A SPIT1 UPDATE

THE
BLOSSOMING

SHUBHENDU KAUSHIK

AN 'IDEAS & INTENTIONS' PAPER

A SPIT1 UPDATE

- - THE BLOSSOMING OF
AN AFFAIR
SHUBHENDU KAUSHIK

March 1994

EQUATIONS

BANGALORE
Published by :
Equitable Tourism Options (EQUATIONS)
168,8th Main, Near Indiranagar Club
Bangalore 560 008
India
Ph : 080-582313

March 1994

Cover illustration by author

A SPITI UPDATE

- - THE BLOSSOMING OF
AN AFFAIR
SHUBHENDU KAUSHIK

his writeup is a brief account of my preoccupation with Spiti over the past
eight months or so. I spent all of August and September and then one and
a half months in January and February travelling in and around Spiti. I
went places, met people, and absorbed Spiti through the pores ofmy sunburnt skin.
To say that I enjoyed myself would be agross understatement.My affair with Spiti
seems to be blossoming.

CONTINUITY

What triggered off my involvement in Spiti was the fact that this beautiful valley
in Himachal Pradesh hadjust been thrown open to tourism. Having seen the extent
of damage, to ecosystems and to value systems, that has accompanied the spread
of large-scale tourism in other Himalayan regions, I succumbed to the urge to
spend some time in Spiti and see what I could do to minimise the damage there.
I ani now trying to get the administration and all sections of the people in Spiti
to start thinking about the various implications of tourism in the valley and to work
on an evolving strategy for 'sustainable tourism', 'eco-tourism', 'appropriate',
'alternative' or 'planned tourism', terms which I don't quite relate to, but which
help anyway.

Before leaving for Spiti last summer, I put down my ideas and intentions in apaper
entitled 'TOWARDS A TOURISM STRATEGY IN SPITI' (published by
EQUATIONS in July 1993).Reading that introductory paper might help you to
more easily digest some of the seemingly 'strange' things - most of them
concerning the nature of my involvement - that I will be saying in this paper.

Tourism, as I just said, was what triggered off my involvement in Spiti. It provided
me with a point of entry and the initial impetus. But it was obvious right from the
beginning that to look at any one thing in isolation would be quite impossible.
Whatever I did in Spiti would be an indivisible expression of my 'being there',
and would emerge quite naturally from it, almost as a by-product (or so I would
like it to be at all times).

THESE ARE MY MOUNTAINS!

In the same way as lovers belong to each other, I belong to these mountains, and
these mountains, in their turn, are mine. Anyone, outsider or local, who loves my
mountains as much as I do, 'owns' these mountains as much as I do. Conversely,
anyone who causes harm to my mountains doesn't really belong here, even though
he or she might have been born and brought up here.

Anything that I might do to prevent the messing up of my mountains is therefore

out of pure selfish interest. Selfish interest, and nothing else, is the motive force
behind my actions.

AN INTERESTING SUMMER.. .
I reached Spiti in the beginning of August last year. To start with, I just travelled
around, feeling good to be in the mountains once more, getting familiar with
places, people and patterns in Spiti, and waiting for actions to emerge from within.
My concerns occasionally crept into conversations with local people, officials and
tourists. Some copies of my introductory paper got passed around, leading often
to discussions and to enhanced awareness.

During these conversations and discussions, I foundmyself talking about tourism,

about preserving the health of the environment, the culture and the values of the
region, about sustainable, clean, contextual and meaningful development, and,
partly because of my architectural background, about the need to preserve (and
to improve upon) the richness and the ecological soundness that is the essence of
the architecture of Spiti.

. . .AND THEN A MAD WINTER

The winter visit was quite an adventure. The one and a half months that I spent
there were right in the middle of the cold wave that lashed Spiti this winter. The
weather was fierce all through, and night temperatures were below -20°C most
of the time, occasionally going down to -25OC and beyond.
Through good weather and bad I walked up and down the valley, visiting some
of the remotest villages (like Lossar), and some of the highest (like Tashigang,
which is around 15,300 ft). Even higher than that, I once came across snow-
leopard pug-marks, of an adult and acub, tracked them for acouple of kilometers,
but missed seeing them. Ibex, blue sheep and marmots were also spotted on many
occasions.

