Desecration of Dharamshala: How Unregulated Tourism Impacts Himachal Pradesh
- Nivedita Bansal
- 22 hours ago
- 11 min read
Booming tourism is taking from Dharamshala in ways the region may never recover from.
The Dharamshala region, located in the historic Kangra valley in the western Himalayas of India…., is especially popular with tourists due to its spiritual significance, vibrant culture, Dharamshala Film Festival, cricket matches at Dharamshala’s stadium, relaxed policies on drug use, and an airport. While tourism brings cultural exchange, inflow of wealth, and attention to the struggles of Tibetan refugees, the tourism boom has created a number of problems in the region. The demands of tourism and the lack of policies to regulate it have led to environmental degradation, impacts on local community and culture, economic fragility, and sacrilege of spiritual values - impacting the region adversely.
The rising popularity of Dharamshala
When the People’s Liberation Army threatened Tibetan autonomy in the 1950s, thousands of refugees crossed the Tibetan borders (now annexed by China) over to Nepal and India. These refugees created a home for themselves in a town called McLeod Ganj. McLeod Ganj is an independent city in the vicinity of Dharamshala; it lies high up above the clouds, nestled in the lush hills of Kangra Valley, and is nothing short of picturesque. The breathtaking views from McLeod Ganj’s cliffside cafes and hotels have attracted tourists from all over the world.
The biggest attraction remains the Namgyal Monastery, which is the home of the Buddhist leader His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The spiritual energy of the temple is undeniable, with the monks and priests working day and night to channel cosmic energy into their prayers. In addition to McLeod Ganj, areas like Dharamkot and Dharamshala city, as well as nearby villages also regularly attract tourists. Tourism has boomed in the last 15 years in Himachal Pradesh, with over 1,80,00,000 domestic and 83,000 foreign tourists visiting the Himachal region in 2024, especially in the peak seasons between October-May.
Extractive tourism in Dharamshala
Tourism has been largely unregulated in Himachal Pradesh, creating a waste management crisis, water shortage, energy crunch, erosion of local culture, and has been detrimental to local businesses. The increase in emissions due to tourist activity, and the infrastructure built for tourists without due process of environmental impact assessments has had disastrous consequences. Dharamshala has become an ‘over-touristed’ destination, where tourists are engaging in a practice called extractive tourism.
Extractive tourism is like mining: tourists extract cultural and environmental value from a destination, eroding the heritage that gave the destination the value in the first place. Once the value is extracted, the location is abandoned for another.
Impact of tourism on Himachal Pradesh
Waste management: Waste is an inevitable part of unregulated tourism. When tourists are on the go, the main concern is traveling light. This means that tourists are highly likely to use single-use plastics for food and beverages, raincoats, toiletries, and other travel essentials. The steep and complicated terrain makes it difficult to go door-to-door to collect waste, and the lack of municipal waste management capacity has led to a waste crisis.
Utkarsh Jain, founder at Himalayan Advocacy Center, explains, “The problem isn’t limited to tourists alone. Local businesses like restaurants have stringent rules to follow regarding food waste, single use napkins, and any other waste that is produced as a result of business activity. Yet many locals, especially within the village areas choose to burn the waste instead of paying a nominal fee for it to be transported to waste management sites”.
Water shortage: Water is a limited resource high up in the hills. The availability of water is dependent upon the season, and due to space constraints it is difficult to store water. Pumping water up from low lying regions is extremely energy intensive and expensive, so water resources have to be conserved, especially in the dry months.
Utkarsh Jain adds, “Water is brought up to the hills of Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj via tankers and trucks during the drought season, which is during monsoon season - because the rain causes land/mud/rock slides that damage the pipes in the upper Dhauladhars that bring springwater down to the Dharamshala/Mcleod region.”
However, the dry months push demand for water to its peak and place severe stress on water resources. There is no regulation on water consumption through water meters, and luxury tourist experiences in hotels and Airbnbs worsen the water crisis. “Hotels like Hyatt and WelcomHeritage hotels that have their own private tankers”, according to Adv. Jain.
Energy demand: The demand for cooling and heating energy is high in Dharamshala due to heat conditions in the summer and frigid temperatures in the winter. The increased demand has put a strain on municipal utilities as there is limited transmission capacity in the challenging terrain. Commercial sources are especially demanding for energy systems, with hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments running into the late hours of the night and sometimes 24/7. Furthermore, renewable energy sources like solar and wind are expensive and laborious to install in the region due to altitude, unconventional building infrastructure, angle of the sun, et cetera.
