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Acknowledging the Shades of Grey: The Past, Present

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Chapter · January 2023

DOI: 10.1108/978-1-80262-937-820221009

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Chapter 9

Acknowledging the Shades of Grey: The

Past, Present and Future of Dark Tourism
in India
Nitasha Sharma

Abstract
The study uses a postcolonial lens to examine the historical interest of
Western tourists towards dark tourism in the east, critically assess the current
status of dark tourism in India, and recommend sustainable strategies that
must be considered for promoting a dark tourism market in the future. The
observations and recommendations for the study are based on primary
fieldwork experience at different dark tourism sites in India besides an
analysis of secondary data. A critical analysis in the context of dark tourism
in India demonstrates several complex issues in terms of the existence and
applicability of Euro-centric frameworks and concepts. Firstly, it is revealed
that the Western fascination with death-related rituals in the east is rooted in
notions of colonial discourse, authenticity and counter-culture movements.
Secondly, although dark tourism has not been formally acknowledged or
promoted in India, it already exists in the form of fragmented and informal
markets across the country. Thirdly, the application of dark tourism
frameworks and concepts in India requires careful consideration of con-
textuality and non-Western interpretations of death, disaster, heritage and
processes of memorialisation to ensure that the marketing rhetoric does not
reinforce colonial or neocolonial structures of power. Lastly, promoting
responsible dark tourism in India entails minimising dissonance and
decolonising the dark tourism narrative considering the larger goals of social
sustainability and ethics.

Keywords: Dark tourism; India; postcolonial; heritage; ethics; sustainability

Indian Tourism, 125–142

Copyright © 2022 Nitasha Sharma
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited
doi:10.1108/978-1-80262-937-820221009
126 Nitasha Sharma

Introduction
Travel to sites, attractions and exhibitions that offer a (re)presentation of death,
disaster and human suffering are known as ‘dark tourism’, a term coined by Foley
and Lennon (1996, p. 198). Over the last decade, it has received extensive aca-
demic and media attention and has managed to enter the popular cultural
discourse. However, several agreed-upon conventions, typologies and frameworks
in the field of dark tourism are questionable and are context-dependent. Stone
(2013) suggests that there is a need to undertake further work into how different
societies address the mediation between the living and the dead in the context of
dark tourism sites. Light (2017) also points out the inappropriateness of using
Western frameworks for understanding the tourism-death relationship in different
parts of the world stressing the need for the development of new ways of theo-
rising tourism-death relationships by scholars working in non-Western contexts.
This idea is confirmed by Cohen (2018) who states that while ‘dark’ places and
visits related to thanatourism exist in non-Western countries and involve a large
number of tourists, ‘thanatourism’ sites in non-Western countries do not play a
mediation role in the same way as is claimed in Western countries primarily due
to the differences in socio-cultural situatedness and perception of death in Asia as
compared to the West. Thus, cross-cultural perceptions of death and its repre-
sentation are one of the major knowledge gaps in dark tourism.
While there have been few non-empirical and conceptual studies attempting to
assess the potential of dark tourism in India, they fail to critically address the
concept, the drawbacks associated, or provide any recommendations that follow
the principles of sustainability in tourism. These studies have either been restricted
to preparing short inventories of potential dark tourism sites or superficially
discussing the supply and demand of dark tourism in India. Before conducting an
analysis using Eurocentric dark tourism frameworks and suggesting marketing
strategies that will only further perpetuate neocolonial rhetoric, it is first impor-
tant to critically understand and examine the historical and present-day interest of
Western tourists towards dark tourism so that sustainable strategies can be
implemented to promote the concept. Unless tourist-host power relations in dark
tourism encounters are critically unmasked, unleashing an official dark tourism
market in India will not only create ethical and moral dilemmas in imple-
mentation but also reinforce a Western hegemony, leading to further criticism and
challenges.
This study, therefore, uses a postcolonial lens to critically examine the Western
fascination with death-related rituals and spirituality in the East, review the
current status of dark tourism in India, and recommend future strategies that
must be considered for promoting a dark tourism market. The observations and
recommendations for the study are based on primary fieldwork experience at dark
tourism sites in India and content analysis over five years.
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 127