[A sudden sadness overcame me as I finished writing these last lines. The first
reaction of many of those who read these lines would be, "Hey! Spiti sounds like
such an exciting, unspoilt and 'authentic' experience. I've got to go there!" Am
I, in effect, hastening the process that I set out to slow down? An hour of soul-
searching later came a tentative answer to this question. No. The only meaningful
and lasting solution to problems such as tourism lies in an endless process of
maturing. Everything else is only stop-gap. And maturity can never be based on
ignorance. The mass hunger for 'authentic' experiences and destinations will
finally be satisfied only when we bring a certain authenticity into our own lives
andour own surroundings. Travel won't stop then. Only mass-consumption will.]

Most of the rest of this paper consists of a disjointed, though roughly sequential
account of some of the things that I got involved with in Spiti since the last
summer.

THE SELLOUT

When I reached Spiti in the beginning of August, a tourism-related crisis of sorts

was already on. In what was the first real season of tourism in the valley, an
astonishingly large number of people were selling off their old belongings (many
of them heirlooms and religious objects) to the tourists.

The tourists who bought these things were not all of themcasual buyers; there were
many among them who had come to Spiti loaded with money and with the sole
purpose of buying whatever they could that was of antique value. One such tourist,
aGerman zipping through the valley in aGypsy on a large-scalebuying spree, on
being asked by another tourist why he indulged in such unethical, if not downright
illegal buying, replied with cynical simplicity, "If I don't buy them off, someone
else will."
This sellout was going on in all parts of the valley, either directly or through
agents, and was fast taking on the scale of an epidemic.

Most of the direct sale took place in the 'hot-spots' of tourism where a large
number of tourists usually landed up. Foremost among these were the five major
gompas in Spiti - Tabo, Dankhar, Kungri, Tinguit and Ki, where it was often the
lamas themselves who were actively involved. Old items of handicraft, which
included shawls, carpets, traditional leather boots, jewellery and utensils - both
of daily use and exquisitely crafted ceremonial ones - were displayed prominently
at some of these gompas (Kungri, Tabo, Dankhar). At Ki, the sale took place a
little less blatantly, with the lamas bringing out and showing things to tourists in
the room where they were served tea. Luckily, none of the gompa property (to my
knowledge) has been sold so far. This is not counting the major theft - precious
stones estimated unofficially at around Rs. 70 lakhs - that took place in 1992 at
a nunnery near Lari village. Besides, the intentions of some of the super-rich
foreigners who are patronising and courting these gompas might well be dubious
(this is certainly not an allegation).

Apart from the gompas, the direct sale also took place at other tourist spots like
the villages of Lalung, Tabo, Kibber and Langza.

Lalung village is frequented mostly by tourists in jeep taxis, the major attraction
being the extremely old and unique village-level gompa there which is said to be
a contemporary of the gompa at Tabo. As soon as a jeep taxi or two landed up at
Lalung, people would come hurrying out of their houses with things to sell. How
they chose what to sell was quite simple - they would look around their house, and
anything they found that was beautiful and old, they picked it up, put it in a fold
in their clothing, and rushed out to greet the tourists.

At Tabo, the women would put on their best clothing and all their (inherited)
finery* and then hang around near the gompa. Tourists going in or out would point
out something that the women wore and ask, 'How muchfor this?' and this is how
the sale took place.

* s landand the house, while theeldestdaughterinherits

InSpiti, theeldest s c ~ i n h e r i tthe
the jewellery and other heirlooms.
In addition, scattered sales took place wherever in Spiti the tourists (hungry for
anything with roots and context) managed to interact with the local people
(hungry for money).

