First of a four-part series
VARANASI: In the mind of India, Varanasi or Kashi is an ancient space suspended in an unbroken continuum, not a project under construction. Its life is in the cultural imagination, entwined with centuries-old personal socio-religious histories—cycles of birth and death—embedded far more deep than Ayodhya. The locals breathe this air too. Real antiquity is a historical detour when you keep encountering the refrain: Paanch hazaar saal purana sheher. Navigating between those ‘five thousand years’ and the five-year cycles of modern democracy is, then, the peculiar fortune of Kashi.
It’s 2024, and elections to the 18th Lok Sabha are approaching. A different kind of continuity unfolds here too, of course—a prime minister is going for his third win. A sense of assuredness spreads up from the ghats, as it were, which stand like watchful sentinels of a lived experience. Lifted up into the city proper, you are thrown headlong into a bustling desi lifescape in all its contemporary variety. Here, what you find is continuity in conversation with change at many talkative streetcorners.
Antiquity aside, various modern ages seem to coexist here. Baba Vishwanath’s temple has an expansive, spanking new, 21st century corridor. Its high walls, with stone cut in rectangular patterns, also strangely remind you of Soviet architecture. The Banaras Hindu University exudes a century old Indo-Gothic charm. The Gyanvapi mosque’s 17th century architecture, of course, is often the subject of front-page headlines. Negotiating its place under the scorching sun, caught between Hindutva and high-rises, Varanasi balances itself between an old-world raison d’être and a newfound VIP-ism, like a trapeze artist.
It’s an uneasy cohabitation. The new tourism boom has steadily encroached upon the old spiritual ambience, which is slowly fading away. Just like a lot of old India. In a 15-minute walk up from Dashaswamedh ghat alone, about 300 new guesthouses have come up to cater to the new rush of religious tourists—a good number of young among them—from Pune, Rajkot, Meerut, Coimbatore, even Seoul. Evening time, they settle on plastic chairs to witness a Ganga aarti through bulb-lit bamboo arches. This new spirituality is not quiet: mantras, bhajans and then the Maha Tandav Aarti ring out from modern music systems.
Kashi’s bargain between the ancient and the modern
Even the cool wind from the river seems to hold its breath till it’s over.
At the Pappu ki Adi tea stall, where even PM Modi once stopped by for a sip of its famous lemon tea, the hoi polloi brushes shoulders with professors from BHU, the odd poet, or locally hand-crafted intellectuals. The politics of the day is inescapable, though the city seems slightly disengaged from all the hullah on TV channels. Things are strangely cool. Perhaps we catch the fever at its onset—Varanasi votes only on June 1, in the seventh phase. But there’s no sign of a wave or a narrative to get that lemon tea boiling over. Politics seems cast in a repeating pattern of high rectangular stone: Aayega toh Modi hi.
Nothing much is left to conjecture—the question, if any, is only about margins of victory. How many votes will Modi pull in. Will it be 10 lakh this time? Turnouts in the west of the state have been tepid. For the party, Varanasi must stand out. Amit Shah, on a recent stopover, did only ‘worker connect’—in other words, orange alert. Nonetheless, the constituents do speculate about the margin. Will Ajai Rai—state Congress chief, local toughie and veteran of many a Lok Sabha joust—lose his deposit or put up a real challenge? Very few believe there could be a downward trend for Modi. Broad-spectrum development has been, and is being, delivered as never before—roads, bridges, bypasses and yes, the imposing temple corridor (better caught with evening lighting).
Only an odd voice, a young IT professional at that, laments: “Yes, but at what cost? They say you can reach the airport in 20 minutes now. What’s the need to reach so fast? That speed has come at the cost of 3,000 trees. That denudation means a population breathing toxic air. Won’t that ultimately prove costlier? There’s no serious Opposition to raise these vital questions.”
Most of Varanasi is thrilled with the boom, though. Says Samir Mathur, whose tourist bureau takes in both local and international traffic: “The visa regime is still quite restrictive, so my foreign business is still down, not recovered from Covid. But look at the domestic flow! Modiji was right, apne desh ke taraf dekho (think local). The economy here is booming.” He has little patience for other topics in circulation, like any rumoured revamp of the Constitution. “Wasn’t the first amendment done by Nehru?” he counters. Retired bank officer R N Singh nods in agreement: “Modi has done real development here. Better infrastructure is still coming up.” Says one-time industrialist and culture aficionado Ashok Kapoor: “It’s the unofficial spiritual capital of India. Here faith has been successfully channelised to fuel a hospitality boom.”
At the popular Pahalwan lassi shop, a glorified kiosk really, not much has changed. The lassi and the rabri in earthen kulhars can be better enjoyed if you don’t look downwards at the wet squalor. Business is brisk at this row of small eateries, even if traffic screeches past and autos and rickshaws threaten to run you down. This is no Singapore-style Little India or Kampong Glam, where the Oriental is preserved in full glory amidst workable modern aesthetics. At least not yet. Varanasi is still as screamingly chaotic—crying for civic attention—as the rest of desi India. Only, traditional Kashi has been replaced by a breathless bustle, from the ghats to the city. The drive to the calm of the cantonment, where everything from the roads to the trees are maintained as they should be, makes the contrast starker.
A few complaints float gingerly in the air, like uncertain whispers. Too many tourists. Things becoming too expensive. The compensation for those relocated to make way for the corridor still not evenly distributed. But “there’s no challenge to Modi”. The demographics makes Varanasi a safe seat for the BJP: 6.5 lakh savarna, 6 lakh OBC, 1 lakh Dalit. The latter two, not immune to the charms of Hindutva. Even if Rai corners the 3 lakh Muslim votes in entirety and a sprinkling of his own Bhumihar Brahmins, and despite talk of core vote subsidence, the odds are too long.
No wonder Priyanka Gandhi never bothered to respond to Mamata Banerjee’s suggestion to contest from here. In fact, Rai himself was rumoured to be trying to switch camp to BJP, till the evening before his name was announced, making it all the more tricky for him. Even a former NSUI voice like Ratnakar Tripathi is modest in ambition: “Modi will win, but ‘400 paar’ is a distant dream. Unemployment, price rise, Agniveer, electoral bonds and a non-consultative way of functioning…these are being talked about. Thoda mohbhang hua hai (there’s a touch of disenchantment).” Whether in praise or critique, no one talks about the BJP or CM Yogi Adityanath here. It’s only Modi. Even though Yogi apparently monitors Varanasi through weekly visits.
Amidst the boom, a silent sadness hovers around the dying art of the Banarasi saree. “Powerlooms have come up and there’s little support for our traditional weavers. As a country we care little for our heritage—only a few still have the skill to weave that legendary saree,” says Abhishek Sharma, a policeman whose duty includes taking VIPs tourists around the temple. He can reel out everything about Varanasi, right up to the nuances of Aurangzeb’s deeds, as he manoeuvres through the quagmire of bylanes.
Unsaid words also flow quietly past you in a city that’s like a stream of consciousness—a city defined by a river like none else. A city where Bismillah Khan’s shehnai will never be heard in the fresh morning air again, but where Liaquat Ali still sells flowers that can be offered to Baba Vishwanath for his blessings.