Dark Tourism in India: Past and Present

Research on dark tourism in India is still in a nascent stage compared to other
tourism-related fields of study. But, in reality, what researchers have failed to
understand is that certain aspects of dark tourism in India have always existed,
albeit in an informal and unorganised way and without the formal ‘dark’ label.
Examples include Panipat (battlefield tourism), Jallianwala Bagh (site of a
political massacre), the cremation grounds in Varanasi (pilgrimage and dark
tourism intertwined), and poverty tourism in Dharavi slums of Mumbai (which is
another debatable but a form of dark tourism nevertheless). The former two sites
have always been of interest to both domestic and international tourists and the
latter two have been of interest to most Western tourists. Considering differences
in socio-cultural and religious perceptions, it is clear that some dark tourism sites
convey different meanings for domestic and international tourists. Therefore,
developing a dark tourism market in India requires a thorough understanding of
the differences, dissonance, accepted similarities and overlaps in cultural mean-
ings among both groups of tourists.
Besides the examples mentioned above, there are other sites in India that fall
under the conventional dark tourism typology and have the potential to be
developed further. The following sections discuss how dark tourism in India is not
a new concept and Western tourists have always been fascinated with death and
its various forms of representation. It is observed that the Western fascination
with death-related rituals in the East is rooted in notions of colonial discourse,
authenticity and counter-culture movements.

The Dark Tourism – Pilgrimage Nexus

Dark tourism deals with taboos of modern society and the public display of death
and hence raises several ethical and moral concerns. In contemporary Western
society, it is normal to deal with topics like death more in private than in public
but in South Asia particularly in religious places such as Varanasi, the public
display of death at the cremation grounds and the rituals of the controversial
Aghori sect along with associated moral concerns poses a problem to the tour
operators and agencies who want to cash in on the western fascination with the
death-related rituals. The traditional marketing models suggest a focus on the
destination brand rather than all the features of the destination. Therefore, the
management of such a site is tricky because all stakeholders (the host community
as well as tourists) need to be satisfied.
It is understandable that despite the presence of an informal dark tourism
market, the overall marketing narrative for Varanasi as provided by the gov-
ernment of India portrays the site as a religious site or a Hindu pilgrimage
destination. Yet, there exist several walking and boat tours organised by private
tour companies and individual tour guides that offer tour packages to visit the
cremation grounds and the Aghori ashrams (Sharma, 2020). These tours
demonstrate how the concept of death is commoditised and sold to Western
tourists and that an informal dark tourism market intertwined with pilgrimage
128 Nitasha Sharma

has always existed in northern India. This can also be verified by the presence of
western tourists who have adopted the Aghori lifestyle and now live as lifestyle
migrants in places such as Varanasi, Haridwar, Ujjain and Kedarnath. This is
confirmed by Lennon and Foley (2000, p. 3), who noted that dark tourism,
pilgrimage and heritage are conceptually and historically linked. They wrote that
‘several commentators view pilgrimage as one of the earliest forms of tourism’
and there is strong archaeological evidence that shows how dark tourism and
pilgrimage were historically intertwined. In India, a place like Varanasi is treated
as a religious destination while in reality, the city has always had an informal dark
tourism market closely intertwined with its religious character. However, it must
be noted that the perception of death-related rituals is different for Western
tourists and domestic tourists. This can be verified from the response of a tour
operator (name withheld) in Varanasi whose company offers walking tours to the
cremation ground,

I know that the tours are often seen as a commercial enterprise and
the death in Varanasi as a business. I would prefer to say that we
offer the tourists a unique experience of the concept of death. That
is not how death is looked upon in Varanasi. Death is considered
to be a part and parcel of life, like a BAU (business-as-usual)
scenario. People don’t care too much about death. Our tour is not
exclusively named as a death tour or so but we do stop at the
cremation grounds for about 45 minutes. There is a huge gap
between the perception of death and the reality of death. For
instance, in a lot of cultures around the world, death is considered
a taboo topic. For domestic tourists, while it is fascinating to hear
about certain aspects of death that are usually not discussed, they
are okay with the idea that this is a burning ghat and bodies are
being cremated in public. On the other hand, a Westerner is simply
awed by just looking at the place. Their reaction is a mix of
emotions. It is something like ‘Okay, this is eerie’ because in their
culture, death rituals are private and there is a lot of sadness
involved while in Varanasi, they don’t see too many people crying
or shedding tears. But some people are quite impressed by the
Hindu view on death because these rituals have a scientific basis
and are quite well thought out.

Globalisation, Ideological Movements, and the Rise of Dark Tourism in India

India has been a well-known travel destination in the colonial era (Ghose, 1998),
and in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it became a popular backpacking desti-
nation among hippies (Alderson, 1971; MacLean, 2006; Odzer, 1995; Wiles, 1972)
with thousands of backpackers touring India every year. If on one hand, there is a
group of tourists that embraces the ancient, romanticised version of exotic India,
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 129

