- By Ashee Sharma
The living architecture has turned into a cheap spectacle, with rivers, sands and stories buried
under concrete.
2025.04.08 (Vrindavan Today News): Urbanist Richard Florida’s concept of the ‘Creative City’ was hailed for reviving many struggling cities globally. Over the past 20 years, several cities have used creativity and culture as tools to compete for investments and revenue generation in the new economy. ‘City Rebranding’ around mega-events, tourism, tangible and intangible heritage, therefore, became an imperative for any city choosing to pivot on its cultural or creative potential. In her book, Lucknow: Culture, Place, Branding and Activism, urban sociologist Dr. Binti Singh calls
it a ‘neoliberal compulsion’. While the west was growing wary of Florida’s view, post-2014 India took to it with great enthusiasm, positioning it as a sort of ‘national cultural awakening’.
Today, religious tourism accounts for over 60 per cent of domestic travel in India, thanks to government
schemes such as HRIDAY, PRASAD, Swadesh Darshan, Smart Cities Mission, and temple corridors. State
governments are handsomely rewarding digital influencers to promote their city and state. A fact conveniently ignored in this conundrum was that culture in India is inextricably linked to the conscious.
Ancient temple towns in India were imagined and designed to facilitate constant remembrance of divinity. The 16th century Vrindavan, discovered by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the saints after him, had the Yamuna and its sands, the hills of Govardhan, and the sacred groves recounting the lilas – divine pastimes of Krishna – to those who ventured into the forested landscape. As the town gained recognition among the kings and royals, more sophistication and complexity was added to this elemental architecture with grand temples. Rich merchants brought another wave of accessibility with their generous contributions in the form of dharamshalas, ghats, and other public spaces. Exigencies of the medieval age gave rise to new and more cryptic forms of architecture to keep the meaningful aesthetics alive.
Commercial interests and urban aspirations have been at odds with the town’s spirit and its visual character in modern times, setting the stage for cultural and environmental activism which took root in the late 90’s. Over the years, activists have mitigated several attempts by successive governments to commodify Vrindavan’s heritage purely for economic gains, without any regard for its conservation. While these organic challenges were easier to recognize and tackle, the inorganic obsession with putting Vrindavan on the tourism map has led to its inevitable commodification and the erosion of its identity. The temple town is on the State Smart City list, awaiting the INR 150cr Corridor and more tourists.
Unlike Kashi Vishwanath and Ujjain Mahakaal Corridors, Vrindavan is a special case of city rebranding, in the sense, there’s no particular religious structure defining its identity. Over the years, different sects have enjoyed popularity in the town, either simultaneously or in succession. In August 2022, a narrative was created around the Banke Bihari temple stampede to announce the preplanned Corridor, ostentatiously named as ‘banke bihari corridor’. The move angered locals and activists for trying to alter the character of Vrindavan with a contrived identity thrust at it and for potentially exacerbating conditions in the city already reeling under the adverse effects of unwarranted development and rampant tourism. These voices were predictably silenced by media narratives hailing the corridor for its economic benefits.
Social media acted like a double-edged sword, creating awareness on these issues on one hand and luring heedless tourists with the proposition of great selfie and Instagram reel points. Vrindavan has had the privilege of being represented on the global stage by stalwart brand ambassadors like Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Ravi Shankar, and A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada whose teachings inspired the art of iconic bands like The Beatles and Kula Shaker, and renowned Australian photographer Robyn Beeche. Today, even as hundreds of temple artists struggle for livelihood, the ‘Bollywoodization’ of heritage with light and sound shows, movie songs referencing Krishna, and performances by film celebrities, makes little sense.
The connecting Heritage City with new temples, luxury hotels and fine-dining restaurants coming up in
neighbouring Raya village is a labored attempt at placemaking in the face of numerous heritage structures that were lost to urbanization, along with the spatial practices and stories attached to them. The Vrindavan Parikrama Marg which used to be dotted by sustainably built heritage structures, sacred groves, fruit orchards and sandy shores, is unrecognizable as the ‘ring road’ today.
The corridor will replace many ‘Kunj Galis’ – the defining motifs of Vrindavan that are revered as embodiments of divine pastimes. Man-animal and conflicts between locals and tourists are brewing. Environmental degradation is silently hurting the religious economy of the town by severing nature-culture linkages that form the basis of almost every tradition, thereby defying the very purpose behind this plunder in the name of tourism. Public spaces have been usurped by corporations, real-estate and the government, for whom tourism is only about making heritage accessible with more toilets and parking. Unfortunately the preservation of that same heritage is not/has never been on the agenda.
What message, if any, does the new culturally and architecturally ‘Macdonalized’ Vrindavan give? Is such
rebranding a sustainable economic solution, or is it mere window dressing intended to reorient the town for more capitalist consumption? How does this exercise seek to define culture without its people and stories?
What remains of the living heritage when it is communicated and marketed as a lifeless product? Tourists are neither pilgrims nor do they count among those who carry Vrindavan and Braj in their hearts irrespective of where they are. They only seek adventure, thrill, and novel experiences. Who takes responsibility for this wreckage when the spectacle is over?
