PART III - CASE STUDY 6.2

Mediated resistance to tourism in a Hindu pilgrimage town

The Hindu town of Pushkar lies in the Indian province of Rajasthan and has a well- established tradition as a centre of religious pilgrimage. The town stands on the shores of a lake that has mythological links to the god Brahma and a large number of temples and shrines, together withghats (step-like embankments that are ritual locations for worship, bathing and cremation of the dead) provide focal points for puja (ritual patterns of devotion). The practice of puja draws pilgrims from all over India and provides an important livelihood for Brahman pandas – religious men who conduct the various rituals but who also arrange for the more routine requirements of pilgrims for food and accommodation and who receive payments for their services.

Tourism to Pushkar originated in the late 1960s through small-scale visiting by hippies, but, under the guidance of state and regional governments that are anxious to bring new sources of wealth to a particularly impoverished area, it has evolved into a much larger-scale activity involving large numbers of wealthy, white, Western tourists. This has impacted, first, on the physical landscape of the town as hotels, guest houses, restaurants and tourist shops have been developed amongst the religious sites, and, second, upon the cultural basis to the community. These cultural impacts have included:

• commodification of puja through its adaptation (and abbreviation) as a staged performance that is conducted in return for money (as donations) and delivered in a blend of pidgin English;
  
• the relinquishment by some pandas of their traditional role as mediators of pilgrimage and who, instead, apply their knowledge to meeting the needs of tourists from whom much higher earnings may be derived;
  
• signs of acculturation, especially amongst young adult groups who have begun to adopt Western fashions (such as jeans and baseball caps) and who also aspire to ownership of luxury goods such as cameras;
  
• a realignment of local production of crafts to meet the demands of tourists for souvenirs rather than catering for the needs of pilgrims;
  
• replacement of local cuisine in many local restaurants with alternative dishes that are held to be more suited to the tourist palate.
  

Such change has inevitably created widespread local concern amongst those not directly involved in tourism about the loss of tradition and the debasement of the religious significance of the site. Many tourist practices – such as dress codes and the tendency to photograph sacred sites such as the temples and the activity of the ghats – are seen as an affront to Hindu beliefs and customs, yet at the same time a significant portion of the local population have come to be dependent upon tourism’s economic benefits.

Many local people have therefore been forced to adopt an ambivalent position in relation to tourism – on the one hand condemning or expressing concerns over the damaging impacts of the activity on local culture; whilst on the other, finding ways to rationalise (or mediate) that resistance in ways that permit continued participation in a valuable activity.

The authors of the study propose that a key part of the process of mediating resistance has been to deflect accountability for tourism’s impacts onto outsiders, but not the tourists themselves. This draws upon some traditional local divisions between the Brahman identity of long-term residents (the insiders) and those from the wider India (the outsiders) who have moved to Pushkar – perhaps as administrators or to take advantage of commercial opportunities – and on whom the ‘unwelcome’ development of tourism may be blamed.

Similarly, government is also held to account for the way in which the religious and cultural identity of the town has been promoted to international tourists. This has helped to sustain a political rhetoric in which local politicians and pressure groups have often been able to strengthen their local positions by leading periodic attacks on state and national government on issues relating to tourism development, but, crucially, conducted in ways that do not directly attack the tourist industry itself.

However, perhaps the most interesting form of mediation of local resistance has been to invoke local religious beliefs – in particular, the Hindu belief in kalyuga – as a means of rationalising the damaging presence of tourists. Kalyuga refers to Hindu understanding of how cosmic ages change through a cycle of progressive decline in physical and moral standards that are rejuvenated at the start of the next age. Fortuitiously, perhaps, kalyuga constructs the present age as one of discord and disintegration and for the devout in Pushkar, this helps to explain – and perhaps render more acceptable – the deviation from the traditional modes of social conduct and behaviour that is evident in the declining status of pilgrims and the increasing presence of tourists in holy places.

This study provides some interesting insights into ways in which a local community that has both vested interests in, and genuine concerns over, tourism development can come to terms with the challenges that tourism creates. In some respects, of course, the recourse to a rhetoric that deflects accountability onto external forces (the role of outsiders, government, or even cosmic cycles) will appear to an outside audience as a convenient way of evading awkward local dilemmas. However, the more important issue is how the local community views the process and if such forms of mediated resistance make what the authors of this study call the disjunction between tourism and local culture palatable and which functions to create conditions for the acceptance of cultural change, then there is surely merit in that process.

Source:  Joseph, C.A. and Kavoori, A.P. (2001) ‘Mediated resistance: tourism and the host community’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28 (4): 998–1009.