there is also another group that embraces the modern version of the country. In
addition to backpackers, India has a large number of expatriates or lifestyle
migrants from Europe who repeatedly spend long periods in the country and
return to their countries of origin and come back again. These lifestyle migrants
are motivated by a search for a more meaningful life and authenticity. Bruner
(1991) describes tourists’ desire for self-transformation through an encounter with
authentic cultures. Pons (2003) adds that sometimes banal and mundane aspects
of places can facilitate existential authenticity and can generate feelings of
self-realisation and self-discovery.
The pilgrimage or spiritual tourism industry in northern India has been
dominated by international backpackers since 1968 when it was made popular by
the Beatles and the interest in Hindu death rituals rose after George Harrison’s
ashes were immersed in the sacred Ganga River by his relatives. The West came
to know more about the Hindu death rituals, the purificatory powers of the river
goddess Ganga and the public display of death and mourning in India. The
fascination with death in Western culture is, therefore, not new. From the
depiction of death in many of Walt Disney’s fairy tales to Gothic and Metal
subcultures in music, death and dying have formed an inseparable component in
public discourse.
However, despite the knowledge and awareness of rituals, a structure of
thought termed ‘colonial consciousness’ has always been observed in tourist
interpretations of India. It is visible even today despite India having attained
independence from colonial rule 70 years ago and is often reflected in the
tourist-host interactions at multiple places. ‘Colonial discourse’ is understood as a
derogatory use of linguistically based practices unified by their common
deployment in the management of colonial relationships (Hulme, 1986, p. 2).
Colonial discourse theory is primarily built upon the work of Edward Said and
the associated terms ‘orientalism’ and the non-European ‘Other’ that represented
a socially constructed and racialised hierarchy of power through a discourse that
portrayed the East as culturally inferior and the West as superior (Said, 2003,
pp. 5–25). Friedman (2006, p. 428) writes that during the era of modernity,
‘interculturality’ was not a utopian fantasy of peaceful integration, rather,
‘modernity recognized that contact zones between cultures often involved
inequality and exploitation’. The ‘colonial consciousness’ often manifests itself in
the form of cultural friction between tourists and hosts, othering of hosts, ongoing
existence of racial stereotypes, and in images marketed in travel magazines,
advertisements and brochures.
Orientalism has been a part of Western consciousness at least since the first
contacts were made between the European and the Arab world (Said, 2003).
Within the context of orientalism, Western rhetoric tends to portray India as
predominantly what Westerners have historically imagined the Other to be like.
For example, certain blogs, documentaries and photographs on the Aghoris in
India tend to construct their image as a beast-like, savage, flesh-eating cult that
practices necrophagy for fun. These narratives rarely tap into the taboos associ-
ated with death nor do they mention the philosophy of non-duality (Advaita)
associated with the rituals of the sect. These representations often tend to
130 Nitasha Sharma

exaggerate the exoticism and many of the distinctions that are made between
western societies and eastern cultures. An unethical manifestation of this attitude
and covert power-play is the clicking of photographs by western tourists at the
Hindu cremation grounds in Varanasi. Some local tour companies offer
photography tours for tourists that are often exploited by taking photographs of
the death rituals and the dead bodies at Manikarnika Ghat. Such photos have
been shared widely by several western tourists, photographers and bloggers who
don’t mention any concerns about the locals not preferring to be photographed,
the overall ethical implications of the fact that photography at the cremation
grounds is prohibited. Instead, the blogs and websites contain strategies for,
subduing the locals to photograph them by paying them for example. Thus,
tourists are often left unaware that the local people in Varanasi might view the
context in which photography takes place differently than the tourists. This
rhetoric rooted in power differences between the host and the tourist often causes
tourists to disrespect local restrictions. The same ethical implications hold for
slum tourism in India as well.
In terms of generating further awareness of death-related rituals, global
ideological movements played a significant impact in triggering the western
interest in exploring the developing countries, especially India. A significant
ideological movement was Transcendentalism during the late 1820s and 1830s in
the eastern United States that emerged from the transcendental philosophy of
Immanuel Kant and German Idealism and was heavily influenced by the Hindu
religious texts on philosophy of the mind and spirituality. Rituals such as those of
the Aghoris resonated well with the beliefs of transcendentalism and individualism
of the West, which led to an increased interest in Hindu death-related rituals.
Apart from this, counterculture movements also provided an alternative to the
prevailing culture in the West and challenge the prevalent society with a different
set of values. This underlying ethos explains the interest in dark tourism that was
non-conventional and allowed a platform for self-expression, individual freedom
and self-discovery (Sharma & Rickly, 2019). Another significant ideological
influence was of the Beat Generation, which rose to prominence in America
during the 1950s, inspiring a culture of nonconformity and social revolution.
Some of the noted poets were Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Bur-
roughs, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. Allen Ginsberg
who had a strong interest in India opposed materialistic culture and sought a
spiritually oriented society different from the United States. He frequented the
‘burning ghats’ of Varanasi along the river to watch the cremations often
comparing it with the perception of death in the West and finally, began to treat
these cremations as a learning experience, during which he gained an appreciation
of the impermanence of existence (Agrawal, 2019). The beat poets visited India
frequently and helped disseminate ideas from the culture of the subcontinent in
the West. These ideas were not mediated via a colonial experience but were
alternate. The beat generation of the 1950s laid the foundation for the Hippie
movement and several other socio-cultural movements in the 1960s. The com-
monalities between these two ideological movements were the stress on the values
of autonomy and free expression. The fundamental ethos of the Hippie movement
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 131

