Our guest blogger today hails from the exotic and wonder-filled location of India! Sheesh Moondh is the Director of Hidden Treasures of India which you can find at htoindia.com. In this article he tells us about the cursed ghost town of Rajasthan, India. If you’d like to learn more about his company, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Located south-west of Jaisalmer city in Rajasthan, the Kuldhara town was established in the 13th century and was considered to be one of the prosperous villages in Rajasthan inhabited by a Brahmin clan called Paliwal Brahmins.
The name ‘Kuldhara’ refers to a sub-sect of the Paliwal Brahmins and is thus named after the class of people who first settled on the land. By the 19th century, the village became completely deserted and is now swept of human existence. Once it was a village flourishing with rich agricultural practices and merchandise, but today you can hardly see a plant growing on this land. It was believed that the village of Kuldhara was once a prosperous piece of land brimming with agriculturalists and tradesman who were all belonging to the class of Brahmins. Today, people say it is inhabited by ghosts in the night.
Now, one might wonder what would have happened to have made a rich and prosperous land come down to ruins, making it haunted and completely uninhabitable. There are haunted and eerie stories narrated by neighboring villages which say that the town is haunted which is why today it is called the Ghost town of Kuldhara.
The Legend
Different sources provide different reasons for the abandoning of the village. While some sources say that the village was abandoned due to water scarcity leading to drought and famine, a few studies have suggested a possible earthquake as the reason. However, the most interesting and intriguing reason is the story narrated by the local legends in the neighboring villages who blame the abandonment of the village to one of the cruelest ministers of the Jaisalmer state. Salim Singh also called as Salum Singh, was the Prime minister to the Maharaja of Jaisalmer.
One day he set eyes on the beautiful daughter of the village chief. Falling madly in love with her, he proposed his intentions of marrying the girl to her father, the village chief. But he refused to accept the proposal due to the difference in caste. Agitated by the refusal, he became aggressive and started levying huge and unbearable taxes on the people of Kuldhara. He asked them to accept the marriage proposal or else they would suffer from the burden of the huge taxes.
The village people who, unable to bear the wrath of the minister’s taxes and yet unwilling to surrender to his request, deserted the village on a fine night. Although there is no information about where they lived after that, people say that before the Kuldhara villagers left the town, they cursed the village and proclaimed that it would be uninhabited by humans and will be no more than a mere wasteland.
Although the story seems intriguing, there is no substantial evidence to validate neither the story nor the existence of the curse. One of the main reasons that researchers [believe the people left] is the possible decrease in the water table. The River Kakni bifurcates into two branches at Kuldhara wherein one branch flows towards Khaba and terminates as Masurdi Khadin while the other branch is converted into a drain.
Due to the dependence of the entire Jaisalmer state for water from this river, people started digging deep wells, and by the 17th and 18th centuries, most of the water available on the land started drying up. As the water table reduced, the prospects of irrigation and farming declined, causing a decline in soil productivity and turning it into an infertile land.
Present Day Scenario
While a few media crew have proclaimed that they had encountered strange incidents during their stay at night in the ghost town of Kuldhara, there is no official confirmation from the government of Rajasthan. Besides them, the Paranormal Society of Delhi has also verified the mystery of the town by organizing a team and staying overnight in the ghost town of Kuldhara. While some say they experienced strange incidents and heard inaudible voices and footprints, there is no valid declaration from the society stating its haunted condition.
Now maintained by the Archeological Society of India (ASI), Kuldhara is considered an historical site and has become a massive tourist attraction for people to explore the haunted town’s ancient structures and hear about the strange stories. However, the gates of the town are closed after sunset and no one is allowed to visit during the night hours.
In 2015, the government of Rajasthan had offered Jindal steel works a chance to develop the village through a public-private partnership in order to enhance the tourist attraction and bring the town back to life through reconstructing it. The company also has several plans in the pipeline to bring back commercial activities in the village through the establishment of cafes, night-stay cottages, lounge, and dance floors for showcasing the folk dance and shops.
However, the villagers from the neighborhood have expressed discontent with the government’s initiatives to bring in commercial activities into the cursed land, disrupting their faith and belief system. Although the private firm responsible for the reconstruction and renovation of the village has assured them that there won’t be any modifications that will blemish the architectural style and tradition, the high court of Rajasthan has issued a stay order to the government to stop the reconstruction works as it is bound to tamper with the historical site in the name of renovation.
The government of Rajasthan has also been warned by the High Court to not bring any commercial activity in the ghost town of Kuldhara and to remove the encroachments and buildings constructed so far.
Kuldhara still has visitors in the form of tourists in the daylight, while some believe other forces are at work at night. In spite of the government’s efforts to renovate and bring back life to the ghost town of Kuldhara, the heritage of the site prevents the government from carrying out any form of modifications in the village. So it seems as though the curse of the Kuldhara villagers is indeed powerful as even the government cannot bring back life and establish commercial activities in the village. Who knows? The ghosts wandering in the village of Kuldhara at night might agree with us.
If you’d like to learn more about haunted places in India, visit this blog:
https://thescarybook.blogspot.com/
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Interesting but I would think if it was abandoned just because one man taxed them too high, that they would have band together and ousted his butt right out of there, or if they left because of him, they would have returned once he died. The water table thing sounds like the best scenario to me.