Pilgrim's Politics

Two-time MP from Varanasi, Narendra Modi, is sculpting the eternal city in his image

- Tanul Thakur

LIKE a committed pilgrim, Varanasi wakes up early. At four-thirty in the morning, on the road leading to the Dashashwamedh Ghat, the owner of a food stall slaps dosa batter on a griddle; several customers stand outside a bright paan shop; a street vendor, selling pooja paraphernalia, drones on, “10 ka, 10 ka, 10 ka.” At the Ghat, the hawk-like hawkers swoop in on foreign tourists, pitching varied services: a free locker, a boat ride, a neck massage. More than 100 people have assembled at the Ghat, and amid a cluster of boats, diyas and devotees bob on the Ganga. A fount of contradictory stories inundate Dashashwamedh: two men sleeping on a platform, a young woman applying a lip liner, a bare-chested man getting his head shaved, pilgrims frolicking in the river, an old man tolling the Ghat bells, and an Angry Hanuman flag fluttering on a boat. All under morning twilight—unlike Varanasi, the sun takes its time.

The city’s ghats are eternal. So are the rituals around them. But less than a kilometre away, its Member of Parliament (MP), Narendra Modi, has begun to sculpt Varanasi in his own image. His passion project, a complex around the Kashi Vishwanath temple—constructed by the Maratha ruler Ahilyabai Kolkar a century after Aurganzeb had demolished it—began in early 2019. Preceding the Ram temple construction, it inverted the Hindutva war cry, “Ayodhya toh sirf jhaanki hai, Kashi aur Mathura baaki hai” (Ayodhya is just a glimpse, the whole view—of Kashi and Mathura—is unfinished).