was natural and communal living, critique of Western materialism, experimen-

tation in music, use of recreational drugs, defying social barriers and taboos, and
pursuit for spirituality and an authentic living. It signified a sense of liberty from
daily routine and the mundane. During the Hippie movement in the 1960s, many
trekkers and tourists visited places in India, inclusive of dark tourism sites.
The cultural exchange between the West and India opened the way for com-
mercial opportunities, especially tourism in the 1960s. A notable mention is the
establishment of the Sonoma Ashram Foundation (an Aghor Ashram) in Cali-
fornia dedicated to spirituality and social service in the United States, India and
Europe. It serves as a prime example of how interest in Hindu death-related
rituals made its way into the West. The Aghori sect, with their radical and unique
perspective on death, stood out as a challenge to the Western world to live an
existentially authentic life by maintaining awareness of mortality and acceptance
of death. Their lifestyle, philosophy of breaking social hierarchy, norms and
taboos, and engagement with the concept of death based on the (Western) phi-
losophy of existentialism, attracted the attention of tourists who were part of the
counterculture. Therefore, the death-related rituals they performed attracted
several tourists who identified with the counterculture movement.
All these changes associated with global ideological movements happened
before the advent of the internet. Once the internet started becoming popular
during the early 1990s, there was an improved effect on the interchange of cul-
tures and ideas especially in the form of blogs, travel discussion forums and
photographs on the death-related rituals and dark tourism in general. The next
section will provide a brief analysis of the current status of dark tourism in India.

Contemporary Dark Tourism in India

The importance of dark tourism has not been acknowledged in India nor has the
ethical dilemmas and ignorance associated with the concept allowed its accep-
tance as a niche sector in the tourism market. The knowledge gaps stem from
multiple reasons, one of them being that India views dark tourism as secondary to
attracting the tourism market. Based on field observations and literature reviews,
it can be said that for international tourists, contemporary dark tourism in India
is either an offshoot of backpacker tourism or a subset of mass tourism (where
dark tourism destinations are part of a larger itinerary of travel).
On the other hand, domestic tourists visit places of dark heritage in India not
due to a fascination towards death but mostly due to reasons such as curiosity,
novelty, thrill and risk-seeking; nostalgia if their family members or ancestors
were involved; education and learning; empathy; paying respect to the dead;
affirmation, recognition and the need to acknowledge the truth of events such as a
murder or a terror attack that may have happened (often synonymous with
voyeurism). The need to acknowledge or validate the truth of an event and the
fascination of being present at a site where an event (a terror attack, assassination,
death) unfolded can be observed among both international and domestic tourists,
more so among those of Indian origin. For example, the Taj Mahal Palace hotel
132 Nitasha Sharma

in Mumbai where a terror attack took place in 2008, turned into a dark tourism
attraction for tourists as well as self-appointed tour guides who claimed to be
witnesses to the incident (Subramanian, 2008). Fig. 9.1 presents some of the
tourist sites in India, which according to Western terminology, qualify as dark
tourism attractions.
Other dark tourism examples in India are tourists visiting assassination spots
of major political figures such as the Martyr’s Column at the Gandhi Smriti (Birla
House), where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, and the Memorial of Indira
Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India in New Delhi. The latter’s house was
converted into a museum after her assassination and the museum conserves some
of her belongings such as the sari she was wearing when she was assassinated. The
spot where she was assassinated is enclosed in a glass frame and is believed to
protect a few spots of her blood. While hordes of international and domestic
tourists throng to see this site, it technically qualifies the definition of dark
tourism. Dark and commemorative exhibits such as the ‘Remember Bhopal
Museum’, which contains exhibits, artefacts and records of the affected

