Land of Lime

Do we need a ropeway in Tirupati and Sravanabelagola, to reach the top of the hill and perform worship?

For over twenty years now, a debate has been raging over constructing a ropeway to reach India’s richest temple, but objections have been raised from many quarters, including neighboring villagers and Tirupati priests. A. Devarajan summarised the controversy in The Hindu last month. This project has now been revived after the new Congress government came to power. The State tourism department also wants to maximize the tourism potential of Tirupati, by building what could only be described as an entertainment complex.

M. Somasekhar has another report in the Businessline on the proposed ropeway and its execution. A consortium led by Balaji Tourism in which Austrian major ropeway building company, Dopple Mayr has 26 per cent equity, will build the project on a build, operate and transfer basis (BOT).

In light of the objections, let me pose a Gandhian question: how should a pilgrm get to a place of worship? Gandhi, if you recall from Hind Swaraj, makes the case for walking everywhere. His specific examples refer to pilgrimages to Kashi, which in the old days could only be reached by foot; hence a pilgrimage to Kashi (or any other place for that matter) couldn’t be done easily and in a hurry. In fact, Gandhi was critical of railway travel (and the speed it represented) not only for pilgrimages but also for regular commute. He insisted to those who lived with him in his South African ashrams (Phoenix and Tolstoy farms) that they should walk to the nearby cities such as Johannesburg, especially if the travel was for pleasure.

Should pilgrims quickly ascend the hill, and enjoy the panaromic view of the hills, as they climb up? Is their time so precious that they can not even afford to walk a few miles to reach the temple? Does the ropeway make the flow of tourist traffic anymore efficient?

Let us consider other obejctions raised by various people. The priests themselves were opposed this saying devotees in the ropeway would be at a greater height than the diety and the temple. Further, they objected to the misuse and abuse of airspace over the temple citing sastric references. As Devarajan noted:

“The pundits quoting verses argue how any interference into the holy airspace on the hills by human elements would be a sacrilege on the plea that the space is all the time used by the celestial bodies for their movement on the Lord’s abode.”

This, even for an agnostic, is a strong argument. I don’t know whether there are celestial bodies and whether we impede their movements through our movements but the spirit behind the argument asks us to respect the space and environment of Tirumala hills. Shouldn’t we also not be slaves to our comfort and desire for speed but use temples and sacred spaces to restrain ourselves in at least such settings.

In Sravanabelagola, where in less than two weeks hundreds of thousands will assemble for the mahamastakabhisheka ritual (I will do a posting on this next week), there have been persistent demands from the Jain monks to build a ropeway. My friend Ravi Gundurao has many stories to share on this controversy but the issues here are similar. The Karnataka state government too seems to share the enthusiasm of Jain monks but the fly in the soup here is the Archaelogical Survey of India. Stories of contracts given to senior bureaucrats and intimidating phone calls to ASI officers have been doing the rounds but again let us ask ourselves: do we need a ropeway to climb up 600 steps? As efficient as a ropeway is and however helpful it is to maximise tourism potential, are there efficient alternatives? Is the heritage value of the site any consideration here at all?

More than anything else, should we be in a hurry when we seek to meet gods? Should we be concerned about our comfort and convenience in the presence of gods?

Let us talk about pilgrimages, of all variety. Actually, this is an excuse to talk about our conduct too.