VRINDAVAN, India (RNS) — When the protests against a state government plan to redevelop a world-renowned Hindu temple began in May, Varsha Otwani, a 64-year-old homemaker, joined the women’s chorus, donning her sequined red veil, lining her eyes with kohl and smearing her hands with henna.
The 19th-century Banke Bihari Temple, with its black stone idol of Lord Krishna embodying masculine and feminine energies, draws tens of thousands of devotees every year to this northern Indian town. Vrindavan’s residents, largely devotees of Krishna, hold the site in great reverence — not least Otwani, who hails from a family of hereditary priests at the temple.
Last May, the government of Uttar Pradesh, where Vrindavan is located, announced that a newly founded trust will oversee a $5 billion development at the temple, which includes the construction of a corridor aimed at improving infrastructure and easing crowds. In early August, India’s Supreme Court stayed the use of temple funds for the corridor, putting the project on hold, but proposed an interim committee to manage the situation.
Defenders of the status quo fear the government will find a way around the stay, as Uttar Pradesh officials did in the holy city of Varanasi, in the northeastern corner of the state, where a similar project altered the approach to the banks of the Ganges.
“We are doing everything to stop the government from building the temple corridor,” said Otwani. “It will wreck our town and destroy our centuries-old heritage.”
The government believes the trust can manage the temple better than the Goswamis, the priests who have been caretakers of the temple since it was constructed. Though locals fear the plan will transform Vrindavan into a new-age pilgrimage center, the government’s aim, officials say, is to prevent deaths due to crowding. Three years ago during Janmashtami, the annual Hindu festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna, two devotees died at the temple and others were injured when people crowding the town’s narrow lanes stampeded.
Hereditary priests meet to organize protests against the corridor project near the centuries-old Banke Bihari Temple, Aug. 21, 2025, in Vrindavan, India. (Photo by Priyadarshini Sen)
“This is to prevent such incidents,” said a spokesperson for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Vrindavan. “The corridor will not only benefit all pilgrims but also expose them to seven other prominent Hindu temples built in the 16th and 17th centuries.”
The priests and other Vrindavan residents say the updates will mar the antiquity of the places where Krishna is believed to have spent his childhood, and where the hereditary priests worship Krishna as a mischievous child.
Locals do as well. Krishna is said to have performed sacred dances called “raasleelas” with the town’s female cowherders, and in the narrow lanes around the temple, flanked by cubbyhole sweet shops and sheds selling ritual ware and colorful garlands, residents bring them to life with songs, dances, speeches and dramatic performances.
The Goswamis believe the new corridor will alter this intimate relationship with their god. “If the corridor is built, it’ll not only destroy our homes, shops and heritage,” said Mayank Goswami, a server at the temple, “but also our stories, rituals and age-old practices.”
Local business owners also worry that the government’s acquisition of 5 acres of land for the corridor will dispossess some 200 shopkeepers, while offering them and the priests, who own the land around the temple, little compensation.
Large crowds of devotees gather for evening prayer rituals at Banke Bihari Temple on Aug. 20, 2025, in Vrindavan, India. (Photo by Priyadarshini Sen)
Even longtime supporters of the BJP, who considered the party a champion of the Hindus and Sanatan Dharma, have now distanced themselves from it. “They are taking our lands, our money and even our gods to fill their coffers,” said Neeraj Gautam, president of the Banke Bihari Vyapar Mandal, a conglomerate of businessmen. “There’ll be taandav, a dance of fury, if they bring in bulldozers to demolish our heritage.”
Women who perform daily rituals of devotion to Krishna are especially distraught by the planned changes. With its black stone idol of Krishna in the Tribhanga posture, embodying masculine and feminine energies, the temple honors Krishna’s divine consort, Radha, as well as Krishna. These devotees say the government project isn’t just a blow to their identity but harms their unique relationship with the Hindu god.
Vrindavan was once a less chaotic place. The seven temples revered by pilgrims were built in the late 16th century by the Goswamis, followers of the Hindu saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to revive devotion to Krishna. In the mid-1970s ISKCON, the Hindu movement known as Hare Krishnas, began to attract thousands of devotees to the temples it established, and to Banke Bihari and the other Krishna temples in Vrindavan.
The rapid urbanization that followed radically altered Vrindavan’s landscape. “Shops and illegal encroachments started crowding alleyways,” said Purnendu Goswami, a former resident of the old town. “Religion became a way to make quick money.”
The town’s lifeline, River Yamuna, around which many folktales about Lord Krishna have been woven, now suffers from severe pollution. “If the government wants to glamorize the town,” said Madhu Sharma, the former district president of the BJP, the ruling party, “why can’t it focus on basic amenities like clean water and roads, health care, electricity, and a team to manage crowds during festivals and fairs?”
Sharma said the new corridor is an excuse to divert attention from the government’s real motive, which she said is to take control of the temples and their funds and replace “hereditary priests with outside priests who have little connection with the local gods.”
Some residents of Vrindavan say it is the priests themselves who have profited from the Krishna boom. Chetan Gautam, who trades in indigenous fragrances, believes the government is rightfully cracking down on hereditary priests who use Krishna as a “cash cow” for their sustenance.
Gautam, whose shop is not likely to be swept up by the demolitions, said priests should part with their lands as “a national sacrifice.”
Even threats of bulldozers being run over them for their “anti-national activities” haven’t taken the women off the path of prayer, meditation and protest. After drawing blood from their hands to write emotional letters to Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister earlier this year, a couple of months ago they marched to the district magistrate’s office to petition against the corridor project.
“Krishna is the king for us women in Vrindavan,” said Neelam Goswami, a fiery 45-year-old activist who leads groups of women on candlelit marches and sacred walks around the temple. “This is our test of loyalty, and we will make sure our god’s territory is protected and his home is secure.”
