Why tourism needs to be responsible, dignified
As pilgrimage and tourism overlap and the burgeoning middle class mixes these two distinct ways of travel, the incessant human activity is becoming increasingly problematic for the fragile ecosystem and the local communities’ age-old ways of living. The impact is being more acutely felt in the hill regions as the pollution of rivers and water bodies as well as heaps of garbage, especially plastic material, threaten to change the environments of sacred places and pilgrimage centres.
The Ganga is among the 10 most polluted rivers of the world, and if Pokhra lake in Nepal is still in a somewhat clean condition, it is because of better management. The Chinese managers of Kailas Mansarovar region, in fact, had started giving buckets to Indian pilgrims for taking out water from the lake and bathe outside as they left rubbish, hair, coconuts and clothes on the banks of Mansarovar.
Shimla, Mussoorie, Nainital and Darjeeling are no more well managed, clean hill stations.
Travelling is essentially going out of home to a specific destination. It becomes pilgrimage when one visits shrines and sacred places — be it mountains, rivers or lakes. It is termed tourism when you travel to different land-river-desert or seascapes, cities and hill stations. It is trekking or mountaineering when you travel in high lands or climb mountains. The traveller has different things in mind while heading to an area.
Experiencing facets of religious faith, spiritualism, learning and continuing the family/community traditions are all associated with pilgrimage. It is also the old method of communicating with wilderness. Tourism, on the other hand, is travelling for pleasure, entertainment, leisure and exploring new places. It now has many avatars as eco, cultural and community-based tourism. Trekking is becoming more fashionable among young people, but mountaineering is a pre-organised activity. You must have certain training and expertise.
Tourism in the Himalaya covers all these aspects of travel. Pilgrimage is the most ancient activity of humans and with the advent of institutionalised religions, some of the sacred places became pilgrimage centres. Kailas, Kedarnath, Muktinath, Charar-i-Sharif, Mani Mahesh, Tabo, Amarnath, Vaishno Devi, Hemkund Sahib, Piran Kaliyar, Parshuram Kund, Tawang, Kamakhya, etc, have great religious appeal. The methods of pilgrimage are clearly defined. It has no place for luxury. The devotees are rigid and follow a certain defined way.
As tourism aims at entertainment, luxury, rest and adventure, it encroaches into pilgrimage and trekking. Tourists want comfort and spend more money. They go to the shrines in the same spirit and often times break the unwritten rules of pilgrimage.
It was hoped that the best elements of pilgrimage will be adopted by modern tourism — especially in the Himalaya and other wild places — but tourism has spoiled many aspects of pilgrimage by introducing the consumptive ways of travel and stay.
In the sixth Askot Arakot Abhiyan in May-July 2024, we found rubbish, plastic, bottles, clothes, etc, in Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines. The increasing number of tourists in the sacred places has multiplied the waste material there. It reduces a sacred place into a less attractive point. The large number of high-speed cars, too, creates difficulties for pilgrims. Those on foot feel unsafe on the roads. No one is thinking about the increasing carbon footprint in the atmosphere, which is impacting the environment with rising temperatures. Remember how the heavy rains (400+ mm in 24 hours) that occurred on June 16-17, 2013 (in far-western Nepal, Uttarakhand and Kinnaur) flooded large areas; destroying hydro projects, roads, buildings; washing away bridges and killing hundreds of travellers, pilgrims and labourers. Scientists say that rains reached Kedarnath and even Chorbarital, where only hailstorms or snow was experienced earlier.
Such occurrences are linked to increasing temperatures in Mandakini valley, where helicopters of many companies are allowed to fly from different destinations to Kedarnath. The area falls under the Kedarnath wildlife sanctuary. The wildlife is continuously disturbed, as are the students in schools. During the pilgrim season, a helicopter flies in or out and a vehicle passes the road every 10 minutes. Sound-proof school buildings are a dream! Has anyone thought about the villagers?
The aesthetical, spiritual and educational aspects of pilgrimage are directly impacted. The main idea of pilgrimage is not just walking or travelling to a certain destination, but also to interact with the local communities while searching for the origin of the Ganga and its sisters, visiting the Char Dhams and Hemkund Sahib, walking to the mountains associated with mythology or trekking to a bugyal (Alpine pasture), a pristine lake or a high pass. Pilgrimage humanises us and it can make us more spiritual than religious.
In the Himalaya, community-based tourism developed on local resources, food and folk culture can be the middle path of the hospitality business. This gives the traveller a chance to interact with nature and culture.
Museums, cultural institutions, maps, literature, folk expressions, handicrafts, films help us in linking the hosts (local community and their environment) with guests (pilgrims and tourists). Himalaya is 0.3 per cent of planet earth but represents 10 per cent biodiversity of the globe. Apart from biodiversity, it has socio-cultural and religious diversity. It still has pastoral, agrarian and trading ways of the economy. Marking their presence are rock shelters, archaeological remains, temples, monasteries, mosques, gurdwaras and churches to forts, royal and residential buildings belonging to the most ancient ways of constructions, to Gothic, native-Gothic and modern architectures.
Today’s need is to retain the major elements of pilgrimage and save tourism from vulgarity and ugliness. True tourism is dignified and decentralised. If we are compelled to introduce corporate tourism in the Himalaya, we should also cultivate the wisdom to retain and develop community-based tourism. As tourism is a major economic activity worldwide, we have to make it sustainable and responsible together.
— The writer is an environmentalist based in Nainital
