For a Glimpse of the Submerged City: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a deep dive in the Arabian Sea in Gujarat in February 2024 Photo: | Video screengrab via official Narendra Modi X account For a Glimpse of the Submerged City: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a deep dive in the Arabian Sea in Gujarat in February 2024 Photo: | Video screengrab via official Narendra Modi X account

Smoke coils upwards from the burning pyres as the old man, caretaker of the masaan (cremation ground), looks at the sea at Dwarka’s Gayatri beach and recalls Arjuna’s words from the 16th of the Mahabharata’s 18 chapters, the ‘Mausala Parva’: “The sea, which had been beating against the shores, broke the boundaries imposed by nature. It rushed into the beautiful city and swallowed everything in its path. I watched as the grand buildings submerged one by one. In just a few momentsflorajogo, it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the city anymore. Dwarka was just a name, just a memory.” The warrior prince had been motivated to fight his cousins in the Kurukshetra war in the verses of the Bhagavad Gita by Sri Krishna, also known as Dwarkadhish or lord of Dwarka—the mythical coastal metropolis that Arjuna, long after winning that war, watched the sea swallow following years of bloodbath among the ruling Yadavas.

Badri Bhandari, the elderly caretaker who has premonitions of the mythical catastrophe befalling the city again, then turns to look at the two bodies on their last journey in the flames not far from a burial spot for dead children and says, “I’m first a servant of death, only then a devotee of Krishna.” This seaside cremation ground is at one end of the beach that takes its name from Gayatri Mata in whose honour a temple was built in 1983 at the other end. It’s the only temple in Devbhoomi Dwarka district, on the south-western tip in the Gulf of Kutch, where the “mother of the Vedas” is worshipped.

“My clan may not have this abode in future to preserve the relics of the past,” he says, sometimes shouting at the passersby, hoping his voice would catch their attention. “All of Dwarka rests on sand,” he insists. “So, if we keep on digging the ground, the sand will give way and everything will be submerged.” He paints quite a doomsday scene for the city famous for the Dwarkadhish temple, which, built over 72 pillars, is said to have been the site of Krishna’s throne.

A year ago, in February 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a deep dive in the Arabian Sea for a glimpse of the submerged city during a visit to his native state for inaugurating the Sudarshan Setu, the longest cable-stayed bridge in the country and Gujarat’s first sea link. Also known as Signature Bridge, the 2.32-km-long four-lane bridge connects Okha port in Dwarka town to Beyt Dwarka island, sparing the pilgrims headed for the several temples there a 30-45-minute boat ride. This February, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) resumed an underwater excavation project off the coast of Dwarka that had in 2005-07 attempted to better understand the city’s archaeological importance. The three-woman team was led by a veteran of the 2005-07 exercise in which “extensive survey and excavation had been done in Dwarka until the work was stopped”, says Alok Tripathi, Additional Director General, ASI. “At that time, the work was done in a limited area. Now, further work has been started again on a larger scale.”

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The biggest crowds gather during Janmashtami, Krishna’s birthday, and Holi, the festival of colours widely associated with his raas-reela.

This comes in the wake of the Gujarat government building the Dwarka circuit for religious tourism. The state’s finance minister, Kanu Desai, announced the allocation of Rs 6,505 crore for religious tourism in 2025-26—31 per cent more than the previous financial year. “Three projects are going on simultaneously and one might overlap with the other: Beyt Dwarka, Shivrajpur and the Dwarka corridor,” says Ajit Joshi, project manager for Gujarat government tourism. The authorities have demolished several residential, commercial and religious buildings on the Beyt Dwarka and Pirotan islands and at Okha. These demolitions targeted illegal structures, including 250 residences, a dargah and nine mazaars (sufi shrines), after informing the parties concerned well in advance according to the norms, the officials claim. The Hazrat Panj Pir dargah at Okha was torn down as it was on land owned by the state-run Gujarat Maritime Board. Development is underway and the government is in a rush to decide what is legal and what is illegal.

“We are too poor to matter,” says Imtiaz Qureshi, a local. “This is Krishnabhoomi (land of Krishna), yes, but there is also a port here at Okha. Maybe it was my father’s mistake to come here for a livelihood, and now we have to pay the price by leaving this place. Bheed kam ho jaayegi (it won’t be as crowded anymore).” All this is part of a three-phase plan to develop the temples, beaches and other areas at Beyt Dwarka and Okha to attract more pilgrims and other tourists. The state government has allocated Rs 150 crore for this project.

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Pradip, 48, spends his nights at the ruins of one of the abandoned shops at the back of the Dwarkadhish temple. During the day he can be seen walking up and down the lane with a bunch of flutes on his slender shoulder, stopping only when a few are sold. As the breeze rustles the tattered quilt, he yawns and gets up. Sticking close to the temple wall, he walks towards a big building. “The temple has got cracks now because of the adjoining buildings,” he says. “If you dig at most places, you’ll eventually find rocks, but here that’s not the case. It’s just a mound of sand. Any more construction, and the whole structure will collapse.”

