PM Modi's plan to transform Varanasi into Kyoto-style city: People both hopeful & apprehensive

By Prerna Katiyar


VARANASI: It is 5:30 in the morning and, even as most of India has still to wake up, one part of an ancient city is bustling. People are offering prayers on the ghats of the river, a few are chanting Har Har Mahadev, others are bathing either themselves or their buffaloes, and still others are loudly discussing the inevitable — politics and the actions of their first-time MP, who is also the country’s prime minister.

There’s chaos of the controlled kind on the ghats of Varanasi as the early morning light skims across the surface of the Ganga. Two hundred days after Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister and 210 days after he was declared winner from Varanasi by a handsome margin of 3.37 lakh votes, the city’s MP and the country’s PM is still the tittle-tattle of the temple town. “The city, languishing in its past glory, has seen an awakening of sorts in the last six months. Work looks to be in progress in our city,” says Narendra Singh, a small-time businessman, after offering prayers at the colourful Dashashwamedh Ghat.



If you’re looking for a counter view, there are plenty lurking in the 80-odd ghats that lead up to the river. “Chavanni ka kaam nahi hua hai [not an iota of work has been done],” rues Yashpal Yadav, a resident of Ardali Bazar, pointing to a gali with a mound of garbage “The good areas are getting better and the bad are turning worse.”

“Real Varanasi lives in the galis and bylanes while work initiated by the Modi government is happening in the VIP areas to make them now VVIP localities — we don’t know if Modi is aware of the ground realities,” adds a resident of Sanjay Gandhi colony, wishing to remain unnamed.

Mega Plans

In end-August, Modi, within hours of landing in Osaka in Japan, was witness to the signing of an agreement with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe to transform Varanasi into a Kyoto-style smart city. Like Varanasi, Kyoto, which is called the city of 10,000 shrines, is a place of pilgrimage — and also has a river flowing through.

The promise of wide and clean roads and modern infrastructure — think high-speed rail networks and navigable waterways — on the lines of Kyoto contrasts sharply with Varanasi’s filthy galis, polluted river and rickety ghats. Add to that overflowing sewage drains, power cuts, traffic jams and water shortage, and you wonder: do the people of Varanasi see hope for an ugly-duckling-toswan-queen like metamorphosis?

The answer from Ajay Rai of the Congress, who contested unsuccessfully from the constituency, is predictable. “People of Varanasi had a lot of expectations from Modi but unfortunately it is all talk and no action. There isn’t much ground work happening in the city,” he declares. “Kashi and Kashi vasi (citizens) will never like the idea of transforming the city into some other world city like Kyoto.”

So, along with difficulty in grasping the sheer scale and ambition of the smart city initiative, there’s also a fear among the local community of the makeover erasing Varanasi’s timeworn character. As Gopal Seth, a shopkeeper in Chetganj, wonders: “What will we do with a new Varanasi if we lose our own identity?” “Our needs are pretty basic,” adds Saroj Singh, a resident of Chowka Ghat. “Give us power, good roads and our basic necessities, and we don’t care for any talk of a smart city or the Kyoto model.”

Even for good electricity connection and roads, Varanasi needs a makeover, and mayor Ram Gopal Mohale points to projects like a solid waste treatment plant, multi-level parkings at Beniya Bagh, Bisheshwarganj and Lahurabir that if completed will make life easier for citizens. The operative word here of course is ‘if’. The mayor sees the Samajwadi Partyruled state government as an impediment. “A lot of projects are in the pipeline to improve the basic amenities of the city but we aren’t getting enough support from the state government,” says Mohale.


The good news, though, is that Modi’s initiatives — some nationwide and others aimed squarely at Varanasi — are breeding a sense of hope amongst the people. Says a local photojournalist who this writer bumped into on Lahurabir Square: “People now have a sense of ownership. They are not ashamed to step out in the open with brooms in their hand and become part of the Swachh Bharat mission to do something that till yesterday they were doing only in their respective houses.”

Of course, not all journos in Varanasi speak in the same voice. “All this talk of Swachh Bharat and working with the brooms is an eye wash,” says another. “The other day, when the Prime Minister had launched the mission, a bunch of advocates almost snatched the brooms from the safai karamcharis for a ‘photo-op’ after which they literally threw the brooms back to the workers.”

Ashok Pandey, BJP’s spokesperson for Uttar Pradesh, is optimistic about the future of the temple town. “Awareness among the people has certainly risen. Big companies have volunteered to take care of the cleanliness and upkeep of the city as well as the ghats. The future of Varanasi is certainly bright.” But he’s quick to add a caveat: “A lot depends on the attitude of people.”