And then there are the agents and dealers who make their living out of buying and
selling antiques, semi-antiques and pseudo-antiques. Most of them are from the
neighbouring valleys like Kullu and Kinnaur, but some locals, too, are involved.
Unlike the direct sale to tourists which startedonly last summer, these agents have
been at it with the quiet efficiency of termites for almost a decade now.

In the beginning, they had a field day with the villagers, offering them colourful
plastic tumblers in exchange for their traditional cups and bowls. Later, that is
now, the villagers have begun to become at least half aware of the value of their
belongings, so that now it is only half a rip-off.

New carpets are still being offered to the grateful villagers in exchange for old,
sometimes naturally dyed ones, two new brass 'diyas' in place of one that was old,
and so on. These agents regularly visit most villages, maintain cordial relations
with the villagers, and are occasionally even treated as honoured guests by some
of them.

Almost all the things being sold to the tourists or the agents are not made any
longer in Spiti. Natural dyeing stopped completely a few decades ago. Black-
smiths, copper-smiths, silver-smiths and other such skilled craftsmen are not
found any more in Spiti (there never were too many). Trade with Tibet - the
traditional source for most of their metalcraft, jewellery, carpets and many other
handicrafts - stopped soon after the Chinese occupation. Resumption of trade with
Tibet now, although in the offing, is not likely to yield much more than the cheap
Chinese and Tibetan goods of the kind that Tibetans already sell inIndia (although
we will have to wait and see).

So this was the situation as I saw it when I landed up in Spiti. Almost before I
realised it, I had become involved in trying to stop this sellout. Wherever I went,
I discussed this matter with the villagers, the lamas, the religious heads, the
pradhans, the tourists, the guides and tour operators accompanying them and, in
more than one interesting encounter, with the agents themselves.
In Kaza, I brought the matter to the notice of the top officials in the local
administration and urged them to do what they could, which they did, to an extent.
The SDM landed up unexpectedly at some of the spots that I had reported to him
about, and, with a combination of persuasion and threats of police action, got the
process stopped. The ADC brought out a circular and sent it to all the pradhans
and gompas, apart from discussing the matter wherever he went on tour.

All this was beginning to have its effects when, thmugh an interesting sequence
of events, some Ladagkis* came over on ashort tour of Spiti (described later), and
added a lot of energy of these efforts. The net result, not only of these, but of some
earlier efforts too (by the members of the royal family, for instance), is that the
process of direct sale to tourists has more or less stopped in Spiti, and is likely to
stay that way if followed up with reasonable effectiveness during the coming
months.

The termites - the agents - will prove to be much more difficult to get rid of. They
work quietly and below the surface, so that it is difficult to monitor their activities.
Their acceptance among the villagers adds to the problem. The process of making
the people aware and of eroding the acceptance of these agents is well under way,
and might start snowballing soon.

Another hindrance is theconfusion in the administration about where it can resort

to legal action and where not. Anything that is over a hundred years old is
classified as an antique and is protected by the law, but anything that is less old
than that is free to be sold. One thing is sure - if attempts are made to draw a line
between what can be sold and what can't, the issue is likely to get so confused as
to render any intended action ineffective.

Recent attempts by the authorities to register all antiques in Spiti have met with
less than moderate cooperation from the villagers. Some fear that registration is
a step towards acquisition. Although these fears are clearly unfounded, one can't
entirely blame the villagers, considering their experience years ago at the hands
of asenior bureaucrat (name withheld) who tried his utmost to buy antiques in the
valley, actually bought some, and was finally shooed a w q by some determined
villagers (all hearsay, but more or less common knowledge).

* 'Ladakh', the prevalent spelling, is nowhere near the actual pronounciation. 'Ladak'
and 'Ladag' have been uqed by some, but seem to be ever so slightly off. My humble
suggestion, from a position of relative ignorance, is 'Ladagk'. How about it?
The top officials in Spiti will therefore have to use all their ingenuity and their
(considerable) influence to launch an energetic drive - token gestures just won't
do - to stop this outflow. A drive that is not based solely on the legality or illegality
of selling this or that item, but also on the need to preserve the heritage of apeople
who still have their roots somewhat intact.

