rushing to the Char-Dham in cars and buses do not contribute anything to the state, other than pollution and chaos. It is the prosperous ones, walking the mountain trails, passing through idyllic villages that make for community incomes that penetrate deep into the economy. Why then, should the state promote infrastructure for mass transport and hopitalityIJ The answer lies somewhere between intention and willingness.
(The writer is an anthropologist, author, traveler and activist who also runs a public walking group Been There, Doon ThatIJ)