‘To keep faith alive, we need to be alive too’

The air at the Maha Kumbh Mela this year was thick with dust heat and the hum of a million prayers when Somalin Panda realised something was wrong The crowd around her restless after hours of waiting under the sun began to surge in all directions With routes closed for VIP passage for hours on end and no police or signage to guide the pilgrims the hordes broke out into inevitable mayhem ldquoPeople just started running some forward some backward and thatrsquos when the crush beganrdquo Panda recalls She could hear screams see slippers and shawls trampled into the mud and feel bodies pressing in from every side ldquoI thought I would die of suffocation even though it was an open spacerdquoSomalin Panda at Maha Kumbh MelaIt took her 12 hours to make it back to safety wading through heaps of abandoned clothes and shoes and an eerie silence in the aftermath of the stampede While the Kumbh Mela turned devotion into disarray for Panda elsewhere in India similar scenes of peril played out at various places of pilgrimage In Andhra Pradesh a temple stampede on November 1 killed nine devotees Just a day later in Rajasthan a minibus crash killed 15 pilgrims Such incidentsbring home the uncomfortable truth of just how poorly prepared the country is for spiritual tourism despite faith driving a lionrsquos share of domestic travel hereIndia saw roughly 143 crore domestic religioustourist visits in 2022 accounting for over 60 per cent of domestic travel according to a 2024 Travtalk report Yet infrastructure crowd control and safety planning lag dangerously behind At the same time costs are spiralling Hotels and transport are pricier donation expectations are higher and for many the only way to ldquocut the queuerdquo is by paying through their nose for helicopter rides or VIP access The act of devotion is increasingly bound up with both risk and expenseFor Sanjukta Banerjee her belief in Bappa came with the price tag of a 17hour wait The crowd at Parelrsquos Lalbaugcha Raja during Ganeshotsav this year reminded her of the chaos of Vaishno Devi or Haridwar only with more privilege than piety ldquoEvery few hours the darshan line would stop for VIPs and VVIPs Is my faith not as important as theirsrdquo she asks When her turn came she could only brush her hand against the idolrsquos feet before being pushed away by the bouncers In the face of privilege every crowd plan and fairness ideal dissolved into a disrespectful shoveHaving visited Kedarnath Badrinath and Sabarimala Arjun and Sarika Singh 51 and 42 years old respectively qualify as serial pilgrims Even they found devotion buried under dust and disorder ldquoThe pittuwale porters who carry pilgrims on their backs quote their own prices Therersquos no fixed rate mdash just a syndicate that charges as high as people will payrdquo Arjun says When their descent ended after a dayrsquos climb darkness and silence awaited them ldquono lights no benches no transportrdquo ldquoWe had to keep walking until we found a ride At our age that exhaustion breaks yourdquo says ArjunSanjukta Banerjee PICNITIN JADHAV right Sarika and Arjun SinghDespite the nearly Rs 1000 crore spent annually on temple and yatra management most sites remain unprepared where there is no crowd control no sanitation no plan for safety or return Sarika chimes in saying ldquoPublic washrooms are a mess but so is the public The lack of education shows I just prepare myself not to use them at allrdquo Yet when she finally saw the deity ldquoit felt like reaching heavenrdquo Sarikarsquos voice is a reminder of the fragile balance between worship and enduranceAcross Indiarsquos sacred circuits touts and agents sell ldquoVIP darshanrdquo or ldquoexclusive abhishekrdquo packages promising crowdfree access to the divine Often these turn out to be elaborate scams In temple towns like Tirupati and Haridwar police record dozens of FIRs each year against agents duping devotees with fake passesPanda recalls seeing this divide starkly at the Kumbh Mela ldquoVIPs were taken on chariots while we common pilgrims were stranded for hours Even during the stampede the routes the VIPs were passing by stayed closed for usrdquo she says ldquoI am never going there ever again It breaks your heart but to keep your faith alive you need to be alive as wellrdquo she says Arjun who has done multiple yatras calls it ldquoan unholy economyrdquoA content manager and travel blogger Amruta Tavhare loves pilgrimages but recalls how routes are often plagued with horses pushing youldquoTherersquos no uniform system Prices for porters horses darshans mdash everything