Taj Mahal, one of the World’s Seven Wonders, has found no mention in a Uttar Pradesh government’s tourism booklet on key attractions in the state.
The 32-page glossy booklet titled ‘Uttar Pradesh Paryatan-Apaar Sambhavanaayein’ (UP Tourism-Unlimited Possibilities), which has the iconic Ganga Aarti of Varanasi as its cover image, has been printed to promote the tourist spots in Uttar Pradesh, but surprisingly the most prominent and popular one is missing. Interestingly, one page of the booklet has also been dedicated to the Gorakhnath temple, of which UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath is the presiding priest.
The booklet was released in Lucknow at a press conference on World Tourism Day by UP’s tourism minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi.
The embarrassment led the UP government to go defensive with Joshi saying that the Taj Mahal was a part of UP’s cultural heritage and a key priority for the state government.
However, a senior UP government official dismissed the allegations that Taj Mahal was deliberately dropped from the booklet.
“This wasn’t a compendium of tourist attractions in UP, merely a book highlight the works done by the incumbent government and the projects it plans to take up. The booklet finds mention of projects worth Rs 154 crore in the category of pro-poor tourism, which generate high employment,” Avneesh Awasthi,director general UP tourism, told TOI.
“In this category, three projects in the vicinity of the Taj Mahal have also been mentioned,”he added.
Incidentally, that the UP government plans to work on the Heritage Arc — comprising Agra, Lucknow and Varanasi — is mentioned in the foreword of the 32-page booklet.
There is no specific reference to, nor a photograph of, the Taj Mahal anywhere. The government’s defence also seems feeble in the wake of the large number of existing projects that have figured prominently — in pictures and text — in the government’s booklet. The foreword also says that it will work, in addition to the Heritage Arc, on developing the potential of religious and spiritual tourism in UP. The Ramayan, Krishna and Buddhist circuits, the Vindhya, Awadh, Bundelkhand, Jal Vihar, eco tourism and adventure circuits find mention. The government also said its plans to develop the Jain, Sufi, Freedom Struggle, Craft, Cuisines and Culture trails in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The mysterious dropping of the Taj Mahal, a UNESCO World Heritage site, however, turned a raging conrtroversy in the wake of UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s statement in June this year. At a public event in Bihar in June this year, Adityanath said: “Ramayana and the Gita represent Indian culture, not the Taj Mahal.” The CM had also suggested that gifting replicas of the Taj Mahal, a musoleum, as mementoes to foreign visitors or dignitaries, was inauspicious and “not a part of Indian culture”.
Where the UP government has fallen short, though, the tourism ministry has filled in amply. On World Tourism Day, the ministry launched the Incredible India Campaign 2.0 in which liberal references were made, in pictures and video, to the Taj Mahal. The redesigned Incredible India website also features the Taj Mahal prominently.
