Char Dham Region Under Stress With Unchecked Tourism, Reckless Development

🌼Lately, domestic tourism has increased exponentially, especially in the fragile Himalayan region, including the four vulnerable Char Dham valleys. This increased tourist influx is viewed by the government as highly desirable due to economic gains; but the staggering price the Himalaya is paying remains unconsidered. The cost is being borne by drying rivers, retreating glaciers, vanishing forests, collapsing slopes, and polluted water bodies. Simply put, the current level of Himalayan tourism is not respectful of the past, not sustainable in the present, and devastating to the future.

ജThe higher Himalayan ranges are generally steep and narrow valleys, that are also close-ended, generally terminating in impassable glacial terrain. The four dhams are high mountains, set close together within a 50 km aerial radius, through which the mightiest of Indian rivers–the Alakananda, the Mandakini and the holy Ganga flow, creating beautiful but extremely fragile river-valleys. Hence tourism in the plains is one thing, and tourism in the mountains another matter altogether. But the government, with its eye singly trained on monetary gain, has not carried out any carrying capacity studies to estimate the actual number of visitors the mountains can bear without compromising its ecology, or the unique Pahadi culture. In fact, it is hoped that the ‘tourism boom’ will see 6.5 crore visitors to Uttarakhand in 2025, while the population is estimated at merely 1.26 crores.

ಞSuch massive tourism also requires infrastructure. It needs larger airports, like the much-opposed Jolly Grant expansion which entailed denotifying 87 hectares of pristine shisham, teak and catechu forest. At a time when the Himalaya is heating up three times faster than the global average, in 2016 the government initiated the devastating blanket widening, Char Dham Pariyojana. This entailed a 12 metre wide,10 metre tarred road of 900 km running through the western Himalaya like a heating rod. The result was over 200 slope failures, loss of forest cover, felling of lakhs of trees, and dried up water sources. Tonnes of rich soil forming the upper most layer of forest floor was turned to muck when slopes were vertically cut, and then bulldozed down slopes into rivers. Thus, not only were forests destroyed but river-bed levels increased, leading to flash floods. Simultaneously, loss of forest cover contributed to drying of soil and led to extensive forest fires witnessed in the last few years. Soot from such fires and from vehicular traffic landed on glaciers, which reduces their albedo or reflectivity, and accelerates melting. Studies report that carbon deposits can trigger more melting than greenhouse gases. Melting glaciers cause glacial lakes and tragedies such as the one at Kedarnath. But the glaciers in the Himalaya are also the source of three major river basins: the Ganga, the Indus and the Brahmaputra. Melting glaciers eventually mean dead rivers. And these basins support over 600 million people.

♏Pilgrims are being fast-tracked into ‘spiritual tourists’, requiring amenities and entertainment. The Char Dhams are Char dams; devotional pilgrimage is now exploitative tourism. The mushrooming of hotels, restaurants, shops and other illegal cement construction on the floodplains, along the highway, besides uglifying the landscape has heavily compromised the riverine ecology. While polluting the river with sewage, it also encourages illegal sand and stone mining on the river bed. An extreme case is the sinking of the ancient pilgrim town of Joshimath in 2023. Despite expert cautioning, construction was permitted and the town expanded with hotels geared for tourist influx. And, at the base of the hill, cutting for Char Dham road and tunelling for Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project (HEP) was simultaneously undertaken. Further, Char Dham railway tunnelling caused sinking in Ataali and surrounding villages, regardless 61 tunnels for railways in the Himalaya are underway.

ꦺGarbage dumps once unknown in the hills are common now. Reportedly, the four Char Dhams produce over ten tonnes of garbage a day collectively during the yatra season. However, there are no proper collection or disposal methods. The entry to Uttarkashi on the way to Gangotri, is a long garbage dump, tottering over the Ganga; its stench spreads over the town in summer. As winters in the Himalaya are getting drier and warmer, the early and even double blossoming of the crimson, bell-shaped rhododendron, a keystone species of the Himalaya, is a warning of impending crisis according to field experts. The majestic deodar is also under duress due to the heat. But the government response has been to open the dhams for ‘winter-yatra’. This terminates the critical six months of recuperation that the gasping ecology so desperately needs.

