Sitakund

With Sitamarhi in Bihar included in the central government’s Ramayan Circuit list, Sita’s birthplace may finally get the same stature as Ram’s in Ayodhya

- Umesh Kumar Ray

ON a regular day at the bank of Ganga at Ramrekha Ghat in Buxar district of Bihar, a few pandits are performing havan. The sound of temple bells and chanting of mantras reverberate across the ghat. More than 20 boats are lined up and a few pilgrims are seen negotiating with the boatmen. The number of pilgrims visiting Ramrekha has increased in the past few years, informs Baban Choudhary, who has been working as a boatman for the past 40 years.

The inclusion of Buxar in the Ramayan Circuit has piqued the interest of pilgrims. A part of the 'Swadesh Darshan' scheme of the Ministry of Tourism, the Ramayan Circuit is a tourism circuit that covers destinations associated with the life of Ram and Sita. The destinations are chosen according to the places where Ram is believed to have travelled across India. The ministry has identified 15 cities in nine states. The initial plan to develop the Ramayan Circuit was floated in 2015—a year after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power. The circuit includes cities in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

In Bihar, Sitamarhi, Buxar and Darbhanga have been chosen. From the mythological viewpoint, Bihar has always considered Ram to be its son-in-law. In Bihar’s folk songs and art forms, the stories of Sita, and of Ram as the son-in-law, are prevalent. Recently, an exhibition by the Bihar Museum was dedicated to Sita.

The Ramayan Circuit isn’t new in Bihar. Along with ideologically secular tourism called the Gandhi Circuit—which lists the places Mahatma Gandhi visited in Bihar, including Champaran where he launched and led the uprising of peasants between 1914 and 1916 against the imposed indigo cultivation by the British—and Sufi and Buddhist circuits, in 2005 there was a plan to highlight Sita who is said to be born in Sitamarhi.