To get a better view of the riverside temples, we crossed the Yamuna on a pontoon bridge. On the other side, we met some young men who told us that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s predecessors were born in Bateshwar and there was still a Vajpayee museum.

When I asked whether people living here were proud that it was Vajpayee’s ancestral place, they said, “No he did nothing for us. We are all for [Narendra] Modi because of what he has done for us — bank accounts, loans, bicycles and reliable electricity. School children have even got computers.” This was almost exactly the same thing I was told by the guardian of an empty, dilapidated, once-prosperous family house. He insisted we see the family ghats that were being rebuilt. But the only sign of government development we could see was a public ghat being constructed on the river’s bank.

Bateshwar can best be described as a growing place of pilgrimage. It’s probably too small to even be called a town. I am sure it will develop into a town. But what sort of town is it going to be? Will its development be higgledy-piggledy, unplanned, unhygienic, and polluting — mirroring a large chunk of the development in India since Independence — or will it emerge as a new example for others to emulate? Speaking very recently at a webinar of experts involved in urban development, the Prime Minister (PM) said budget allocation of ₹5,000 crore marked a new beginning in two aspects of urban development — developing new cities and modernising old ones. Cities should be garbage-free, water-secure, and climate resilient. To achieve that, the PM said there needed to be a focus on urban planning and governance. Stressing the importance of planned urban development, he said, “Well planned cities will determine the future of this country.”

On my way back to Delhi, I stopped by one of UP’s oldest cities, one that could certainly do with planned modernisation, Mathura. There, I went to see what I was told was one of the few bright spots in the city, the government museum. Bright it was, full of exhibits discovered in and around Mathura, dating from the 3rd century BC to the 12th century AD. Perhaps the most important of the many, many exhibits was the headless life-size statue of the famous first century emperor, Kanishka. He made Mathura the southern capital of his vast empire. Today’s Mathura is also sacred because it is believed to be the birthplace of Hindu God Krishna, and the Yamuna, which flows through the city, is believed to be the river where he played with the maidens and met Radha. The museum made me wonder how a city so full of history could be so clearly in need of development.

Because Mathura is so sacred, it is certain to receive funds for urban development but what will happen to Bateshwar? It represents the need to plan the development of rural India, to ensure it no longer suffers the problems that development has already inflicted on it — those long lines of ribbon development along the road sides, and the unplanned development of housing which is neither garbage-free, nor water-secure or climate resilient.

The views expressed are personal