Ipersonally am not aconservationist, and have no undue attachment to old things,

'antiques' least of all. But I do believe that a certain continuity should be
maintained between the old and the new, and that the new should be at least as
beautiful, contextual and rooted in nature as the old that it replaces. Plastic
tumblers in placeofchina-clay or wooden bowls?No!Chemically dyed 'cashmilon'
from Ludhiana in place of locally spun, naturally dyed wool? No, again! The
tourists, refugees from a rootless culture, still have places like Spiti to come to in
order to experience 'rootedness', but if these roots too are chopped, where will the
Spitians go as tourists?

THE 'LA DARCHA' FAIR

In the second half of August, a festival called 'La Darcha' took place at Kaza. The
origins of this festival lie in a traditional trade-oriented fair that used to be held
on a small plateau called 'La Darcha' in the hills near Chicham village. Traders
from Tibet, Changthang, Ladagk and Spiti exchanged goods at this annual fair.
Since the Tibetans were crucial to the success of this fair, it stopped being held
after the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

A few years ago, the administration decided to revive this fair in the form of the
major non-religious festival of Spiti. The venue was shifted to Kaza, and the .

emphasis to cultural performances; the name was retained - the 'La Darcha' fair.

[A detailed critique with recommendations on the running of this festival is being

included in a formal paper on tourism-related proposals which will be published
soon after this one.]

From the crowds of people at Kaza this summer during the 'La Darcha' fair, it
seemed that almost half of Spiti's 10,000odd population was present. Folk dance
troupes from various parts of Himachal Pradesh, Ladagk, and some even from as
far off as the north-eastem states, gave cultural performances spread over four
evenings. The Ladagkis were any day the most popular troupe, and gave many
performances to a highly appreciative crowd.

Seeing the overwhelming response of the Spitians towards the Ladagki perform-
ers confirmed beyond doubt the soundness of an idea (not entirely original) that
had been growing in my mind for quite some time - that the Ladagki people, both
due to their similarities to the Spitians and their differences, represented a force
that could possibly become an effective instrument for bringing about awareness
and change in Spiti.

CHANGTHANG

Towards the end of August, I trekked across the Parang la (18,300 ft.) and then
along the Pare Chu river to Changthang, adesolate dreamland on Ladagk's border
with Tibet. The route that I took is the traditional route taken by the horse-traders
of Spiti when they go to sell their famed horses, often through barter, to the people
of Changthang and Ladagk.

It took me five extremely lonely days to walk from the last village in Spiti to the
first village in Changthang, and during these days I came across neither a single
human being nor even a tree. Just an occasional herd of blue sheep, and some
garbage left behind by umy and ITBP 'expeditions' along the same route.

Changthang is also the home of the Himalayan wild ass ('hang', in the local
language), and I came across many of them on my way to Leh.

A GUST OF WIND FROM LADAGK

On reaching Leh after my Changthang trek, I met some interesting people there
- Helena Norberg Hodge, who has been associated with Ladagk for almost two
decades now, Mr. Sonarn Dawa, the director of the Ladagk Ecological Develop-
ment Group (LEDeG), Mr. Sonam Wangchuk of SECMOL (Student's Educa-
tional and Cultural Movement of Ladagk), Mr. Tashi Rabgias, an eminent
Buddhist scholar and poet, and some others.

I told them about Spiti, about what I was doing, and the role the Ladagkis could
possibly play. I asked them if some of them could come over to Spiti and exchange
notes with the people there about old problems in Ladagk which were becoming
the new problems in Spiti, about how the people of Spiti could benefit from the
experience and the mistakes of the Ladagkis, and things like that.

I spent three days in Leh, and somehow things worked out better and faster than
I had hoped for. [Interestingly,both LEDeG and SECMOLreceived copies of my
introductory paper on Spiti by post from EQUATIONS just a few hours after my
first meeting with each of them! Happy coincidence, and it probably added to the
general excitement about Spiti - a land they had initially no more than a vague
ideaof - among these people.] By the third day, a Ladagki group led by Mr. Tashi
Rabgias, and assisted by LEDeG, had taken the decision to tour Spiti, and I rushed
off to Spiti to do the groundwork for this visit.

