Modi’s Varanasi on the boil: Unmaking of the holy city     

The holy city is well on its way to resemble Kyoto in Japan. Or that is what was promised in 2014 when Narendra Modi won the election to the Lok Sabha from here. The city since then has drawn both Indian and international leaders in droves. The Prime Minister’s constituency has received extraordinary attention from planners and bureaucrats and both public and private investment have poured in, making the old, holy city one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

The flip side is that Varanasi is today also one of the most polluted cities in the world. In the list of the world’s most polluted cities released by the World Health organisation in May, as many as 14 Indian cities were included. While Kanpur figured as the most polluted, Faridabad and Varanasi ranked second and third were close behind.

While the ranking was all about ambient air quality, it’s not as if the water quality in Varanasi is any better. In 2014 Narendra Modi declared emotionally that he had been called by the holy river to the holy city. Four years later both their holinesses are having a rough time.

Lack of oxygen in the river recently led to schools of dead fish rise to the surface of the water. The water level in the river has receded to an all-time low with sand dunes becoming visible as early as March itself. While the Government has been planning to promote inland shipping in the river, even country boats this year are finding it difficult to navigate in the river.

In recent years the river would be full only during the rains or during the festival of Kumbh, when water would be released from Tehri dam. But nothing has succeeded in making the river clean. When the French President Macron came calling, billboards with portraits of the two Prime Ministers were used to block the view of the sand dunes. Chief of the Sankatmochan Foundation Professor Vishwambarnath Mishra, who teaches at IIT, BHU, is candid in confessing that efforts by the government to clean the river has been insufficient so far. Despite BJP-run Governments in Delhi, Lucknow and Dehradun, he laments, the river is dying a slow death.

To be fair, frequent visits to Varanasi by the Prime Minister in the initial months did provide a momentum to development work. People hoped that Uttar Pradesh would rediscover the momentum it had lost since the demise of Pandit Kamalapati Tripathy as chief minister. The Prime Minister himself launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan from the Assi Ghat and there was unprecedented enthusiasm.

But the programme is already gasping after four years. It was also with equally great fanfare that the PM had launched his grand vision of ‘Sangsad Gram Yojana’ under which each Member of Parliament was to adopt a village every year and transform it into model villages. The PM himself adopted three villages in Varanasi, one after the other. But four years later, it is safe to say that the programme never quite took off. Even the PM’s own adopted village, Jayapur, failed to live up to initial expectations. The programme is now tied in bureaucratic red tape and there is little to distinguish the project from other government schemes.

No consent, consultation or compensation

Old-timers recall that a decade and a half ago land was acquired on the outskirts of Varanasi at Mohansarai for setting up a transport hub (Transport Nagar). Land was forcibly acquired from 1,194 farmers without consent or consultation. Farmers in fact claim that no compensation was paid to them either. The dispossessed farmers since then have been demanding their land back but despite the support of political parties from time to time, the issue remains alive and unresolved.

Former Union minister Jitin Prasada called on the agitating farmers in May and assured them of the party’s support. The development followed a meeting a delegation of farmers led by Binayshankar Rai and Shweta Rai had with Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

The Land Acquisition Act of 2013 lays down the clear provision that if projects for which land is acquired do not take off within five years of such acquisition, the land would be returned to the land holders. Farmers have also approached the court for relief and the support pledged by the Congress has lent an edge to the agitation.

No questions asked

Varanasi being the Prime Minister’s constituency, few questions are being raised over the justification, cost effectiveness, utility and quality of various schemes undertaken at breakneck speed. Even the demolition of ancient temples for projects like Vishwanath Corridor or Ganga Pathway has not triggered any protest by political parties.

Everything being undertaken in Varanasi after 2014 is attributed to the Prime Minister. One glaring example is the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), work on which began when Mayawati was the chief minister. But the project was stalled following opposition by the Samajwadi Party. When the SP Government came to power in 2012, it shifted the location of the plant to Bawanbigha.

This time it was the BJP which protested because there was a Gaushala in the vicinity, said to have been set up by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya. Once again, the project got stalled.

After 2014, the scheme approved by Mayawati became the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Preparations started to set up the plant in Bawanbigha itself, notwithstanding the earlier opposition by the BJP itself. But a section of the BJP this time flagged the scheme. A spokesman of the disgruntled group Rupesh Pandey wonders how the project which was opposed by the entire Sangh Parivar in 2013 can now be legitimised just because Varanasi is the PM’s constituency. The objections were brushed aside by branding the disgruntled elements led by Govindacharya as being against Modi and Development.

Observers also point out that there is nothing new or novel about the ‘Ganga Pathway’ project either. The project was mooted 15 years ago but is now being implemented as part of the PM’s vision. Since the project involves the demolition of scores of ancient temples, and houses along with them, the move is being contested. The demolition, say concerned citizens, is an attack on Varanasi’s heritage. The state government and the administrators have predictably brushed aside objections and dubbed critics as busybodies opposed to, well, development.

Demolition for development

The scheme envisages demolition of houses and temples to widen the approach to the holy river. But is demolition necessary for development, asks Rajnath Tiwary, president of the committee to protect heritage (Dharohar Bachao Samiti). Krishna Kumar Sharma, an old RSS hand, is shocked over a BJP government bent upon displacing people like him.

“We could never imagine that a political party which swears by religion and ancient culture will take the initiative to demolish ancient temples even as the administration is unable to produce a blueprint.” Sharma is convinced that the Government is hiding something from the people about its plans.

The agitation against Varanasi’s ‘development’ received a fillip in May when Swami Avimukteshwaranand, a disciple of Shankaracharya Swarupanand Saraswati, undertook a barefoot door-to-door campaign to save the ancient city from ‘development’.

The death of 18 people when parts of an under-construction flyover collapsed and fell on them near the Cantonment Railway Station may have slowed the pace of work. But there is pressure on officials to complete all development works before the next general election so as to showcase a brand, new Varanasi.

Collateral damage by way of sacrificing temples and people are only to be expected, quips Ballabh Pandey, a social activist in Varanasi.