Fig. 9.1. From Left to Right (Clockwise): The Cellular Jail in

Andaman & Nicobar Islands; the Cremation Grounds or the Burning
Ghats in Varanasi; the Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan; the Jallianwala
Bagh in Amritsar. Source: Author’s.
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 133

communities of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster, is a classic example of dark
tourism. A similar example is the Partition Museum in Amritsar that houses a
repository of stories, materials and documents related to the post-partition riots.
The impact and intensity of exhibits and the associated ‘darkness’ are of course
determined by the artefacts on display. For example, a display of belongings of
the dead such as clothes, bags and human remains are likely to have a stronger
impact on tourists than documents.
Unfortunately, there have been no formal studies that focus on domestic
tourist motivations and related psychological dispositions concerning dark
tourism in India. For instance, the element of horror, thrill and risk-seeking has
never been paid attention to although several domestic tourists and ghost hunting
teams often visit haunted attractions such as Bhangarh fort in Rajasthan and
Kuldhara village in Jaisalmer. A quick search on the internet, especially Tri-
pAdvisor and Expedia will reveal that there are ghost hunting and haunted tour
packages available for each of these sites. These places have found their way in
several documentaries available on YouTube and television shows as well. This
proves that many tourists in India have always been fascinated by the paranormal
and there is already an informal dark tourism market running unrecognised.
Other supposedly haunted and local heritage places that could be promoted as
dark tourism sites are the Morgan House, a Scottish mansion in Kalimpong with
paranormal activities, Shaniwar Wada in Pune, Agrasen ki Baoli, Malcha Mahal
in Delhi, and the Three Kings Church in Goa. This does not imply a trivialisation
of the heritage site at all. On the contrary, promoting these sites for ‘edutainment’
(education 1 entertainment) would lead to added financial revenue, educating the
tourists about the history of the places, and a sustainable means of preserving the
site. These could be done by converting these heritage sites into museums for
education and occasionally organising ghost-hunting tours. In the United States
and Europe, tours in historic houses and mansions are quite common as they
provide a healthy and legal outlet for inquisitive tourists while benefiting the
organisations that work to keep history alive. These living museums preserve
history by maintaining the property assets and displaying the way of life from the
era in which the former residents lived.
Notwithstanding the dark tourism spectrum using a ‘darkest-lightest’ frame-
work of supply (Stone, 2006), other dark destinations in India are the impressive
war memorials such as the Kargil War memorial in Jammu & Kashmir, Tawang
War Memorial in Arunachal Pradesh, and Darjeeling War Memorial. Similarly,
these sites represent a historical fact or an event of national importance such as a
war that is constitutive of collective memory. According to Vázquez (2018), places
like battlefields, memorials, cemeteries or prisons, are convergent spaces between
dark tourism and memorial tourism. He correctly identifies that due to the banal
character of dark tourism and ‘the suggestion of a pejorative shade to the term
“dark tourism”’ (Wight, 2009, p. 129), there are often misconceptions in the mind
of a tourist. He blames the media sensationalism of the Western world, which
have focused their approach to the subject largely on the moral aspects associated
with dark tourism (Stone, 2009), which is another reason why dark tourism in
India is often perceived negatively. There is a need for generating awareness about
134 Nitasha Sharma

dark tourism in India to clarify that the practice does not trivialise the site or the
event or necessarily exploit the dead.
While there may be fun-filled and thrill-seeking superficial experiences involved
in dark tourism, there are several tourist experiences that are profound (Cohen,
2011), sacred and existentially authentic (Sharma & Rickly, 2019). For example,
concentration camps like Auschwitz in Poland offer tours that not only educate
and expose tourists to the horrors and impacts of fascism but also offer a platform
to commemorate the victims. The Kohima War Cemetery in Nagaland is not only
the Indian equivalent of cemetery tours in the West but is also a sacred, war
memorial dedicated to the soldiers who lost their lives in the Japanese invasion
during World War II. To change misconceptions about the concept of dark
tourism in India, it must be understood that whether a dark tourism site dehu-
manises or humanises the dead, is dependent upon how sensibly and ethically the
site is represented by the tourism management authorities and how ethically
tourists behave at the particular site. As Stone (2013) remarks, ‘the study of dark
tourism is not simply a fascination with death or the macabre, but a
multi-disciplinary academic lens through which to scrutinize fundamental inter-
relationships of the contemporary commodification of death with the cultural
condition of society’.
According to Chitra and Desikan (2017), ‘dark tourism appeals strongly to
India’s evolved traveller with increasing demand for destinations like Poland,
primarily to visit Auschwitz and Hitler’s headquarters in Gierloz’ and ‘dark
tourism has been one of the reasons for a 10% year-on-year growth in Indian
travellers to offbeat European destinations’. This is indicative of Indian tourists
being aware of and interested in dark tourism destinations, at least in places
outside their country. India has several places associated with death and dark
heritage that have the potential to be developed and promoted as dark tourism
sites. If promoted responsibly and ethically by the Ministry of Tourism, a dark
tourism market can be developed for both international and domestic tourists
keeping in mind, the varying cultural perceptions of death between the two cat-
egories of tourists. Creating awareness about dark tourism among the stake-
holders at a particular site is a prerequisite for establishing a tourism market
otherwise misinformation, misrepresentation, unjustified fear, phobias, anxiety
and other ethical issues are bound to create local resistance and controversies. The
next section covers some critical points that need to be considered before pro-
moting dark tourism sites in India.