The issue of waste and wood burning creates an air pollution crisis in the region. “Many locals resort to creating fires each winter evening, dumping waste pieces of wood and furniture inside "Dalda" tins. Some even feel free to extract wood from dried and living Deodars and other trees in the vicinity, fearing no reprisals from the authorities”, Adv. Jain explains.
The high demand of fossil fuels for energy leads to more CO2 emissions and pollution, affecting the microclimate of the region adversely and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. The microclimate of the Himalayas is especially fragile, and increase in temperatures also leads to accelerated snowpack, glacial or permafrost melting in the upper reaches of the Dhauladhar. Snow deposition in the upper reaches during winter showers used to provide Dharamshala with a stable water supply decades ago. Unfortunately, due to changes in the microclimate and erratic western disturbances, there simply isn't enough snow density that can durably provide a water stream.
Glacial melting has negative consequences for the mountain ranges as well as those living in the river basins of rivers that the glaciers feed into; the surge in river and nallah flows cause devastating floods, crop losses, and alter the water cycling of the river basin, exacerbating climate change, loss of human life, biodiversity, and more. “The rivers and nallahs are also further blocked by concrete filled landscapes that don't prioritize drainage, seepage and porosity”, elucidates Adv Jain.
Erosion of local culture and heritage: Local traditions such as various fairs and melas are disappearing, due to a changing preference in local youth and populations. These events were an important part of the local culture and drew visitors from all over the state and beyond. However, the proliferation of e-commerce and lack of tourist interest has led to a lower turnout at these state fairs, threatening the survival of these events. Even within melas, plastic toys and utensils, dumped in from the mainland economy, have replaced local craft.
Local cultural practices around marijuana products and other drugs are being appropriated and misused by tourists; many open air spaces become hubs for open drug use and inebriation, by tourists from mainland north India as well as Israel alike. Dharamkot, a town above McLeodganj, is a haven for ex-Israel Defence Force tourists. When tourists are rowdy, drunk, high, or disrespectful towards locals, it can create a hostile environment for locals, alienating them from their home. Locals are subservient towards them because of the money and refuse to reckon with the genocide because they think that "it has nothing to do with them" and that "Israelis treat them well and bring money in".
The use of psychotropic substances, including locally made alcoholic beverages, is deeply embedded in local and indigenous culture in festivals and special occasions, but the abuse of marijuana by tourists is disrespectful towards the ceremonial and recreational uses.
This further ties into the desecration of local Tibetan Buddhist heritage. Spirituality, which has many paths such as meditation, prayer, inner work, studying spiritual texts, and discipline, is perceived by tourists as interchangeable with psychedelic experiences that come with drug use and hanging up prayer flags. This appropriation of religious practices combined with the commercialisation of Tibetan culture is disrespectful towards the community. Tibetan heritage is also threatened by vandalism, and pollution in the area damages surfaces with dust, acid rain, and worsening climate conditions.
Damage to local economy: Locals as well as immigrants are employed in hotels, shops, and restaurants, but many establishments are not locally owned. Wealth flows out of the region to owners sitting in cities like Delhi or Chandigarh, worsening economic inequality in the region. Furthermore, the influx of migrant workers from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and beyond create friction in local communities, where caste based discrimination is already deeply entrenched. Migrants often undercut local prices of labour, have differences in cultural norms and practices, and have language/dialect differences. Tensions in local communities can often lead to communal violence if left unchecked.
Unregulated tourist behaviours also damage the local economies. Tourists prefer to eat cheap fast food from shops that source their products from far away, rather than patronize locally owned eateries. This market force leads to local businesses shutting down and replaced with extractive businesses with owners outside the community. When extractive tourism becomes the largest contributor to the economy, it sets the local economy up for collapse because the economy cannot sustain itself in the long term once tourist value and local resources diminish.
Selling of domestic cattle, goats and sheep leading to disappearance of local mobilities in the mountains and (more) sedentary lifestyles among locals—disjoint from cultures of their ancestors that revolved around manual labour and spirituality. Practically selling off of their property to hotels and mainlanders extra legally on long leases. Disappearance of local slate and mud based architecture, replaced by concrete and cement from big companies like Ambuja. There are also cases of trees being artificially poisoned to dry them up and seek felling permission later.
