Desicritics Comments on Putrid Pilgrimages in India

Comment by Ledzius

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:37:26 EDT

#8- the temple management is not the problem, the mindset of the people is. Unclean temples are only a symptom of a much larger malaise that pervades the Indian psyche.

Comment by ushnishas

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:30:25 EDT

we have been seeing this filth and dirt too long. The people entrusted with keeping our templees and monuments clean simply misuse the money allotted for this purpose, and allow things to come to such a bewildering impasse, that one hardly knows where to start clearing up. In Orissa piles of garbage are thirty feet high in the temple courtyards. Cockroaches crawl over the marble idols. At any rate, I feel cleanliness whould be popularised. Since television is now within the reach of most Indians, there should be entertaining short films showing popular film stars(such as Shahrukh Khan) washing his hands after using the toilet, throwing rubbish into the bin, asking people not to spit in publoic places, admonishing people not to carve names etc on monuments but taking their photograph for them, etc etc. Hong Kong has been clean many years now. There they are fined $500 for throwing rubbish on the road.

Comment by Sanjay G

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:45:05 EDT

Yes, thanks for the citations. The titles are a clear warning flag of places & mindsets to avoid.

Comment by Mark

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:09:29 EDT

Shantanu: Thanks for the citation to my piece, The Shit of the Saintly. For another, even more provocatively titled essay on the same subject, check out Varanasi: Shit-Hole of the Gods. The problem of the filth of India's holiest places is twofold. First, these places have insufficient infrastructure to accommodate the number of visitors. This is the joint responsibility of both local and state governments, and the center. The principal problem, though, lies with the outrageous selfishness with which Indians address all matters of public hygiene. My trash will become someone else's problem -- so I just throw it wherever I happen to be standing, even if that is a holy place. Over time the whole of the country has been defiled. Far from becoming outraged, the normally jingoistic, I-Love-My-India Indian has become inured to wading through filth in the streets and open spaces. The habit of abominable public hygiene -- quite ironic in a country for which obsessive rituals of personal hygiene are the norm -- is a learned behavior in India. Like one of those twins-separated-at-birth studies favored by behavioral psychologists to discover whether certain traits are the product of nurture or nature, I think the simple comparison between magnificent, spotless Lahore and squalid, filthy Amritsar (both also a holy cities, incidentally), facing each other a scant 60 km apart on either side of the imporous Wagah/Attari Border, gives ample evidence of this. If behavior is learned, that means it can be unlearned. That's the good news. Cheers, MBJ

Comment by Ayan Roy

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:23:16 EDT

In my view, it's not the places of pilgrimage themselves, but the PEOPLE who cause the litter, mess and the stench. There are plenty of clean and well maintained temples too, for example the Iscon and the Birla temples - but they have heavy private funding. It's an anthropological mystery - why are Indians, rich or poor, when in a crowd, so damn dirty? Whereas, in most countries and regions of the world, the people, even say the poor in sub-Saharan Africa, are much cleaner! Cleanliness and civic sense does not reside in the psyche of 95% Indians. Coming to religion, most Hindu rituals, as far as I know, place a lot of emphasis on purity, cleanliness, baths, etc. However, they also involve a lot of sticky liquids, incense, powders, bananas, coconuts, oils, ghee and hordes of other stuff, and no ritual prescribes a proper disposal and "after-ritual" cleaning process. Love and peace to all, Ayan

Comment by Sanjay G

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:01:02 EDT

I was in Rameswaram just a couple of years ago and did not experience anything like what the article claims. While I generally agree on the need for cleanliness, the author paints too extreme and one-sided a picture. Not to mention that the entire section on the Kumbha Mela smacks of small minded mean-spiritedness. Perhaps the biggest issue with the neutrality of the whole piece is that even publicly available information is ignored - that temples, their funds, management etc. are all under government control. Only a very small portion of the funds taken from temples are actually returned for the upkeep and maintenance of the temple, grounds etc.

Comment by Ledzius

Wed, 14 May 2008 03:12:27 EDT

Hinduism, unfortunately enough, goes hand in hand with filth. Most of Hindu religious ceremonies are filthy affairs compared to, say, Christian equivalents.

Comment by Deepa Krishnan

Tue, 13 May 2008 22:18:00 EDT

I couldn't agree more, Shantanu. I often get to see India through the eyes of overseas visitors - and the dirt and filth always make them gasp. t is not just the urban centres. Wherever there are humans, the place becomes one mass of reeking filth. I am just back from the lower Himalayas, and saw ultra-huge rubbish dumps killing entire swathes of trees on the slope and raising a big stink on the road. I went to Sri Lanka, a country similar to ours, and it was sparkling clean.

Comment by Kim

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:17:43 EDT

Interesting article Shantanu. I wonder the same myself, couldn't have put it as well as you have.