Buddhist past quietly buried as Modi's Vadnagar gets tourism makeover
Archaeological project that unearthed ancient Buddhist relics discontinued without fanfare to free up resources for futuristic school, museum and sports arena
Vadnagar, famous for being the hometown of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has seen a flurry of tourist activity over the past 10 years. The railway station, where Modi is said to have sold tea in his youth, has a fan base of its own.
Tourism has offered a booster dose to the town's economy.
Little wonder then that the residents of Vadnagar where thrilled when Union Home Minister Amit Shah last week inaugurated a slew of tourism projects — including an experiential museum, a peace complex, and a sports complex — with a budget of over ₹300 crore. The locals hope these projects will bring employment to the nondescript town — a municipality in Mehsana district of north Gujarat — with a population of just around 30,000.
What quietly got buried in all the din and excitement is an archaeological initiative that had revealed a monastery and other structures that suggested that Vadnagar, around 2,800 years ago, hosted a thriving Buddhist settlement.
Also read: Gujarat: Remains of Buddhist monastery found in PM Modi’s hometown Vadnagar
ASI initiates survey
In 2006, four years after Modi became the Gujarat Chief Minister, his government funded the first project in Vadnagar. The same year, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) initiated a survey of the town to discover its Hindu past.
It was in 2014, after Modi became the Prime Minister, that the project, named ‘Infinite and Eternal Vadnagar’, got central funding of around ₹100 crore and ASI got the nod to excavate.
The project team included archaeologists and experts from IIT-Kharagpur, ASI, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Deccan College.
“The initial aim was to find the history of human evolution under Vadnagar and artefacts related to Hinduism. We were briefed that the town is an important religious centre of Nagar Brahmins and was an ancient town that had witnessed rise of Hinduism and boasted a human civilisation beyond Harappa,” Mayulika Sharma, former superintending archaeologist of ASI (Western region), who led the excavation project, told The Federal.
Buddhist relics unearthed
The initiative change course when the ASI team came across the remains of a Buddhist settlement.
The ASI team excavating in Vadnagar came across the remains of a Buddhist settlement.
“We unearthed six or seven monastic cells and structures resembling an ancient Buddhist monastery while digging. But to be more sure, we needed to excavate more land so we wrote to our head office in Delhi for permission,” Sharma shared.
The excavation work was halted after 2016 and resumed again in 2019. The site of excavation was shifted a few kilometres away to Amba Ghar, near LakeSharmistha Lake where the Hatkeshwar temple, built during the rule of Solakis (Chalukya), is located.
More, and some more
In 2020, a Buddhist chaitya and more stupas were excavated at the Amba Ghat site.
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YS Rawat, former director of the Gujarat State Archaeology Department, told The Federal that chaityas are semi-circular structures and stupas are dome-like structures, both related to Buddhism. Buddhist scholars would live in these structures during their tenure at monasteries and education centres.
“Over the years, researchers found the remains of Buddhist monastery, a Bodhisattva idol, which is likely to belong to the second or third century, and artefacts related to Buddhism. We have all reasons to believe Vadnagar to be one of the 10 sites in which Chinese Buddhist traveller Hieun Tsang may have lived,” said Rawat.
Excavations take back seat
In 2022, the state government took over seven archaeological excavation sites in Vadnagar for a ₹500 crore redevelopment project. Then, in 2023, the archaeological work was permanently halted.
Harit Shukla, Gujarat Tourism Secretary, gave an explanation for why the work was discontinued.
“The focus is on civil development of Vadnagar for the next few years and hence the decision," hetold The Federal.
"A number of new projects in Vadnagar have used the same pink traditional Sompura stones used in the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. So, the excavation work has been stopped until the redevelopment is done,” he said.
Development work
Between 2022 and 2024, the Bhupendra Patel-led BJP state government developed the road network, underground drainage system and water supply of the town along with enhancing the green patches and landscaping.
The old road leading to the bus stop in Vadnagar.
The revamped road to the new bus stop in Vadnagar.
Lake Sharmishtha got a walkway around its periphery and got linked to 10 other lakes around the town to ensure round-the-year water supply for tourism activities.
A small sub-district hospital in the town, geared for just a handful of people until a few years ago, was transformed into a major medical facility.
Buddhist site flattened
The state government formed the Vadnagar Heritage Society (VHS) in early 2024 under the chairmanship of the state’s chief secretary and comprising senior IAS officers. It was tasked to work with the Centre for the Prerna Sankul project.
Also read: Vadnagar station, where Modi sold tea, becomes tourism hub; is it a right choice?
