Changing Cultural Landscapes: Manikarnika Ghat and How it is Kashi vs Varanasi

 

Lenin Raghuvanshi, founder and convener of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), who has worked with the communities around the ghats, therefore sees this not as a matter of development but as a “transformation of a living sacred space”. “Manikarnika Ghat is not only a cremation ground; it is a social, spiritual, and cultural commons where death, dignity, labour, faith, and everyday life have coexisted for centuries,” he says, adding that the current interventions risk disturbing this fragile balance.

“What concerns many of us is the gradual shift from lived spirituality to a managed spectacle. When sacred spaces are redesigned primarily for visibility, tourism, and control, the people who sustain them — Dom communities, ritual workers, priests, widows, sanitation workers, boatmen, and nearby residents — are often pushed to the margins, both physically and symbolically,” he further says.

However, activists like Raghuvanshi fail to see the need for the beautification of the ghat. “Manikarnika has always stood apart precisely because it resisted sanitisation. Its meaning lies in its raw honesty, in the equality it affirms in death, and in its refusal to conform to aesthetic or commercial expectations. To remake it as a curated or beautified space risks hollowing out its deepest ethical and spiritual significance,” he says.

“At the heart of this issue is the question of dignity. Development that displaces communities, silences traditional custodians, or turns mourning and ritual into a managed visual experience cannot be considered humane or sustainable. The question is not whether change is necessary, but who defines it, and whose lives and voices are deemed expendable in the process,” says Raghuvanshi, whose co-authored book on Kashi, bearing the same name, is due to be released soon.

“Historically, Kashi has never been a city of silence or uniformity. Its strength has come from dialogue, dissent, and plural traditions — from Kabir and Ravidas to Sufi practices and radical spiritual lineages that questioned authority and hierarchy. What we are witnessing today appears to be a departure from that legacy, moving instead towards control, regulation, and erasure in the name of order and progress,” Lenin Raghuvanshi says.

Please read the full OPED:https://www.localsamosa.com/people-culture/manikarnika-ghat-redevelopment-11019418