THE MADDING CROWD
A CRUSH OF TOURISTS RUINS THE PEACE OF THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF SHAH JAHAN AND HIS EMPRESS. MISMANAGEMENT BY THE ‘PROTECTORS’ OF THE TAJ ONLY ADDS TO THE CHAOS
The rush of tourists the Taj gets each year is putting huge pressure on the tomb. How many visitors can the Taj handle?
August 25, Saturday, 8 am. It’s cloudy, cool and surprisingly quiet outside the East Gate of the Taj Mahal: no queue, no scuffle, no fainting tourists, no ‘next to hell’ experience. A man in casual clothes tears the ticket in two. Ask him why he is not in uniform, when will digital ticketing start, should one leave the Taj in three hours, as has been announced, and he gives you a withering look. Inside, tourists drift all over Charbagh, frolic with selfie sticks and get shouted at for dipping their feet into the fountain streams. A VIP from an African republic graces the marble platform alone, smiling at multiple cameras, while rifletoting jawans shoo everyone out of the way. He is a minor VIP, so the Taj won’t be closed to commoners today.
August 26, Sunday, 10 am. A Japanese tourist is attacked by feral monkeys, one of the hundreds who create havoc among tourists, romp through the gardens, snatch things, scavenge for food, defecate on the Taj, bite and claw anyone trying to drive them away. Who is responsible for the safety of the tourists and the Taj? Both the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Police claim that they know nothing about the incident.
August 28, Tuesday, 2 pm. Members of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the CISF break into a fight near the mausoleum chamber of the Taj, in full view of tourists. At the centre of the discord is a video gone viral recently. It shows an ASI employee
taking money from a foreign tourist—and flashing his torch to show the tourist precious stones inside the crypt—a punishable offence. After rounds of blame games and wrangling over who was responsible for what and who leaked the video, the ASI employees withdraw for the day.
GUESTS AT TAJ
In his last letter written in 1658, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan described himself as the lord of 900,000 troopers. Today, he could have called himself the master of an infantry eight times larger. Except, it is not the disciplined Mughal army of yore, but luggage-toting, selfie-seeking hordes, who descend every day on his celebrated mausoleum, touching, rubbing, poking and leaving their mark everywhere: fingerprints, oil stains, dirt, grime and dust.
Shah Jahan did not build his magnum opus to let it languish unappreciated. It “adds to the astonishment of humanity at large”, court historian Muhammad Amin Qazwini wrote in the 1630s. With bazaars, inns and caravanserais for common travellers and a Mihman Khana for royal guests, the Taj was clearly designed with visitors in mind. What the emperor could not foresee was the brave new world of travel across four centuries: of mass leisure and modern tourists craving emotional fulfilment and authentic experiences. The dynamic tension between the two lie at the heart of a key threat the Taj faces today: will uncontrolled love for the Taj become its kiss of death?
PROTECTORS OF THE TAJ
“Henceforth, let the inhabitants of the world be divided into two classes—them as has seen the Taj Mahal, and them as hasn’t.” A 144 years after British watercolourist and satirist, Edward Lear, wrote that line in 1874, there seems to be yet another class: those whose job is to preserve and protect it. In other words, the ASI and the CISF. Caught between their internal conflicts, managerial confusions and inability to deal with the tourist influx, the nation’s iconic monument and the tourists who come to experience the romance of the Taj, are getting a raw deal.
A painful spectre hangs over the Taj: “Restore the Taj Mahal or we will shut it down,” the Supreme Court has told the central and state governments since July. It has sent shivers of apprehension across the country and the world, because the talk of closure is not new: in 1998, ASI’s superintending archaeologist in Agra, D.V. Sharma, had suggested a ban on tourists, to protect the monument from “irreversible” damage. “The ASI and other organisations in charge of protecting and preserving the Taj need to put their act together on the tourism front,” says environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta. “Time is running out for the Taj.”
LOVED TO DEATH
The number of tourists to the Taj is spiralling out of control. An ASI document, ‘Comparative Statement of the Visitors to the Taj Mahal’, compiled in July 2018, shows the unprecedented rise in tourist footfalls at the Taj between 2006 and now, computed on the basis of sale of tickets at the counters (not including etickets and children below age 15). It shows that between 2006 and 2009, the numbers have remained stable, between 2.04 million to 2.58 million. This has been followed by a steep rise in 2010-11: up from 4.08 million to 4.6 million. In 2012, the number of tourists has again jumped from 5.23 million to 5.6 million in 2017. This year, in the first six months, the numbers have already touched 2.82 million. Alarmingly, this year even in the off-peak months of May and June, the numbers have reached 550,000560,000 a month. According to a senior ASI officer (who does not wish to be named), this could be because of summer vacations in schools and colleges. “Though, traditionally, tourists avoided this time of the year,” he says.
