Skip to main content

Religious Tourism?

 


Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the first phase of the Kashi Vishwanath corridor in Varanasi recently. A whopping Rs 900 crore was spent on the corridor which connects the classical temple with the Ganga river. The project is expected to promote religious tourism.

I have never been able to come to terms with the view of Modi and his party that religion should play a major role in the running of a nation. My view, for whatever it is worth, is that religion should have nothing to do with politics. Religion is a matter of the soul and it should remain there: with the individual souls. There can be temples and other places that may help people to stay in touch with their souls. But what is a Prime Minister of a country doing in a temple doing what a pujari should be doing?

For centuries now, eminent thinkers have questioned the validity of religion particularly in public life. Too many philosophers and writers have told us in no uncertain terms that a thinking person could be happy and moral without God or gods even in personal lives. But at the same time many of them – right from Cicero – also worried about what the average person would do and feel without religion.

If you have the ability to think clearly and properly, you won’t need religion. That’s what most of these great thinkers say. But some clear thinkers have accepted religion for the sake of going with the herd. If I am not mistaken, it was Dag Hammarskjold who said that it was “loyalty to the tribe” that took him to church on Sundays. Hammarskjold would not need religion for being ‘good’. He had an excellent brain to tell him why it was his duty to be ‘good.’ But for those who lacked such brains, he recommended religions which, in his words, should be “the guardians of the deepest beliefs and the loftiest dreams of man.” In simple words, religions should give human values and ideals and aspirations to people.

Values, ideals and aspirations. Not Kashi Viswanath corridors. Not statues of gods. Not temples and pilgrimage centres. Not the least, religious tourism.

In a country like India which is sliding rapidly down on all indices that matter – economy, GDP, public health and hygiene, education, employment, security – religious tourism is like a palliative drug given to people who are looking for basic things like food and shelter. What do shanti mantras mean for a starving man?



PS. This post is provoked by Indispire Edition 400: Should religious tourism be promoted anymore? #ReligiousTourism

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanDecember 22, 2021 at 9:40 PM

    Hari OM
    'My view, for whatever it is worth, is that religion should have nothing to do with politics. Religion is a matter of the soul and it should remain there: with the individual souls.'
    Hear! Hear! Absolutely everyone is equal to their own choice - but to press that choice upon others, particularly at national level, goes beyond the bounds... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 22, 2021 at 9:52 PM

      But the nation is pressing its views on me and a lot many others!

      Delete
  2. magiceyeDecember 23, 2021 at 6:18 AM

    Reminded me of what Khushwant SIngh had written... Religion like sex should be practiced in one's privacy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. जितेन्द्र माथुरDecember 23, 2021 at 2:42 PM

    Tourism is nothing but business and religious tourism is nothing but using religion for business. As far as the Indian premier is concerned, his business is power-linked politics only and he is (and has been) using religion for this business (of his) only. Mankind does not need any religion at all. Still people can practice religions as per their choice and faith but nobody should impose it on others or allow it to interfere with the mundane affairs. Common public interest should unarguably be separate from religion(s). Humanitarian values are above all religions, religious beliefs, religious books, religious symbols and religious persons (of real or imaginary nature).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 23, 2021 at 3:32 PM

      Yeah, religious tourism sounds like an oxymoron. It should be pilgrimage. But then we have a leader for whom even gods are meant to be monetized.

      Delete
  4. Dipak jadhavDecember 23, 2021 at 4:35 PM

    Agreed with your thoughts on this blog!! There is a tourism and there is a business and i loved to see both as a different perspectives and never wanna combine these what political parties now a days doing.
    How to Get Free Diamonds in Free Fire

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more