Bringing the North East onto India’s Buddhist Map

The North East holds one of India’s most compelling untold stories in Buddhist tourism — if only pilgrims could reach it. Every year, nearly three lakh Indian pilgrims travel to Lumbini in Nepal — to walk in the footsteps of the Buddha, to light incense, to sit in silence. They cross a border to do something India has not yet made easy to do at home. Meanwhile, a few hours’ flight away, in the hills of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, ancient monasteries sit above the clouds, their prayer flags snapping in the wind, largely unseen by the world.

This is the paradox at the heart of India’s Buddhist tourism story. The country that gave Buddhism to the world — where Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, delivered his first sermon at Sarnath, and passed away at Kushinagar — has not yet connected its eastern Himalayan inheritance to that sacred map. The Finance Minister’s announcement in the Union Budget this February, proposing a Buddhist Circuit for the North East spanning six states, is a chance to finally do that — but only if it is done right. The North East is not a footnote to India’s Buddhist heritage. It is a living chapter. Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh, one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in Asia, has been a centre of Mahayana learning for centuries. The Golden Pagoda near the Myanmar border is among the most striking religious structures in the country. Pemayangtse in Sikkim and Mahamuni Pagoda in Tripura - these are not ruins or museum pieces. They have ritual calendars, resident monks, and festivals that draw local communities across generations. Tourism here would not just be sightseeing; it would be participation in something still alive.

Nepal’s experience is instructive — and cautionary. After it launched a national policy to develop Lumbini as a world-class pilgrimage destination in 2020, visitor numbers climbed steadily, recovering from the pandemic and surpassing earlier records by 2024. Of the 3.9 lakh visitors to Lumbini that year, the vast majority were Indian. Chinese visitors rose nearly five-fold over the same period. The lesson is clear: faith-based travel from Asia is a large and growing market. But Nepal’s experience also shows that footfall alone does not create local prosperity. Keeping visitors longer, spreading them beyond a single site, and translating arrivals into jobs remain hard problems. The North East would do well to study Nepal’s stumbles, not just its successes.

The proposed circuit also has genuine strategic logic. India’s Act East policy has long sought deeper ties with Southeast Asian nations — countries where Buddhism is not a historical curiosity but a living faith. Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and Sri Lanka are precisely the markets that the Kushinagar international airport is being built to attract. A North East circuit, connected to the existing pilgrim trail across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, would extend India’s spiritual geography eastward — and open a culturally resonant conversation with neighbours that no trade agreement alone can achieve. None of this will happen by announcing the circuit alone. Three obstacles have historically hobbled tourism in this region, and the scheme must confront them directly. First, distances between sites are large and roads are often poor — a pilgrim cannot easily travel from Tawang to Tripura in any reasonable time. Second, many of the most significant sites sit near international borders, where travel permits for foreign visitors can be cumbersome and unclear. A Japanese Buddhist scholar who wants to spend a month in Arunachal Pradesh should not have to navigate a labyrinth of overlapping regulations. Third, air and rail links are limited. Without reliable connections, the “circuit” risks becoming a scattered collection of hard-to-reach points rather than a coherent journey.

A well-designed circuit would do three things. It would build the physical connections — roads, regional air routes, and rest stops — that turn a map into a walkable path. It would simplify travel rules for pilgrims on defined routes, in coordination with the Home Ministry and state governments. And it would anchor development in local communities, ensuring that the monasteries themselves, and the villages around them, are stewards of the experience rather than backdrops to it. Tourism that does not benefit local people does not last.

India still lacks a unified national policy linking Buddhist tourism circuits in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with those in Odisha, Maharashtra and the North East. A single coordinating framework could integrate preservation, visitor experience and market development nationwide. Other pilgrim economies, from Saudi Arabia to Japan, already follow such models. With serious investment, easier access and community-centred planning, the North East can become one of the most memorable chapters of India's Buddhist trail. Pilgrims are already travelling; the real question is whether India is ready to welcome them.

Urvashi Prasad is Senior Fellow, Pahle India Foundation and Lalkholen Kipgen is Senior Research Associate, Pahle India Foundation; views are personal