THE event of the inauguration of rejuvenation and transformation of Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has tremendous importance to the nation with multiple symbolisms -- historical, cultural, social and religious. It marks a moment that will tell the story of how an ancient city was given back its old physical grace without affecting any sensibilities or susceptibilities. Under Mr. Modi’s personalised monitoring and leadership, a very delicate project of massive proportions was fructified in style, with aplomb. Kashi-Varanasi-Banaras was suffering from a heavy burden of collective neglect -- at governmental and popular level. Religious shrines such as the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple or the Gyanwapi Mosque that stood physically nudging the temple all the time were cramped and suffocating. The terribly narrow and dirty lanes around the main shrine were crowded to nauseating levels. Many people had built houses over smaller temples illegally. Despite its high status in the Hindu culture, Kashi, therefore, was a place that had lost its original over time -- having been the victim of official callousness, inexplicable political expediency, administrative neglect, and popular indifference. Millions of pilgrims often returned from Kashi-Varanasi-Banaras rather disillusioned.

 

The moment Mr. Narendra Modi realised the plight of this historic city, he resolved to set things right. What he inaugurated as rejuvenated Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham is the outcome of a planned effort in urban rengineering and redesigning. Those who had seen Kashi a decade ago would not even recognise that a dirty, cramped, ill-managed city of historic importance has been transformed so completely -- to look like a modern urban centre that will become an international attraction in a renewed manner besides being a refurbished centre of pilgrimage. The whole project of Kashi’s refurbishment has been carried on with such sensitivity as to keep intact every sentiment that different segments of Indian population had about the place. The Prime Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament from there, ensured that the whole redesigning was done with extreme care, caution and concern for all the right things. The temple complex he inaugurated now has enough ambient space for people to move around. The Gyanwapi Mosque, too, stands in full pride duly re-made to suit its importance. For all those millions of people who shunned visiting Kashi for the sheer fact of its filth and cramped existence, the new Kashi will be an inviting place -- for historical, cultural, religious and tourist purposes. This project, so successfully completed ahead of schedule has now generated in people’s minds a hope that the Government would re-engineer all cities in the country one by one. This project may take years, but the Kashi example will always be there for anybody and everybody to emulate.

 

This is what India of today needs -- a rejuvenation of places of importance from centuries of collective neglect. May be, a hundred years later, India may be able to boast of all the refurbished cities. This may be a tall order, so to say, but not in the realm of impossibility. If pro[per levers of public interest and thought and action are operated, then resource mobilisation would never be an issue beyond the country’s reach. For, in the past few years, what India has realised that it lacked only in one resources -- public and political will. Of late, however, led by Prime Minister Mr. Modi, the Government has realised its hidden strength, and is utilising it to the fullest. This wellspring of strength is going to make all the difference in the future and to the future. It will help us remake a lot of our places as well as institutions and bring those at par with the needs of the future. Another great venture now underway is the national capital’s Central Vista Project. The range and scope of this ambitious undertaking is going to transform New Delhi as well into a far better place in many ways. This project, too, was suffering from red-tape, so to say. But Mr. Modi gave it the push it required to get started in right earnest. All these projects show one thing -- resources is never the problem; political will is. The difference that the nation now senses is at that point.