Chicago Musings - Valuing heritage sites

A B Vajpayee had made his writings famous by calling it musings, when he was in kerala.

I do not claim by any means, that the content of my writings are anyway even close to his. But I thought there is no harm in using that term. This is first of the series of my musisngs from Chicago.

I should admit that I haven't been a prolific traveller. But whatever little I travelled in India and outside of India, I feel sad for how we Indians treat our naitonal heritage. Take Maharashtra for example. Supposedly, this state has produced some of the finest of thinkers and philosophers and is also full of lot of famous and ancient temples and shrines which truly represent our "sanatan" hindu dharma.

People from all corners of India and perhaps outside of India come in tens of thousands to visit these holy places. But if we look at the way the administrators manage the whole civic aspect of these sites, the only emotion you have is "pity" and little bit of "disgust" at what we as a nation do with these sites.

In most places, there would not be adequate facilities for basic things like quality food, water, parking, restrooms etc. You would expect atleast such places to be clean and hygenic so you feel the peace which you are looking for and which is the first thing that brings you to such places. Instead, what we have is the exact opposite.

Contrast this with any historical place or religious place outside India (espcially in the west), and you find a complete contrast.

The basic reason in my opinion is two fold. The administrators lack transparency and accountability. In most of the big places, you find corruption and a lot of favoritism happening. No wonder, there is a strong political aspect to it as well. Recent happenings in the Shankaracharya maths and other famous temples speak of the magnitude of the problem.

But the problem is also with "We the people". We need to respect our own culture and take all possible measures to maintain the sanctity of the very place. We have a duty to keep those places cleaner and make the administrators accountable.

I hope in times to come and as we grow as a society, such things will become important issues for us and will perhaps even be part of election manifestos of political parties !!!