The WALLED BODHI TREE-PART 2

Are the fat cats of the Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee quietly aiding and abetting the Bihar Government in its game plan to displace local vendors and create more opportunities for big business?



A local artisan: will he soon be displaced by the BTMC plans?

Is the Mahabodhi Temple soon to become nothing more than a goose that will lay easter eggs stuffed with foreign tourist dollars?

Is the so-called 'Bodh Gaya terrorist attack' of July 7. 2013 the perfect cover to execute the destruction of the street vendors and the small and affordable service providers to make way for McDonald's, Barristas, and fancy high-priced salons, eateries?

Will the Bodhi Temple now manufacture a 'brand' through which it will hock trinkets and souvenirs from state Government projects after its 'ex-officio Chairman' the Honourable District Magistrate would have used brute force to chase away indigenous craftsmen and small business that have survived in the shade of the Temple for generations?



Entrance and Exit from the Western Side.. blocking out the market on the east?

The Common Man of Bodh Gaya has a lot of doubts as a ten-feet wall and 200 Bihar Military Policemen now separate him from the Mahabodhi Temple. The wall, to most of the residents here, is a wall of shame in more ways than one can count.


“Last year, after the July 7 explosion, the administration erected this ten foot extra boundary wall in front of the Mahabodhi temple for so-called ‘security’. This wall has benefitted nobody. It has destroyed our small Bodh Gaya bazaar that existed opposite the temple for more than half a century. This cursed wall has affected the market, the business and the livelihood of more than 400 families,” says Triratna Prasad Gupta, the chairman of the Bodh Gaya Vyavasayik Sangh (BGVS), a loose union of shopkeepers who have been in business around the periphery of the temple for decades.

 There is no doubt that the bomb blast was a black day in the history of this town, says Ali Asghar who operates a tour and travel agency in the bazaar. “The bomb scared away visitors and incomes fell. On top of that, the wall is overkill. The fallout of the sanitization exercise was that the people who provided low-cost services to the pilgrims were kicked out. As pilgrims came out from the temple after their prayer, there were opportunities to buy cheap souvenirs, have light meals for as little as twenty rupees, and move eastwards to the market for other needs. These services were swept away when the entire space in front of the temple was cleared. The ten foot wall sprung up in front of our noses, and hid our shops from view. The result, business is down by almost seventy percent.”


In the meanwhile, local news reports say that the wall might be raised another five feet, and watchtowers along the sides are being planned. With the Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee(BTMC) planning to sell stone images made in Nalanda under its own brand, the locals smell a conspiracy in the whole game-plan of displacing the small vendors, raising the wall, and putting in place obtrusive ‘security protocols’.

“Is the wall part of a larger game plan to squeeze out the locals, and drive foreign visitors towards the more expensive hotels and high-end restaurants that are beginning to dot the western side of the Mahabodhi temple?” ask some social activists from the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and certain members of the Shanti Sadbhavna Samiti.

The son of the late Ram Deo Ram, a graduate from the Sakya Muni College took over his father’s shoe-making business of 18 years at Pachetti locality, east of the temple , recalls that before the wall, several foreign tourists would purchase his pure leather handmade boots and sandals.



Ram Jr. says the wall is squeezing off his customers

 Now the footfalls have fallen drastically, even those who visit the temple, return the other way.

“It’s all because of the rules that you have to leave your mobile phone on the western side of the temple, so when you leave, you go back in that direction. The wall is so high that you don’t realize that there’s a whole market behind it.”


 “The wall has effectively erased the low-priced artifacts and commodities, broken the backs of the local artisans, and obscured local businesses that have stood here for generations.
" Now the Temple management is tying up with artisans imported by Nitish Kumar who are creating soapstone carvings. So the cash inflow from foreign tourists will be cornered by the monasteries and the high end hotels. Raise the bogey of security threat, isolate the local competition, throw out the poor street vendors and encroach on common land.

" Who can challenge the BTMC, after all their chairman is no ordinary citizen, he is the District Magistrate with almost unlimited powers which can be used in ‘emergency situations’. The explosions are just the excuse by which all opposition to BTMC game-plan has been silenced,” a shop owner observed.


In 1958, several of the shops behind the wall had ceded their own frontage contribute to what became the open space around and in front of the temple. That land has now been usurped by the BMTC, say the affected merchants.

The BGVS has petitioned the High Court against the wall. Says Gupta, “With this uneven playing field, the judiciary is our only recourse to justice. We wait for our plea to be heard. Let’s hope it isn’t in vain”.