There are 16 ghats on the Gomti river, where pilgrims are expected to bathe before entering the Dwarkadhish temple through the Swarg Dwar in order to attain moksha. Sudama, Krishna’s childhood friend who visited him at Dwarka, is said to have walked the 52 steps here. The Brahma Kund,7jogos slots where sages would take a dip, had been painted once but, over time, it, too, has paled. The earlier Old Gomti Ghat and New Gomti Ghat projects failed due to lack of maintenance. The famous Sudama Bridge, too, has been closed to the public for similar reasons. “Sanctioning more money and then pocketing half of it will not bring development,” says Pradip.

‘They are all in search of the utopia that Krishna built, not the city now in need of repair’

None of this has affected the number of devotees, however, as their number continues to grow every year. The biggest crowds gather during Janmashtami, Krishna’s birthday, and Holi, the festival of colours widely associated with his raas-reela.

“Do you know why the Rukmini temple is here?” asks the head priest, sitting cross-legged at the only Rukmini temple, just 1 km from the main city. “The legends say that even when God listens to his wife, there is turmoil,” he laughs and begins to narrate a lesser-known myth. When Krishna and his wife Rukmini invited Rishi Durvasa, the sage kept a fast and promised to come only if both of them pulled his chariot. When Rukmini became thirsty while pulling the chariot and stopped, Krishna pressed his right toe into the earth and the Ganga came out to quench her thirst. The infamously quick-tempered Durvasa was enraged as Rukmini forgot to offer him the water first and he cursed the couple that they would never live together. “Hence, Rukmini stayed here, and anyone who comes here offers her water,” he says. How much does the water cost? “Jitni aapki shraddha ho (it depends on your faith). You can pay Rs 1,000 or even Rs 5,000. Yes, water is costly.”

After the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, the central government announced the creation of the Dwarka corridor, along with the Swami Vivekananda circuit. This is not the first time the government has focused on enhancing the religious significance of the area. In February 2017, the ministry of urban development had approved the development of the 6-km-long Bet Dwarka Darshan Circuit in Gujarat at a cost of Rs 16.27 crore under the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) of the Union government. Connecting the Dwarkadhish Haveli with Hanuman Dandi, the only temple housing Lord Hanuman and his son, Makardhwaj, in Dwarka district, the circuit includes two significant waterbodies, Ranchod Talav and Shankhudhar Lake.

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Religious tourism is clearly booming, according to a survey by professors of economics at the Banaras Hindu University based on data of the tourism department. “The question is how much money can a God fetch,” says Jeet Mangalya, a photographer for Gujarat tourism and an ardent Osho preacher. “What value will you put on Rama, Krishna and Shiva? Rama has an edge over the others and now Krishna also needs to create his ground.” He is obviously joking, for he quickly adds, “Faith is built and nurtured. You believe what you see and what the government feeds, and now the feeling has started for Dwarka…”

Dwarkadhish is one of the char dhams, the four supremely pious places for Hindus. Dwarka sees fewer pilgrims in comparison to the other three—Badrinath in Uttarakhand, Jagannath Puri in Odisha and Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu. The regular visitors from Rajkot, Porbandar and nearby cities outnumber the first-time pilgrims from across the country. Mukund Patel, 62, who is here for the third time in three years in a row, was a beneficiary of the Sharav Tirth Darshan scheme of the government of Gujarat during the first visit. Over 1.42 lakh devotees have benefited from this scheme launched in 2017-18 for people above the age of 60.

Research to uncover Dwarka’s historical remnants began in the 1930s under Hiranand Shastri and the first major excavation in 1963 was led by J. M. Nanavati and H. D. Sankalia. Between 1983 and 1990, marine archaeological studies revealed several stone anchors, fortified structures, pillars and irrigation channels, indicating the existence of a meticulously planned ancient city. “Nothing final can be said as we have started the search just now,” says ADG Tripathi.

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“They are all in search of the utopia that Krishna built, not the city now in need of repair,” quips Mangalya, referring to the Gayatri beach, where the stairs crumble under one’s feet, even as the government pushes ahead to build the Dwarka corridor. Rocks made of the same stone (Dariyayi Pathar) from which the temple was built were recovered during the demolitions. “Ancient architects must have understood that the soil would recede, so they might have placed rocks to ensure stability. But we are in the process of building another corridor, moving the sand underneath,” says Mangalya.

Pritha Vashishth is a Mumbai-based journalist who writes about human rights, society and culture

For Ashwini Ponnappa, Paris is likely to be her last Olympics and she will hope to be third time lucky as she leads the women's doubles challenge along with debutant Tanisha Crasto.

"It's her third Olympics, she won two medals in the last two Olympics and several world championship medals. So I think she feels she has an edge already even though her ranking doesn't say it or her recent form doesn't say it," Kashyap, an Olympics expert at JioCinema & Sports18, told reporters during an interaction.

This article is a part of Outlook's March 21, 2025 issue 'The Pilgrim's Progress'florajogo, which explores the unprecedented upsurge in religious tourism in India. It appeared in print as 'The Lord’s City Sits on Sand'.