Two weeks later, in mid-September, four brilliant Ladagkis drove down to Spiti
-Mr. Tashi Rabgias (on behalf of LEDeG), Mr. Jamyang Gyaltsan and lama Ge
Konchok Namgial (both senior lecturers at the Central Institute of Buddhist
Studies, Choglamsar), and their irrepressible driver, Mr. Tsering Mutup Tursey.
Said Mr. Tashi Rabgias on arrival at Kaza, "Opportunity is like an animal with
horns but no tail. If you do not grasp it by the horns as soon as it appears before
you, you will beleft with nothingtograb when it passes you. So when I heardabout
Spiti, I grabbed the opportunity to visit it without any hesitation at all!"

We covered the whole valley in a whirlwind anddusty tour lasting a week, holding
meetings in key villages andgompas along the way. The visit, to put it very shortly,
was quite a success, and we made many plans about future visits, of Ladagkis to
Spiti, and of Spitians to Ladagk.

CHANGING NAMES

This was another disturbing and totally unexpected phenomenon that I came
across in Spiti. At the time of admission to school, the names of a lot of children
had been and were being changed from their original Buddhist names to Hindu
names like Amar Singh, Sohan Singh, Sher Singh and Gabbar Singh (Angchuk,
Khendap, Kesang and Chhewang their real names), to name just a few of them.
I asked a lot of people as to how this came about, and a confused picture began
to emerge.
This happened more often earlier than now, when Lahaul and Spiti were still a
part of Punjab, and when most of the teachers came from the plains of Punjab. As
aresult, many grown-up young men and women go around with unlikely sounding
Hindu, if not hard-core Punjabi names.

Although in almost all cases the name of the child seemed to have been changed
with the verbal consent, or at least a lack of protest, of the parents, most such
parents blamed the teachers, who have always been mostly non-local. The
standard comment of parents was, "The teacher said he (they're mostly male )
couldn't pronounce or spell our child's name, so he gave the child another name
on the spot and wrote it down in the register." Amazing!

A slightly different process has been going on in the adjoining valleys of Lahaul
and Kinnaur, and it might help to understand the difference. Both these valleys
have a mixed population of Hindus and Buddhists; mixed not only from village
to village or from person to person, but also in many cases within the same
individual, since alarge section of the population in these two regions of transition
is neither too sure nor very particular about its religion, and in fact is reasonably
comfortable with arnixtureof both. In many shops in Kinnaur, for instance, I saw
the picture of the Dalai lama surrounded by the pictures of Hindu gods and
godesses. These peopleoftenchange their Buddhist names to Hindu names (never
vice versa), often simply to more comfortably mix with the people in the plains
and foothills during their frequent trade-related visits there.

This does not, however, hold good for Spiti. Spiti is not aregion of transition, nor
is the changing of a whole lot of names the result of any hints of a confusion
between Buddhism and Hinduism. Consciously or subconsciously, with or
without the consent of the affected people, whether anyone is to blame for this or
not, is this, by any chance, the dubious process of 'Indianisation' at work?

Once again, since I was there in Spiti, and since I had come across something that
I couldn'tquitedigest, I foundmyself trying to do something about it. Initially with
the help of the visiting Ladagkis. While travelling around Spiti, the Ladagkis
discussed this trend (unheard of in Ladagk) with the people. The people
everywhere were more or less unanimous about wanting to change back their
names, or at least said so. But most felt that if at all it were possible to do so, the
process would be too involved.
So, after the Ladagkis left, I approached the ADC with this problem. He took the
wind out of the indignation and the arguments that I had built up by saying, "Is
that so? In that case, bring me the list of all the people who want to change back
their names, and I'll set aside procedure and get all of them changed together."
As simple as that.

