Tourism is a field which deal with tourists and related aspects. (People travel, to distant parts of the world, or around their neighbourhood, to see great buildings, works of art, learn new languages , experience new cultures and to taste different cusines). Every aspects have certain symbols which represents them and this symbolism make it possibe in categorisation. It helps in making people to know about sites, actvities, added benefits, food, accomodations, transport, wildife, etc... In tourist brochures, you get to see differect symbols to make you understand various things like what is that place famous for, what are different kind of tourism activities one getting in place, what are different modes of transport is availabe in that place by denoting symbols of rail, air, ship etc, the level of accomodation availabe there and so many things...To understand this point, see any tourist catalogue, various symbols are depicted to convey the idea of attraction of particular place, region etc, is having,.. Likewise religious tourism is one of the aspect of tourism in india and various religious symbols are related to different religions and highlighting these symbols make it simple to highlight that particular religion, whose sites are to be promoted...
Here to take this relation further, I'm taking case of Brtish Cemeteries in India which are main highlight of emerging trend of Cemetery tourism in India. Few structures built for a utilitarian purpose evoke such complex emotions as Cemetries. Though being in nascent stage, it holds great leverage to attract tourists esp. foreigners. In India, one of the forgotten but important relics of British Raj's legacy is British people cemeteries which are ignored but spread all over India from Gilgit in North to Chennai in south. India is profusely dotted by British graves and obelisks from Mussorie to Madurai, Calcutta to Calicut. It might cause lively surprise to readers to learn that there is a lone British grave in Lakshadweep. British who came to India (including all officers & commoners,) who lived their part of life in India and succumbed to death while residing here or died in wars battles, were all buried in different part of India wherever they stationed or died. With my personal experience of visitng some of these cemeteries in Panchmarhi, Kanpur etc, One should see these places and watch the names engraved on headstones on graves of people who were livied in this country and contributed in their own way in history. These sites are symbols of erstwhile era, the time which passed, the various battles, predicaments faced by these people while living.
Death is the final darkness at the end of life. It has been both feared and worshipped since the beginnings of history. For this reason, our civilization has dreamed up countless practices and rituals to deal with and perhaps understand it. Maybe because of the mystery that surrounds death, people have chosen to immortalize death with stones and markers that tell about the people who are buried beneath them. They take the bodies of those whose spirits have departed
and place them in the ground, or in the enclosure of the tomb, and place a monument over these remains that speaks of the life once lived. This is not only out of respect for the dead because it also serves as a reminder for the living. It also reminds of the person who has died. Years later it becomes a symbol of existence for the person long dead, sometimes the only clue left on landscape that the person once existed.
But most significantly, these cemeteries holds special interest for those present generations whose ancestors were once served and lived in British colonial times in India. These are symbols of family connections and genealogies for them. While many tombstones were simple reminders of the name of the person and the age when they died, others are more elaborate and often include some type of symbol that represents an element of the persons life. Though after
independence, people used to come to see their forefathers tombs but its been latest craze among present generation to visit cemeteries to see their various gone relatives cemeteries whose stories they have heard in their family. With it governmental and various agencies are teamed up to renovate and highlight these sites in tourists plans to cater tourists, that are coming to see them.. With a rich colonial past, India is having wider scope in this trend. To name few, Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Darjeeling, Jhanshi, Gorakhpur, etc. And that's why numbers of states are including this trend in their tourism manifesto. In Coming years It'll be emerging trend in Indian Tourism.
Decaying colonial-era European graveyards in India became targeted for conservation starting in the 1970s by the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA). Cemeteries serve as a barometer signaling how both ex-colonizers and the ex-colonized have assessed colonial spaces, artifacts, and empire more generally after decolonization. Alongside working to preserve graveyards and record tombstone inscriptions in the Indian subcontinent, BACSA members--many of whom count as "old India hands"--also helped make Raj a recurring feature of British public culture in the late twentieth century . Founded by individuals who had spent a considerable part of their lives in India prior to its independence in 1947, BACSA aims to preserve knowledge of colonial India in several interconnected respects. As its name implies, its primary goal concerns the many European graveyards scattered throughout the subcontinent. First and foremost, the group has worked to record inscriptions on tombstones and photograph them for posterity, an endeavor made all the more important because of the decrepit condition of many cemeteries. Second, BACSA seeks to preserve and restore some of the more important graveyards--Kolkata's South Park Street Cemetery prominent among these--and thereby arrest their physical decline. These converge in its broader aim of spreading messages about Britain's past in India, not only through caring for its material remains overseas but also through telling new stories of the colonial era to Britons and Indians alike, largely through publications. BACSA now has close to 2,000 members, most of whom are based in Britain, although a significant minority live overseas.
British Cemeteries stand as the reminder to us of the difference between our past and present. Some even look at cemeteries of the colonial times as the places for ghostly beings. But none the less in form of tales of Ghosts or other stories they have slowly become part of our lives and there are numerous ways in which we relate to it.
Symbolism is the much wider and rather philosophical point which is wider range and incorporates all fields of subjects and become integral part of them and with much possbile ways to interpret their importance in particular subeject in concern. With Tourism, it also shares same relation.