Experts are worried. A quiet
revolution has unfolded across the world. More people than ever before travel today, reports a 2016 World Economic Forum study, with the rise of global connectedness and disposable income. In India, a trend of upward mobility has put travel within the reach of millions: “the new middle class”, nearly half of India’s population (600 million) and with a spending power of up to $10 per person per day, shows a 2018 study by Mumbai economists Sandhya Krishnan and Neeraj Hatekar. ‘Overtourism’ is the gnawing fear that hangs over the world: a new word that represents the potential peril to popular destinations from the negative effects of tourism in the absence of a sustainable policy framework. Say, in Cambodia, where ancient temples of Angkor Wat are in danger of sinking, thanks to the 2 million visitors who climb over the Khmer stonework. From China, to Spain, or Italy, world heritage sites are being loved to death. “Mass tourism can destroy the very things that attract tourists to a site,” points out architect, urban planner and conservationist A.G.K. Menon. “If developed thoughtlessly, tourism can be a destructive force.”
TOURISTS VERSUS TAJ
Around the Mihman Khana, to the east of the main mausoleum, pigeons fly inside the vaulted bays, covering red sandstone tulips and cypresses with bird droppings. To the north of the ‘iwan’, opening toward the Yamuna, a digital signboard blinks air pollution numbers: where is carbon there, the key pollutant behind the brown Taj? In one corner, unknown Indian lovers have etched their names on a stone wall—Aarti loves Ramesh, Rajesh loves Radhika. Mughal flowers on the ceiling are fading.
On the flip side, the tourist experience of the Taj is often nightmarish, and even tragic. There are repeated incidents of unnerving near-accidents: in August 2015, a massive copper and bronze chandelier fell off its hook, narrowly missing tourists milling around the Great Gate (Darwaza-e-Rauza). In March 2016, the heavy metal pinnacle of one of the four minarets crashed. Twice in 2018, large chunks of red sandstone fell off rusted clamps, followed by a stone minaret.
Cases of tourists fainting from crowd crush, heat and exhaustion, lack of water and medical supplies, are routine. Sometimes with tragic consequences, as in July 2012, when a 53-year-old woman from Bangalore collapsed from heat and suffocation. Or in September 2015, when two Japanese tourists fell down the stairs while taking selfies, one succumbing to injury while the other with a fractured leg.
MISHANDLING TOURISM
To the residents of Agra, the spectacular growth of tourists at the Taj has brought its potential for economic growth and job creation to the centre of the discourse. Research shows that for every 30 new tourists to a destination, one new job is created (‘Measuring Employment in the Tourism Industries’, WTO-ILO, 2014). “Lakhs of people earn their livelihood from tourism in Agra,” says Sandeep Arora, president of the Agra Tourism Development Foundation. “The latest figures show that the Taj continues to remain number one in gross annual earnings.” The Comptroller and Auditor General of India reports between 2007 and 2012 show that the ASI earned Rs 84.9 crore as revenue from the Taj, yet spent just Rs 7.55 crore on its preservation (‘Performance Audit of Preservation and Conservation of Monuments and Antiquities’, 2013). Again, between 2013 and 2016, the Taj earned Rs 75 crore in revenue, spending Rs 11 crore on its upkeep, according to the reports of the Union culture ministry.
Agra citizens also question the role of the “protectors” of the Taj in stalling growth opportunities. Thirty years ago, all the gates, the East, the West and the South, were open 24x7, says Arora. The Taj was open on Fridays and entry was free for all.
“This year, the ASI has closed the South Gate, though it allowed almost 6,000 people to enter the monument,” he adds. No explanation was given, apart from some vague talk about the security of the Taj. “The South Gate opens out to Taj Ganj,” he says, “the residents there are known to be direct descendants of the people who built the Taj, part of its living cultural heritage.” By closing this gate, he feels, the ASI has affected the livelihood and way of life of the Taj Ganj residents.
THE LAST IMPRESSION
Shah Jahan never saw steel in his lifetime, but massive steel railings now crisscross the approach to the Taj. And if there is one place on earth that should not have “long lasting and energy efficient” white LED bulbs, hanging without a shade, it is the sanctum sanctorum. The ASI has clearly decided to save some money here. Right outside the mausoleum chamber, there are 10 massive dust bins, placed in a way that they cannot be seen from the gardens or the gates. As a tourist leaves the Taj, the one image that leaves a lasting impression is of a dirty plastic bucket and a mop, near the final resting place of an emperor and his beloved empress: some tribute to India’s best-known aesthete of all time.
THE TAJ WAS CLEARLY DESIGNED WITH VISITORS IN MIND. WHAT SHAH JAHAN DID NOT PROBABLY FORESEE WAS THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF TRAVEL FOR LEISURE