This meeting took place at the fag end of my summer stay in Spiti, so I couldn't
get the people started on the list. Besides, I wanted to be doubly sure that these
people actually do want to change back their names, and weren'tjust saying what
we wanted them to say (like they probably did with the teachers in the firstplace!).

My visit this winter to all parts of the valley has confirmed the fact that the desire
to change back names is widespread enough, though perhaps not matched
adequately by the willingness to take an initiative in the matter. What I do about
this, and whether, will have to emerge naturally from circumstances and from me.
Perhaps I won't even need to do anything.

CLEANING KAZA

What was planned as a daylong cleanup of Kaza on Sunday, the 12th of

September, extended unexpectedly into four days of intensive cleaning in which
at least one representative of each family participated each day. Although they
made a relative mess of the cleaning, collecting garbage in tractor trolleys only
to dump it by the roadside a little distance away from Kaza (on the first dayj, or
simply making hasty piles, pouring kerosene, and setting them on fire (on
subsequent days), it was a beginning nevertheless.

What is more important is that these four days of cleaning culminated in an

unprecedented decision - the Vyapar Mandal (shopowners' union) of Kaza
declared a ban on the use of polythene bags in shops, with a Rs. 5001- fine for
defaulters. Remarkable is the fact that this was a people's decision, and not one
that was imposed by the administration.

In addition, a 'Safai' Committee was set up to plan for comprehensive measures

to clean Kaza, and to keep it clean.

The ADC, seeing the villagers take such a serious initiative, has agreed to provide
generous funds for a long-term garbage strategy for Kaza. Included in this would
be the setting up of public toilets - something that is desperately needed (as was
evident during the cleaning) in view of the large floating population at Kaza
during the summers.

During my winter visit, I found that the ban on polythene bags had ceased to be
operational. It had lasted for about three months, but the tough winter months and
the running out of stocks of paper bags had apparently weakened their resolve.
This figured in some of my conversations with the shopowners, and they (in
particular, the president of the Vyapar Mandal) assured me that the lifting of the
ban was only temporary, and as soon as the weather conditions became a little
better, by about April, they would reimpose the ban. We decided to work things
out in detail during the coming months so that the breakdown of this winter did
not repeat next winter. This is something that will need to be repeatedly followed
up in order for it to last. And backed up by well thought out administrative
measures.

Meanwhile, a valley-wide garbage strategy still seems to be some way off.

ARCHITECTURE

While in Spiti, I have been talking to a lot of people, among them the officials in
the local administration, about not discarding local materials and construction
techniques in favour of the unsightly, impractical and uneconomical concrete and
corrugated GI sheets that are increasingly showing up; about modifying and
improving traditional and government architecture to make it more energy-
efficient by using common-sense and solar energy; about using improved
techniques of construction in local materials (like mud) in order to more
effectively tackle new problems like increased rainfall and to reduce the
consumption of wood in building.

The response has indeed been quite good, from the people and, refreshingly, from
the administration. I am presently involved in the design and construction of three
solar-passive mud buildings in Spiti. Two of these are government buildings,
while the third is a 'sarai' for the gompa at Tabo (the gompa is itself an ancient
mud building reaching its 1000th year in 1996).

?'he local administration, notably its top official, the ADC, is looking towards
these buildings as test-cases for a dramatically altered approach towards govern-
ment architecture in Spiti. The local people, too, are likely to be positively
influenced by the example set by these buildings, and many are already showing
keen interest in these developments, particularly in the use of solar energy for
space heating.

I intend to make full use of my presence and involvement in Spiti to help preserve
the richness and the visual, material and social harmony with nature that is
characteristic about the architecture of Spiti. In addition, since nowhere should
architectural practices stagnate or close up to outside influences, I would like to
see how the architecture of Spiti can take a few modest steps in evolution in terms
of better and more informed use of local materials, reduced use of wood, and the
use of designs that enhance energy-efficiency and reduce fuel consumption.