fluctuates People will pay anything for a glimpse of Godrdquo he adds Sarika believes the desperation stems from faith itself ldquoYou wait for 10 hours get cheated get pushed around and yet one sight of the deity and you forget it allrdquo Between sanctity and scam Indiarsquos pilgrims keep walking wallets lighter and faith somehow intactFor Amruta Tavhare a content manager and travel blogger the road to Kedarnath was both breathtaking and bruising She recalls the ascent lined with restless horses their hooves clattering against stone ldquoThe path is so narrow that horses come from both directions They wonrsquot wait mdash theyrsquoll push past yourdquo she says Her husbandrsquos foot was trampled by one Riders have little control she adds because ldquothe owners walk far behind shouting commands no one can hearrdquoAt least nine people were killed in Andhra Pradeshrsquos temple stampede on November 1 PICPTIThe congestion inflated costs mdash Rs 100 for a bottle of water mdash and the endless queues might have broken a lesser pilgrimrsquos spirit Yet Tavhare remembers something else too ldquoEvery step felt like a testrdquo she says ldquobut once I saw the temple lights it was as if the pain vanishedrdquoDespite the chaos she insists shersquod return Perhaps that is the mystique of faith mdash its power to turn peril into peace exhaustion into a transcendence Every pilgrimrsquos story carries the same refrain of danger and devotion As yatras swell in number and intensity faith and onersquos belief system alone cannot bear the weight For a country where religion runs deeper than rivers itrsquos time for infrastructure and planning to rise in equal measureThe agencies of faithTravel operators like Nishant Badami who curates spiritual experiences for modern yatris say their mission is to bring order and comfort to an often chaotic system ldquoWe ensure clean rest stops reliable sanitation warmth and shelter when requiredrdquo she explains ldquoThe idea is to make the journey meaningful not distressingrdquoBadami calls it ldquocomfort layered into a difficult journeyrdquo mdash personal attention that large operators donrsquot offer Her company Ubuntu adjusts the pace of travel and customises rest and meditation stops Beyond convenience she stresses conscious travel ethics like fair pay for pony owners and porters responsible waste management and respect for fragile ecosystemsRavindra WankhedkarBut faithled tourism in India she argues still lacks institutional readiness ldquoWe need wellengineered access routes Wider walkways nonslip surfaces functional railings proper drainage and resting points every few hundred metresrdquo Badami says Her wishlist extends to medical infrastructure ldquonot just a single basecamp tent but multiple oxygen points and trained firstaid personnelrdquo and digital systems for safety and flow ldquoTimed entry slots realtime footfall tracking GPSenabled emergency response all of this India is capable of The tech already existsrdquoRavindra Wankhedkar a 64yearold banker who started his own travel agency echoes the same blend of devotion and pragmatism ldquoPilgrims today no longer want to suffer for 10 hours for a second of darshanrdquo he saysThrough his company Yogiraj Tours Wankhedkar specialises in catering to elderly yatris on long routes like Badrinath Kedarnath and the Char Dham circuit ldquoI carry a kitchen with merdquo he says with a laugh ldquoHome food matters more than yoursquod thinkrdquo But the journey itself he admits is riddled with logistical knots from surging crowds to what he calls ldquothe loud discriminationrdquo of VIP access ldquoIf you stop the lines for every VIP for two or three hours of course crowds build up and a stampede is waiting to happen What happened at Kumbh and Andhra is no surpriserdquo He implies the importance of the management to take accountability in such circumstances and act upon it to avoid future similar incidentsThen therersquos the helicopter problem ldquoLast year a return trip was Rs 12000 This year it starts at Rs 20000rdquo Wankhedkar says ldquoAnd even then you canrsquot rely on booking online unless you have an agent lsquosettingrsquordquo His caution deepened after the Kedarnath helicopter crash in June which killed six pilgrims and a pilot ldquoPeople think itrsquos a shortcut to your destination But at those altitudes nothing is guaranteedrdquoTalks of a ropeway to Kedarnath meant to ease congestion remain just that mdash talks Construction crawls while demand grows ldquoFaith keeps the yatras aliverdquo Wankhedkar sighs ldquoBut systems have to catch up before faith alone runs out of breathrdquo