How tourists can make better decisions
Make sustainable choices: Tourists are in a powerful position to create change in the places they visit through the power of purchase. When tourists spend their money ethically, it supports local businesses. Sustainable choices include patronizing local businesses instead of extractive, non-local businesses such as hotels, restaurants, shops, brands, and any other purchases. Seeking out local cuisine even if it means covering more distance is also a great way to support local culture. Some examples of places to patronize include Hope Cafe (Tibetan film screenings and books), Himalayan Thrift, Greenshop, Dolls4Tibet, Lha Cafe. You can call in advance and verify the ownership and sustainability levels of the establishments. Buying Tibetan and locally made toys, souvenirs and other goods by actively seeking out such places also boosts the local economy.
You can choose to take public transport like buses or trains instead of taxis and planes to travel to and from Dharamshala, and walk when possible to reduce the need for fossil fuels. Lastly, making conscious choices like low water use for toilets and bathing, not discarding any single use plastics in the area, respecting locals and their culture, and trying to eat locally grown food can help minimize your impact on the environment and community. To make this easy, use the following checklist:
Am I using public transport and less polluting modes of transport?
Am I using reusable items like tiffins, metal water bottles instead of single use items like paper napkins, plastics, metal cans?
Am I respecting the local communities’ right to peace and quiet, their ways of life, and local customs?
Did I choose accommodations that are locally owned?
Is my accommodation sustainable in its energy, water, and resource consumption?
Was I mindful of water and energy use
Did I respect the local heritage instead of defacing property with vandalism or stickers?
Am I curious about local culture and trying to learn about it from them?
Am I thinking thrice about sharing content about lesser travelled places on social media that might be locally revered or be ecological hotspots?
If you got 3 or more answers as ‘yes’, the great news is that you have already started making ethical choices as a tourist.
Information activism: Taking things a step further, tourists can also participate in information activism. This type of activism includes posting content on social media about making sustainable choices in the places they visit such as eco-friendly hotels or restaurants, creating educational content for one’s audiences about the benefits of sustainable tourism, and leaving positive reviews for establishments they eat at or stay in to attract more customers. Information activism costs nothing and is the easiest and most accessible way to create behavioural change.
Make alternative choices: When choosing the destination for your holiday, the best thing you can do for an over-toursited place is to simply not go. You can choose alternative tourist destinations that have a similar feel to the original place you want to visit. You can do this by assessing the purpose of your trip and then finding alternative destinations to do the same activities. For example, those looking to explore Buddhist spirituality can visit other Buddhist monasteries across Himachal, Uttarakhand, or Arunachal, adventure sports enthusiasts for trekking and mountain climbing can search for less crowded spots, hill station view seekers can travel to many other less crowded places with equally stunning views. To deepen your impact, you can choose alternative activities for your trip such as eco-tourism, rural holidays, volunteer tourism and more to leave a positive impact on less explored places and be actively engaged in changemaking.
How policymakers can create better policies
Land use: Policymakers have to make better decisions about land use in Dharamshala and the Himachal region. The over-emphasis on construction of highways, hotels, and other tourist infrastructure should be done with long term planning and following due environmental process to ensure that development is not at odds with the socio-environmental capacity of the region. There should be a realistic and sustainable mix of mixed land use - gray for industrial and infrastructure zones, blue for water bodies and certain commercial uses, and green for natural and agricultural areas.
Environmental lens in tourism policies: Local governments must embed environment into all development and economic planning. It is crucial to ensure that economic activity does not deplete environmental resources faster than they can be replenished. This will help sustain tourism in the long run without compromising planetary boundaries.
Regulating prices and footfalls: Policies to regulate the kinds of tourists and number of tourists coming in are urgently needed to ensure that tourism continues in the long run. Instead of pricing out budget travelers and only retaining high-end luxury tourists, the government must set quotas for different price ranges of tourists coming in. This will ensure that tourists of all backgrounds can visit the region and make memories, but within the capacity of the region to host each kind of tourist. This will also help local businesses better prepare for the influx of tourists and ensure sustainable business practices.
Way forward
Regulating tourism is imperative to preserving Himachal’s top tourist spots as tourist attractions. The lack of regulation leads to extraction, and the presence of regulation will sustain a healthy and thriving economy, population, and environment. Putting people and the planet first does not come at a cost of profit — it keeps an economy going in the long run and protects human lives.
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