Recommendations and Future Directions

Dark tourism sites often deal with taboo and polarising topics which can be
sensitive for certain stakeholder groups. This could be one of the reasons why
government officials in India may prefer to evade the topic altogether by not
including it in mainstream tourism promotion or by deferring or delaying ini-
tiatives to avoid dissent and controversies. Thus, managing and promoting sites
with a dark heritage has its challenges for tourism practitioners and the
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 135

government in India, which has consistently focused on presenting only a positive,

colourful, and fantasized image of India through tourism promoting campaigns
like ‘Incredible India’. The few studies and reports that exist on dark tourism in
India tend to blame the government, lack any understanding of ethical issues or
subtleties involved and often provide superficial suggestions on promoting dark
tourism. It is important to understand where dark tourism can be positioned in
the context of tourism administrative practice in India before introducing it in
mainstream tourism policy. While infrastructure development is always at the
backdrop of any tourism-related project, there are also several issues to bear in
mind before marketing dark tourism destinations and constructing an image,
identity or brand for a particular site. This is essential to understand how pro-
vocative narratives and site representations are perceived by tourists in a way that
doesn’t violate their moral principles.

Positioning Dark Tourism as a Shared Socio-Cultural Heritage Experience

and Avoiding Dissonance
According to Sather-Wagstaff (2011), ‘as historical places for memory and his-
torical consciousness. commemorative sites play key roles in the construction and
maintenance of nationalism, national or ethnic identities, lessons-to-be-learned,
and political ideologies’ and ‘understanding this process requires a serious
consideration of the interconnected roles that experientiality, along with material
and visual culture, plays in the social construction of memory, historicity,
place-making, and tourism itself’ (p. 40). Commemoration is a complicated
process shaped by cultural, religious and political values and is often marked by
dissonance among stakeholders involved in the process. In India, the process of
memorialisation is equally complex because not all sites of death, disaster and
destruction are memorialised, nor do all sites evolve into tourist destinations. The
concept of dissonant heritage which was defined by Ashworth and Hartmann
(2005, p. 253) as the ‘lack of congruence at a particular time or place between
people and the heritage with which they identify’, needs to be addressed in
tourism planning to avoid any kind of friction and tension between local com-
munities and stakeholders involved with the tourist site and its history. Tourism
planners need to take care so as not to distort, displace or disinherit any groups or
stakeholders in interpreting or representing a dark tourism site. Since India has a
dark colonised past, geopolitical tensions with neighbouring countries, and is a
land of diverse religions, communities and tribes, any representation of a dark
tourism site that involves these factors has to be dealt with carefully.

Highlighting and Promoting Folkloric Traditions and Storytelling Without

Exoticising Them
In dark tourism, drawing a fine line between oral histories and superstitions is
extremely challenging but chronicling them is important nonetheless. This is
particularly applicable to sites that are believed to be haunted or has witnessed
136 Nitasha Sharma

any bizarre rituals and violent deaths or tragedy in the past. It is through stories
that historical information is passed down across generations to create a sense of
collective identity. Mahuika (2019) writes that ‘oral histories are not merely
traditions, myths, chants, or superstitions, but are valid historical accounts passed
on vocally in various forms, forums, and practices’. While this has its drawbacks
in terms of subjectivities involved, biases and accuracy, oral history has the
‘capacity to provide crucial insights into the lived experience of actors in the
tourism industry’, which ‘is not limited to holidaymakers, tourists, or consumers/
customers, but also includes a wide range of patrons such as industry represen-
tatives, travel agents, hoteliers, retailers, airlines, airports, hospitality and
employees/employers’ (MacKenzie, Pittaki, & Wong, 2020). Oral history can be
used in providing ‘meaning’ to tourism and leisure and the creation of narratives
that then can be used in marketing, publicity and heritage studies. However, in
India, where superstitious beliefs about haunted sites, folkloric traditions and
rituals carry the possibility of fuelling ignorance, hatred and crimes, it is pertinent
to engage the communities while planning a heritage tourism project. Chen and
Xu (2021) suggest that for the sustainable development of dark tourism, ‘keeping
residents’ living spaces distant from the dark site and tourist activity areas can
significantly reduce encounters and interactions between residents and tourists,
thereby allowing local people to avoid becoming the objects of the tourist gaze
and reducing the tourists’ moral conflicts’ (p. 26) but such spatial separation is not
practically possible in India with a high population density. An engagement with
communities is also useful when the commercialisation of dark tourism provides
means for people’s livelihoods. For example, local people can act as tour guides at
Bhangarh fort and other similar dark tourism sites. As suggested by Hu and Wall
(2012), tour guides can teach local history, customs and intrinsically culturally
sensitive information, thereby contributing to the promotion of social
sustainability.
A bottom-up approach that involves engagement with communities, proper
stakeholder involvement and adequate public communication would offer a more
sustainable and fair strategy in dark heritage management as well as secularisa-
tion of heritage and minimisation of dissonance in dark tourism. Thus, incor-
porating oral histories and public perspectives in dark tourism and heritage
management framework will attract greater public involvement and also help in
generating awareness. This incorporation is necessary to maintain meaningful
bonds between the past and the present and foster a collective identity and shared
responsibility of maintaining a site among the communities living nearby. This
approach also helps to de-exoticise dark tourism as a western enterprise and offers
a sustainable framework that forges collaboration between the public and tourism
planners.
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 137