𒊎Environment and culture are closely linked. The sacredness and respect with which the pahadi locals beheld his Himalaya has been lost amidst the racket and loot. The bugyal where the locals would not step with shoes to avoid disrespecting the deities of those silent heights are now raucous, garbage generating marriage venues for the rich and famous. Increasingly, hotel and tourism related business are seen as the only livelihood option by the locals. Youth have abandoned village and farm, and ploughing with oxen is becoming an anachronism. Places of spiritual antiquity like Rishikesh and Haridwar are unrecognisable cluttered townships with plazas and expensive yoga centres. Prostitution and horrific crimes like the Ankita Bhandari murder are also a part of the tourist boom. Heat waves and dust storms are today’s norm. The Ganga is routinely jammed with rafts, and her banks are an overcrowded Chowpatty.

🐭Noise pollution in these abodes of silence and meditation is destroying the sanctity of the Himalaya. Over 250 helicopters fly over Kedarnath in a single day! Even the locals have complained of these low-flying vehicles; so one can imagine the stress level on wildlife such as tahr, snow leopard, goral, and musk deer, and the disruption to their breeding, movement and behavioural patterns. The noise is also destabilising the fragile slopes, and yet, unregulated air travel is promoted in order to increase footfall well beyond capacity.

🅠The Himalaya, the birthplace of rivers, now routinely suffers from acute water shortage, especially in summer. This crisis has been caused by diminished flow in natural water bodies and drying of springs due to deforestation from large scale projects, tourism related activities and climate change, studies report. Such shortages are drastically derailing daily life, and worsening already tough conditions, especially for women.

ꦕTourism generates money, but to beleaguer the Himalaya with this task at the expense of its ecology is to diminish the Kamdhenu cow into a draught animal for the Himalaya that gives limitlessly. The Himalaya provides what money cannot buy. It plays the pivotal role of regulating our weather, of providing water, air and sustenance. Our existence depends upon it. Paradoxically, the ruthless, reckless stampede that one sees today in the guise of ‘spiritual tourism’ is desecrating the sanctity of the Himalaya it claims to worship.

𓆉Kedarnath, Chamoli, Asi Ganga and Joshimath have shown in the last decade that the Himalaya has become extremely disaster prone through climate change. Glacial lake outbursts, flashfloods, cloudbursts, landslides, avalanches, glacial breaks and fires occur routinely. Hence large-scale projects and unregulated tourism that further increase the vulnerability of the region, ensuring tragedy, should not be allowed.

꧑In 2012 the narrow and rugged 100 km-long Gangotri valley was declared an eco-zone to protect the origin of the Ganga. Hydropower and other large-scale projects are prohibited here, and so this area has witnessed far less landslides and floods than other valleys. This valley is ideal for growing kiwi, citrus, pears, peaches and apples. Yet orchards are not promoted in the way hotels are, even though horticulture would connect locals to their ancestral land and provide income for generations. It would induce them to protect water sources and prevent fires, thereby protecting forests and decreasing the impacts of climate change. Equally, there is no push for solar power, while HEP’s that have been proved to exacerbate disasters are promoted.

Even though the eco-zone notification prohibits HEP’s the Uttarakhand government proposes rebuilding the Asi Ganga 1and 2 and the Kaldigaad, which were washed away in the 2012 floods, showing disregard to their role in aggravating the disaster in the Asi Ganga valley. This move is also in opposition to the 2019 PMO minutes in which it was resolved that no new HEP’s would come up on the Ganga and its tributaries. Moreover, after the 2013 Kedarnath disaster the Supreme Court 🀅taking suo moto cognisance of the impacts decided to review all major HEP’s in the Ganga basin. Bizarrely, even the two dams that exacerbated the Chamoli disaster and were demolished in the floods, are being considered for reconstruction as are others beyond the Main Central Thrust.

♈We are irreversibly altering the landscape and ecology of the mountains. We batter and blast the Himalaya with HEP’s, parking tunnels, railway tunnels, concrete structures, road widening, slope cutting, forest clearing, debris dumping, tourist hordes, vehicular traffic, forest fires, air traffic, and ropeways, all without any cumulative impact study. This omnidirectional assault is euphemistically termed ‘sustainable development.’ We put a price and forget value, but as recent disasters clearly show, humankind has run out of options as has the Himalaya.

(Views expressed are personal)

Priyadarshini Patel is head member of Ganga Ahvaan, a forum for cultural and environmental conservation of Ganga-Himalaya

This article is a part of Outlook's March 21, 2025 issue 'The Pilgrim's Progress', which explores the unprecedented upsurge in religious tourism in India. It appeared in print as 'Sacred Games.'