By Ruma Dubey

This is the true dichotomy in which today’s India lives, straddling between the new, yuppie generation and the more conservative older generation. We get miffed when in foreign films, especially, Hollywood, Indians get typecasts with snake charmers, elephants, God men, peculiar yoga poses and an even stranger accent. We argue, rave and rant that we have changed – gone are the days when India was about Kings, snakes and elephants; today we live in a very modern India and its IT sector rules the world. And even while we all try hard to establish all this, bang comes the news – the Government of India has got itself into a frenzy, digging for 1000 tonnes of buried gold at an ancient temple site in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh and this at the behest of one saint who got a dream about the location of this buried gold.

The Western world is stumped – they do not know if this is a joke or is the Govt really serious, hoping that this buried gold will solve some of India’s fiscal issues. It’s a known fact that Indian temples have gold which can probably be used to gold plate the entire country. The recent find of a treasure trove of gold, precious gems at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvanthapuram in Kerela was a recent example of how much gold could probably lie in the deep floors of many such ancient temples of India.

The saint who wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, urging him to dig and find the gold, has indeed put his entire reputation and that of the country at stake. If gold is indeed found, the following of this seer is expected to increase manifold and more worrisome - a multitude of increase in superstitions and rituals and protecting our heritage sites from gold diggers will become impossible. The new generation is today as such trapped, not knowing whether to follow their parents and their ways of religion or follow the West and strike a median on spiritualism and religion. The ongoing debacle on Asaram Babu reiterated their growing belief that most God men today have lost all faith and are wolves in sheep’s clothing. And then comes this “gold dreamer” seer – if his words indeed come true, one wonders how will the new generation react?

India is known far and wide as a land of spiritualism. You just have to visit Rishikesh to see the number of foreigners who come for a “crash course” on Hinduism and our way of spiritual life. For such seekers, such happenings in India might not come as a surprise. But what about the executive who has come to sign a multimillion dollar IT contract?

The seer in his letter to the Prime Minister urged the Govt to dig out this gold as he was worried about the “collapsing economy of India”. The seer’s intentions are noble – he wants the Govt to use the gold to resolve its economic woes. The falling rupee was blamedoin gold imports. In fact gold imports totalled US$54 billion at end of FY13 and if this 1000 tonnes of gold is found, it would be good enough to replace all of India’s imports for a year and would be worth US$40 billion.  If that is the indeed the case then the Govt should forget all about policies and plans, it should just dig up all temples and become the ‘land of gold’ what it once was, a few centuries ago. It is quite interesting to know that the Govt is humouring the dream of this seer; does this mean that other seers with similar “dreams” will also be pampered?

While the seer wants the gold for the country, those in the village, which still does not have a landline phone and TV, feel that it should first be used for their development – many want the Govt to use the money to build Asia's biggest hospital, some want a new a railway line, an engineering college and a solar power plant. Some even aspire for a cricket stadium and a Govt job for at least one member of every household. All these and more such aspirations have come to the fore and if the gold is not found, the disappointment and the ire is something which the Govt needs to watch out for. Many, who had migrated to the cities for work have returned back, to help dig (for free) and also get a share of the bounty from the gold which is to be discovered. Many places in UP, ancient temple sites are witnessing people digging up, hoping to find gold. At least about 2 dozen sites are reported to have been dug out. The real danger- apart from this madness is the damage which all this is causing to our ancient heritage sites. As such the maintenance of such sites, dating back to the 7^th century and older is pathetic and this nuisance will only add to the misery.

The economic woes cannot be cured by some buried treasure but we could lose the treasure of our heritage, which we so proudly talk about. The seer maybe right or wrong but in today’s era and times, to give wind to such lunacy is digging a hell-hole for India.

Spirituality and pursuit of material goals do not go hand-in-hand; so how come the saint’s of today dream of only such material gains, even if it is for the good of the country?  Have enlightenment and truth become passé?