Following Principles of Social Sustainability in Dark Tourism Site Planning

and Management
Roca-Puig (2019) stresses the importance of reciprocity and trust between busi-
ness and society in the context of social sustainability pointing towards respon-
sible tourism. Among the multiple factors determining social sustainability,
institutional integrity, public engagement and stewardship are very important.
Dark tourism exhibits, museums and site narratives must be in the public interest,
uphold the highest level of institutional integrity, provide accurate information,
build respectful and transparent relationships with partner organisations, gov-
erning bodies, staff, volunteers and local communities to ensure public support
and trust and be able to convey provocative historical narratives in a manner so as
not to cause dissonance among groups in society. This requires proper coordi-
nation between the Ministry of Tourism, state governments, local administrative
initiatives and programmes in India. Dark tourism artefacts must also be used to
share knowledge and be treated respectfully as cultural, scientific or historic assets
and not merely financial assets.

Mainstreaming Dark Tourism in Tourism Planning and Development

Initiatives by the Government
Heidelberg (2015) rightly states that ‘in the modern era of political correctness
and governmental conflict aversion, cities need to weigh benefits of dark tourism
involvement with citizen reaction against it’ (p. 79) as it is difficult to predict local
sensibilities and perceptions about dark tourism. For example, the government’s
priority for promoting tourism in Varanasi is religious and spiritual, and dark
tourism as a niche market is considered to be less important, less profitable or
even non-existent. This can be said of the majority of developing countries and
hinders the progress of viable dark tourism industry (Ghimire, 2001). A
commodification of death and the macabre is also believed to be unethical by
many and dark tourism is thus susceptible to unfavourable publicity.
According to Sharp (2002, p. 861) ‘officials in cities with more substantially
developed counter-cultural elements will handle morality issues differently than
officials in cities where orthodox, traditional sub-cultural elements dominate’.
Four key factors need to be considered by the government of India before offi-
cially recognising dark tourism as a niche market segment and mainstreaming
dark tourism into official tourism policy: (1) Conceptualising and contextualising
the complexities of dark tourism concerning India and identifying the targeted
tourists/consumers (domestic and international), (2) Knowledge and awareness
generation about dark tourism, (3) Ethical issues and codified guidelines in site
interpretation and management, (4) Community support and engagement. In
India, having local support of communities living nearby is useful for planning,
development and management of a dark tourism site. To facilitate this, a
knowledgeable advisory board can be created by the Ministry of Tourism to
provide advice on marketing, management and operations of memorials, sites,
and museums and guide ethics and codified policies that may be necessary to
138 Nitasha Sharma

promote dark tourism. But as Heidelberg (2015, p. 88) notes, ‘dark tourism will
happen with or without community involvement, but involvement can give the
community a voice, reduce its dependence on the private sector to provide context
and interpretation’ and in the context of India, prevent any possible controversies.

Promoting Responsible Marketing Narratives in Dark Tourism

Developing a marketing strategy for promoting dark tourism requires different
knowledge than the traditional ways of marketing and an understanding of ethical
issues associated with the site history. Whether a marketing narrative for dark
tourism in India is responsible or not, rests on the following factors:

• Minimising dissonance among stakeholder groups and within the community

• Negotiating ethics and authenticity, i.e., an authentic experience for tourists
should not be promoted at the cost of disrespecting the dead or violating
ethical principles and the sacred character at a particular site. For instance,
taking photographs of death rituals at the cremation grounds in Varanasi.
• Decolonising dark tourism narratives
One of the key aspects of dark tourism that manifests itself in both discursive
and structural ways in a non-western context is the construction of the ‘Other’.
Othering means the process of recognising the differences of one’s own culture
to another (Seaton, 2009, p. 76). International tourists get an opportunity to
compare their own culture, especially their death-related rituals, with the
culture of the host community since every culture has its way of handling the
topic of death. However, many times the marketing narrative focuses on the
western imagination of eastern exoticism. For example, one of the tour com-
panies that advertise walking tours for western tourists in Varanasi describes
meeting the Aghoris as ‘encounter with a black-clothed flesh-eating Sadhu’ and
in other places that they find mention, they are usually described as ‘the eaters
of the dead,’ ‘the legitimate cannibals of India,’ ‘the terrifying Aghori sadhus,’
‘Aghori cannibals,’ ‘the living dead Aghori monks,’ ‘Murderer Aghori,’
‘Necrophagous Aghori’, etc. This is often exacerbated by international media
outlets that have undeniable influence over the public interpretation of dark
tourism sites.
Media not only plays a role in disseminating information to the public
off-site (thereby pushing visitors to the destination); it also plays an important
role in the development of on-site interpretation. This kind of rhetoric tends to
propagate neocolonial ideologies that are characterised by unequal power
relations, global hegemonies and increased othering. Therefore, constructing a
decolonised narrative for dark tourism that seeks to foster cross-cultural soli-
darity, recognise and respect the sufferings, traumatic experiences, rituals and
history of non-western others, is a major challenge.
• Rebranding India’s tourism image
The primary challenge in mainstreaming dark tourism in tourism policy is
acknowledging that while India is a colourful land of cultural and religious
 Acknowledging the Shades of Grey 139

diversity, it also has a variation in tourist sites and shades of grey. Besides
promoting conventional tourist sites, tourism campaigns in India can also
include ‘grey routes’ or ‘dark heritage routes’ that enlist destinations where
potential dark tourists can visit.
• Virtual dark tourism
Virtual dark tourism is the new-age creativity stimulated by technology and
serve as a platform for increased exposure to the history of sites that are,
otherwise considered problematic to visit. According to McDaniel (2018), the
term ‘virtual dark tourism’ helps investigate the interconnections present when
people imagine voyages to disaster sites, participate in tourism to fictional
places or create death memorials in virtual settings (p. 309). She adds that
virtual dark tourism shapes ‘popular memories of historical disasters, bring the
past into the present, encourages empathy for past peoples, provides oppor-
tunities for public grieving and spiritual questioning, produces vicarious thrills
and chills, offers solace for tragic losses, and invites reflection on the possibility
of catastrophe in the here-and-now’ (p. 1). Virtual dark tourism in India can be
a good, ethical, and educating option to increase cross-cultural understandings
of death and disaster. It should be done without hurting public sentiments or
generating controversies associated with misrepresentation of the site and
tourist behaviour.

Conclusion
In summary, although the academic term dark tourism has not been formally
acknowledged in India or officially promoted, this chapter demonstrates that it
already exists in fragmented and informal markets across the country. A formal
acknowledgement of the grey areas in our country and dark tourism will boost the
tourism turnover of both domestic and international tourists. However, it should
be done along with the ethos of sustainability and ethics. Firstly, a consolidated
list of dark tourism sites by the Ministry of Tourism is the primary step towards
introducing and promoting sites having a dark heritage in India. It should be
followed by the formulation of an appropriate tourism policy and an advisory
committee; making efforts towards generating awareness, dispelling myths and
unwarranted controversies; introducing ethical guidelines and behavioural codes
at the site; gaining community support and trust and responsible marketing.
Secondly, tourism knowledge structures are predominantly euro-/western-centric
therefore, application of dark tourism frameworks and concepts in India requires
careful consideration of cultural context and non-western interpretation of death,
disaster, heritage and processes of memorialisation. Lastly, while marketing ini-
tiatives are needed to promote dark tourism, it must be ensured that in a bid to
attract western tourists, the rhetoric does not reinforce colonial or neocolonial
structures of power by exoticising and making a spectacle of India’s dark heritage
and rituals. It calls for further observations on understanding tourist-host rela-
tions and performances so that ethical and moral dilemmas be minimised and
managed.
140 Nitasha Sharma

From a policy perspective, the rhetoric is that promotion of dark tourism could
adversely impact mainstream tourism creating a negative image of the country. It
is evident in the hostile reactions generated towards slum tourism in Mumbai and
itineraries featuring crematorium visits in Chennai. However, dark tourism is an
omnibus and ambivalent term that includes several positive and negative ele-
ments. Tourist destinations and memorials built in honour of great leaders e.g.,
the Birla house serve an important emotional and social purpose. Even though the
context is tragic, most of these memorials symbolise a national identity and
collective spirit and celebrate positive elements like virtue, victory, and perse-
verance. Similarly, the cremation grounds are symbolic of the Hindu philosophy
of life and death and should be treated from a spiritual perspective instead of a
voyeuristic one.
A hostile attitude towards dark tourism can be countered through awareness,
site-specific measures, ethical promotion and highlighting the possibility of
generating educative, positive, spiritual and transformative experiences. A future
approach in dark tourism must entail an acknowledgement of these complex,
site-specific dynamics, treating them contextually and developing responsible and
ethical frameworks and plans for management.

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