Starting this summer, I intend to also look at the emerging towns of KazaandTabo
and work on detailedproposals for their harmonious and wholesome growth. And
on sensible limits to that growth.

Another interesting assignment has meanwhile come my way. I am guest-editing

a special issue of the bi-monthly journal 'ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN' on the
theme, 'High-Himalayan Vernacular: Breaking Down Under Stress?' which will
focus on the problems and stresses that are being experienced by the architectural
fabric of human settlements in the higher reaches of the Himalayas under the
powerful and monocultural influence of 'modernity', with a strong emphasis on
an energetic search for meaningful solutions. This issue has been slated for
November-December, 1994. 'High-Himalayan' regions from Afghanistan to
Bhutan are being looked at in this issue, with a detailed report on Spiti being
prepared by me.

NATURAL DYEING

Natural dyeing died an unnatural death in Spiti at least afew decades ago. At first,
it did not occur to me that it might be possible to revive this process after such a
long gap. But slowly, while travelling around Spiti, seeing handicrafts being made
and being used, and seeing the desperation of the tourists for anything that had
'dyed' naturally, I began to grudgingly believe in the possibility of life after death.
In a nutshell, then, and sparing you any more puns, I am now fully involved in
trying to revive natural dyeing in Spiti.
My getting interested in natural dyeing, like in most other things in Spiti, just
happened, and I am letting it continue to happen. I am no expert in this field; in
fact, I hardly knew anything about natural dyeing when I started, and the learning
process has just begun. This is how it is with many of the things I do, and I regard
it as an asset.

This winter, I began a search for any information on natural dyeing that I could
get hold of among the people of Spiti. There were very few who knew anything
at all. Some even dug out generation old chemically dyed shawls which they
presumed must have been naturally dyed because of their age.

But then there were the few who knew some things, and I slowly began to piece
together very sketchy (often maddeningly contradictory) information on tradi-
tional methods of dyeing, on the traditional set of colours and their correct shades,
on plants that used to be used and plants that weren't used earlier but could
possibly be used because of the colour of their flowers and the large quantity in
which they grew in parts of Spiti.

A key part of the process would be to get the people interested, motivated, even
excited about the possibility of taking up natural dyeing once again. This has been
beguil, and there is already a scattering of people all over Spiti who are not only
excited, but raring to go. The ball, it seems, is in my court.

This summer, I will be collecting samples of plants from Spiti and from some
adjoining parts of Kinnaur and Lahaul and getting them checked out for their
dying potential. The process of ascertaining the cultivability of these plants has
simultaneously been begun, with some experimenting scheduled for the summers
(along with some of the more interested and knowledgeable people in Spiti). This
might well be crucial, for if natural dyeing really geta going in Spiti, as I hope it
will, these plants will all be in trouble.

And while all this long-term work is on, why wait? I plan to try and get some of
the people to get their home-spun wool dyed in natural colours at establishments
outside Spiti, so that the first naturally dyed shawls and carpets in decades are
hopefully on display during the next 'La Darcha' fair in August this year. This
is ambitious, but very, very possible.
TOURISM

My interaction on tourism has, over the months, covered all sections of the people
in Spiti - the villagers, the pradhans, guest-house and restaurant owners, taxi
owners, budding travel agents, the members of the royal family, religious heads,
youths and youth groups, women and women's groups, the tourists themselves
and, significantly, the top officials of the local administration.

The present ADC at Kaza, Mr. Manoj Kumar Srivastava, an IAS officer, took over
around the time that I reached Spiti last year, and I have had the opportunity to
meet him a number of times during my stays at Kaza. Many of these meetings
concentrated on tourism, during which we had detailed discussions on all aspects
of tourism in the valley.

What emerged was a broad consensus on all the major aspects of this issue, and
we resolved to make Spiti a model of sensibly planned and sustainable tourism for
other Himalayan regions to learn from and follow. In the capacity of an
independent researcher, I am now preparing a detailed report containing concrete
tourism-related proposals for the ADC to follow up on. The first of these proposals
will hopefully begin to be implemented during the coming tourist season.