Soon after, in July 2024, the archaeological mound site at Pithora Darwaza in Vadnagar, where the Buddhist artefacts were found, was cleared and flattened.
“Multiple letters were written by the ASI to VHS and Mehsana district authorities. Two emails were written to the Mehsana district collector between June and July 2024, asking them to stop the work but we were told that a grand mall is to come up at the site,” an ASI official told The Federal on the condition of anonymity.
“Thousands of years of history and years of archaeological work are now lost,” lamented the official.
Vadnagar tourism push
On January 17, Amit Shah inaugurated the new projects as part of a grand tourism push. There's an Archaeological Experiential Museum showcasing the 2,500-year history of Vadnagar with an immersive and interactive experience.
The Prerna School, built at a cost of Rs 72 crore on the premises of the school where Modi received his primary education, is a futuristic educational institution. Its museum showcases objects from Modi’s childhood. A glitzy sports complex aims to host the 2036 Olympics.
A dedicated art gallery for Vadnagar has also been set up on the banks of the Sharmishtha talav (pond). Its main attraction is the miniature of a young Modi serving tea at the Vadnagar railway station, with the replica of a tea stall in the background — the original kettle is housed at the Rail Museum in Delhi.
The projects are aimed to be completed by 2027.
Remarkable transformation
Vadnagar residents are all praise for the development schemes.
Hiteshbhai Patel, a former teacher at the Vadnagar Middle School that has been revamped into Prerna School, can't contain his joy.
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“Almost the entire population of Vadnagar has been engaged in agriculture and the primary sector. Primarily, it’s been a rural town and development related to secondary and tertiary sectors never really reached here. While tourism has for long been a second source of income for Vadnagar, major projects started pouring in after 2014," Patel told The Federal. "The transformation of Vadnagar has been remarkable since then.”
“We are grateful to Modi. The Prime Minister has brought tremendous development to Vadnagar," added Patel. "There was a time when no one knew about Vadnagar. It was a town with no development, hospital or even a proper railway station. It had a school where the primary and middle school operated from a single dilapidated building in shifts.”
“The school is now an international learning centre with new building and sports complex. We have five trains that connect Vadnagar with major cities of Gujarat. And two trains that connect the city with Delhi and a brand new hospital and a revamped railway station,” he pointed out.
Potential missed
Yet, Gujarat has for long missed the tourism bus, rue stakeholders.
Bharat Patel, an environmentalist based in Kutch who works on coastal eco-diversity, pointed out that Gujarat was never known for tourism until 2006, when Modi began to develop religious spots like Dwarka as 'Dev Bhumi' for its mythological importance related to Lord Krishna, along with a few locations like Rann of Kutch made famous by Rannotsav.
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“Until 2014, there were no talk of pushing tourism in the state, although Gujarat is blessed by Nature. It's flanked by the Arabian Sea along 1,600 km from the south through east, a desert in the north, and the Gir forest in the centre," said Bharat Patel.
"Yet, nothing much was done to promote wildlife or beach tourism. For instance, Swadesh Darshan Scheme, a Union government scheme that has funded 10 beach projects in the country since 2015-2016, is yet to fund a project in Gujarat,” he added.
Heritage tourism
And, within Gujarat, Vadnagar has got a bigger bite of the tourism pie, said Bharat Patel.
“In 2014, there was a sudden push for heritage tourism and the first spot that got all the funds was Vadnagar. There are so many places of historical importance in Gujarat – Porbandar, which has the remains of Mughal rule and is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, or Dandi in south Gujarat, which is an important place in Sindhi history and the place from where the Dandi yatra began.
"The state could even have developed Nadiad, the home of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a town that has remained underdeveloped,” he told The Federal.
Rich historical past
AS Saiyyed, president of Sarkhej Roza Committee, said: “Gujarat has a rich historical past. It has witnessed the Harappa civilization and Mughal rule. There are sites, buildings and monuments that stand as witnesses to that history. These sites never got a portion of attention or fund as Vadnagar. The site of Harappan civilization in Dholavira, Kutch, the site of dinosaur fossil eggs in Mahisagar are UNESCO heritage sites, yet the state has hardly done anything to promote the spots as tourist centres. Same is the plight of Mughal era monuments.”
Saiyyed's committee takes care of Sarkhej Roza, a monument in Ahmedabad that is said to be an amalgamation of Hindu, Jain and Islamic styles, and was a centre of Sufi culture, where influential Sufi saint Shaikh Ahmed Ganj Baksh lived.
“Most of these sites are being taken care of by private trusts or individuals and have got minimum or no government support,” he told The Federal.
