By Divya Arora
In Varanasi, the holiest of Indian cities, religion is commerce. Its ancient riverside temples attract both the devout and the curious, making it a business center for international’ trade and tourism.
Profits of over Rs 7.5 billion are garnered annually in Varanasi’s silk and carpet, leather and crafts trades and its hotel industry.
But since December 6, there has been a slump. Varanasi’s sizeable trading community fears that if business does not pick up fast, many of them may be forced to close shop.
The city normally attracts 1, 00,000 foreign tourists every year and over a million Indian pilgrims. Between visits to temples and holy places, visitors avidly shop for the silks, carpets and handicrafts the city is famous for, Varanasi is a place of incredible contrasts. Riches and rags live cheek by jowl, and beggars, touts, priests or drug pushers accost you on every street. Bolts of shimmering silk and glittering brocade catch the eye as you pass through crowded lanes crammed with little shops. Moumers in funeral white, widows with shaven heads, tour guides with handfuls of brochures are all a part of Varanasi’s incredible street life, as is the gawking Western tourist, camera in hand. But suddenly the latter has vanished.
The question hoteliers, traders, shopkeepers and even the rickshaw puller plying his trade through the zigzag of bustling bylines is asking today is, where have all the tourists gone? Hotels are empty and shops overflowing with unsold goods.
Reports of communal tension have scared off both tourists and pilgrims. After all it was from Varanasi that Mr L. K. Advani launched the anti Babri Masjid campaign three months ago. Varanasi and Mathura are next on the communalists’ agenda.
Varanasi’s Vishwanath temple, originally built in 1600 A.D., was pulled down by the Mughal king Aurangzeb, who was angered by the patronage given to it by Dara Shikoh, The Gyan Vapi mosque was built over it. In 1776 A.D. Rant Ahalyabai Holkar of Indore rebuilt the Vishwanath temple, next to the mosque. In 1835 Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab donated the solid gold plating of the temple towers.
Today the controversial mosque and temple sit side by side, the temple towers flashing golden in the sunlight and the mosque’s minarets gleaming soft silver. Both attract the devout of different faiths in large numbers. In these tense times the possibility of a Clash is ever present the majority of the city’s population is Hindu but Muslims forma sizeable 20% of residents,
A week after the demolition at Ayodhya, the situation nearly reached flashpoint, as large numbers of Muslims collected for the Friday prayers at the mosque. Three days later, 50,000 Hindus turned out for prayers at the temple barely 100 meters away.
Afraid that the city may go up in flames, the powerful traders’ lobby intervened. The traders, who are 70% Hindu and the rest Muslim, do not want to see violence erupt in their own backyard specially since business interests are inextricably linked, While the majority of traders are Hindu, the 400,000 looms in the city and its suburbs are worked by Muslim weavers
A waders’ body, the Varanasi Vastra Udyog, put advertisements in the local papers dissociating themselves from the controversy. Mayor Swalch Ansari, a Muslim who owns a successful silk business, supported the move. Joint action by influential members of both communities ensured that there was no flare-up.
Rajinder Goenka, president of the Kashi Vyapar Pratinidhi Mandal which is the apex body of 67, industrial and trade associations, says bitterly “During the last two months, we have incurred losses of over Rs 100 crore. Tourism has slumped to 7% of normal and there are no buyers for our handicrafts, leather goods and toys.”
“Varanasi is the biggest coal depot in the east It also manufactures fans and other industrial goods but sales in all these products have been affected,” he laments.
Says leading silk exporter Brij Raman Das,” The sale of silk goods normally fetches us over Rs 250 crore a year. Tourism brings in an equal amount and pilgrims an even larger sum. This year business has had a setback.
The carpet industry, for which this city forms the major outlet, has also suffered. Stocks have piled up, with foreign buyers preferring to go to Pakistan and Nepal rather than visit this trouble spot.
A prolonged Indian Airlines strike worsened the situation. The President of the Eastern Uttar Pradesh Exporters’ Association, Mr G. K. Morolia, insists that the carpet industry, which exports” 80% of this country’s carpets, alone has suffered a loss Of RS 100. Crore due to the disturbances and the airline strike.
Morolia says, “The peak season for us is November to March, this” is the time buyers from top companies like Marjan International, Stern Oriental Rugs, Kalati Rugs, Sabat and Sons and others come to place orders and buy in bulk for. The coming year. Business worth crores is conducted during these weeks. The buyers’ purchases are flown to Delhi and exported from there, with the strike and the dispute, they stayed away.”
“L knows of several cases where a foreign buyer who would normally have made purchases of Rs J crore: just stopped at Delhi and picked up stuff worth Rs 20 lakhs. Not only have our goods remained: unsold but the government has also lost foreign exchange.”
Morolia is bitter that the business community has to pay for political opportunism. He says if the Vishwanath temple has a special significance for Hindus, Muslims can say the same about the Gyan Vapi mosque. Even though the communal divide has’ widened, business people cannot afford to become victims of polices. The traders are relieved that their City escaped the large scale arson” and destruction suffered by: other are keeping their fingers crossed, Unless life returns to normal they cannot go back to making Substantial fortunes.
Courtesy: The Tribune.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 26, 1993