The proposed report is intended to be the first in a short series of periodically

updated reports (perhaps one every spring over the next year or two) on an
evolving tourism strategy for Spiti. After the first few years, which represent a
period of transition, the tourism situation is likely to stabilise somewhat, but the
process of further evolution and fine-tuning must continue.

I am also trying to get the guest-house owners together in the form of an

association or a cooperative which lays down guidelines for their own operation
while at the same time working to preserve their collective interests by actively
participating in the formulation and the implementation of the tourism strategy
in Spiti. After a few initial misgivings and false starts since last summer, this
cooperative is likely to take off during the coming summers.

I am working on two sets of complementary guidelines for the setting up and

functioning of guest houses in Spiti. The first set will suggest self-imposed
guidelines which the proposed cooperative could incorporate in its functioning,
while the second set will suggest guidelines that the administration should impose
on the guest houses.

If the cooperative starts functioning in an enlightened and responsible manner,

keeping in mind both short-term and long-term self-interest, and making sure that
its self-interest does not clash with the well-being of the social, cultural, economic
and physical environment of which it is a part, administrative controls would
become superfluous (as they should always be).

Similar moves are on to get together local travels agents (too few of them so far),
restaurant owners and taxi owners in Spiti.

Begging, specially by children, which I predict will make its first appearance in
Spiti during the coming tourist season, will have to be tackled immediately,
decisively and once and for all by the community, so that there is not a scratch on
its self-respect and pride.

In September last year, the Financial Commissioner-cum-Secretary (Tribal

Development) to the Govt. of Himachal Pradesh, Mr. A.N. Vidyarthi, came on
tour to Spiti. At Kaza, some of the guest-house and restaurant owners met him and
complained about the fact that the highly self-sufficient 'package tours' to Spiti,
organised invariably by non-local tour operators, did not benefit the local
entrepreneurs in any way, and should not be allowed in Spiti. Mr. Vidyarthi agreed
with them and assured them that from the summer of '94, these package tours
would be stopped. I wonder, did he mean what he said?

In the first half of April, I will be going to Shimla in order to meet some of the
officials and legislators who are involved in making policy-level decisions about
Spiti. Tourism will be one of the major topics of conversation during these
meetings.

LADAGK ONCE AGAIN

Some of us are meeting at Leh (thanks to EQUATIONS) towards the end of April
to see how the Ladagk-Spiti relationship, which began so well last sunxner, can
evolve further. There is acertain naturalness in the affinity that the people of these
two regions feel for each other which can be very enriching for both. ifcultivated
with care and sensitivity.
THE MAGIC OF 'NO METHOD'

The mood during my visits to Spiti was quite relaxed, and very little of what
happened was contrived or pre-planned. The things that did happen, happened
quite naturally and spontaneously, so that in many cases it was difficult topinpoint
when and how this or that began. The results, the almost incidental by-products
of 'being there', varied from the encouraging to the, well, magical.

Of course, there were disappointments, too; of course, there is a long way to go

- both inwardly and outwardly; of course, phenomena like tourism (and war, for
that matter) seemas inevitableas they are absurd. But, in the methodofno method,
the disappointments are as few as the expectations, the pleasure and the
enrichment never desert you, and, what is more, there is scope for magic ...

. . . SO WATCH OUT, FOR THERE IS MAGIC IN THE AIR!

SHUBHENDU KAUSHIK
C-404, Somvihar Apartments
R.K. Puram
New Delhi - 110022
Phone - 676957
NOTES
 (for private circulation only)

Shubhendu, a friend of Equations, is an

independent researcher.

This series of papers on Spiti is being

supported by Equations as a part of its
commitment to work with new ideas in
the field of tourism.

(K.T. Suresh)
Co-ordinator
EQUATIONS

Equitable Tourism Options (EQUATIONS) seeks to situate the tourism

4
critique within the overall development debate. Our activities include docurnen-
tation, publication, research and supporting individuals and groups involved in
concerted action on tourism concerns.