Temples as engines of economic, cultural and spritual growth

This blog is based of observations during a visit to Hampi, Karnataka

An observation of the two temple complexes Rama and Krishna temple show that  both these temples,  hundred of years old, have elements of two principles which  modern management has "invented"namely Anchor tenant and Free-mium.

For those who do not know these jargon : Anchor tenant is a key tenant of any reality development which is capable of attracting people so that other shops will also gain from it. The Kings of Hampi used the Gods namely Krishna and Rama as the Anchor tenant. People come to see the temple and worship from all parts. They come frequently. So this makes eminent sense.

Additionally the temple was the hub of many activities namely cultural such as festivals, celebrations, auspicious days. Some of the leading artists in dance and music were attached to the temple and performed in the temple. These performances are usually free and may have also contributed to the footfalls in the temple. In many temples, food was also served to those who wished to partake of it. This was traditionally a social security net for those who had fallen into bad or difficult times and ensured that these families did not starve.

This traffic to the temple also called footfalls was used to create markets in the roads/path leading up to the temple.  These were monetized by charging a rent from the merchants to set up shops. This was a form of freemium as these rents were effectively paid only by those buying items from these marchants. Those who simply wished to go the temple and come back had an effectively free trip. At the same time the temple was funded by the rents collected from the merchants. This is akin to Linkedin.com 's model. Many people use it for Free and a few people get more out of the website and pay for the website a premium giving rise to the term Free-mium.

The Hampi temples in my estimate were early examples of Freemium. This emphasizes the need to study all the management techniques used in our country since time immemorial lest we believe that the art and science of management originated with the establishment of Management schools in the West ; but we shall reserve that for another blog.

There are many lessons in management and economics to be learnt from the temple. The temple as a centre of art gives universal access to art ie anyone can enjoy music and dance. It's ability to attract people is a virtuous cycle. The more people come to the temple, the more people want to go to the temple. It is really the right place to enjoy sacred arts but in todays time and age we will desist from going into that. The temple offers an almost recession proof economy that dot vary too much.

There  may have been many negatives in the way temples were managed at the turn of independence. These should have corrected keeping its  strengths in tact. Instead the baby was thrown out with the bath water. The temples which have a good amount of autonomy have grown from strength to strength and have been centres of many great endeavours.

The revenue of the temple is not the measure of the temple but it is a good proxy and perhaps the only available for the volume of traffic that comes to the temple. The Tirupati temple is one such which has revenues of Rs 2000 crore per annum and has created world class facilities for handling a very large volume of pilgirms. There are no stampedes. All devotees who come to the temple are fed. There is enough accommodation to house all those who come to see the Lord. The temple town is clean, crime free and a marvel of management.

On the other hand many other such illustrious temples which fell under the management of the government are languishing. The Nataraja temple at Chidambaram is one such where neither the traffic nor the revenues are even remotely comparable to Tirupati. The annual revenues are about Rs 15 crores.

Last but not the least, well managed temples may be a stepping stone to a more spiritually advanced society.  It may be one of the easier ways of creating a fair, tolerant society without ills such as corruption, violence etc.

We need to revisit  the way, we the Hindu civilization, manage our temples.  This could provide  economic, cultural and spiritual multiplier of unimaginable amounts.

Open source nutrition knowledge and National Nutrition Mission

I request readers to see at least the first fifteen minutes of this video, The Secrets of Sugar, before you read this blog.

This may be the future for our country if we do not spread our knowledge of nutrition existent in our Indian civilization for thousands of years. This knowledge is time tested and  arguably beats any double-dummy testing and statistical procedure that scientists can come up with to validate new foods.

We as a nation have tremendous traditional knowledge of nutrition and power of herbs to nourish, cure and heal. Many people do not even know what they know but they know a lot as this knowledge was passed on orally in the house.  This knowledge is tested across millennia and available to people all across the country at a low cost as many of them are available as raw materials or can be grown at home or in nearby farms.

Yet for a variety of factors, this traditional knowledge is dying out and is not used to the best extent possible. There is no incentive for the private sector to promote any of these products as they may not get any benefits from it and it may paradoxically cut into sales of existing products. For example it is difficult to expect any private corporation to spend Rs 50 crores to educate the public on the  uses and consumption of turmeric and make a profit through selling turmeric or related products. Even if their campaign is successful in spreading the message they may not get the sales to give them return on the advertising investment.

Since the idea is relevant and will have high impact on society and yet it is not profitable for any one to do it, it falls squarely in the domain of the government.

The government  needs to create a education campaign to improve the consumption of the right kind of foods and herbs with the knowledge of how to process and consume them. They should involve an element of fun and should not be talking down to the targeted audience. These campaigns need to be done by the top class advertising agencies ie the same guys who are trying to sell the junk food too.

The items, among many others, whose consumption could be easily improved are

• Turmeric
• Neem
• Flax seeds
• Millets
• Amla
• Pepper, cloves, cinnamon

Lastly we need to create an automatic dampener which slowly down the growth of junk foods. The best way to do this perhaps is to create a National nutrition education mission from a portion of the taxes collected from the sale of junk foods. This way as the sale of junk foods increase the amount of money available to spread the knowledge of nutrition will also increase.

The idea here is not to replace or remove allopathy/ modern medical healthcare. It is very valuable thing but has one drawback - it is very very expensive so much so that most people cant really afford it. For a society such as ours spending 15% or 20% of our GDP on healthcare and insurance is not really a viable option. As the proverb, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

This will reduce the incidence of ill-health and disease and reduce the burden on the government and citizens from expenditure that could be easily avoided or reduced. It will also release national resources from creation of additional healthcare arising from poor diets and go a long way to create  a healthier  and happier society.

At current levels, we could easily create a Rs 100 crore fund per annum to do this. The payback on this can be in very large multiples of the same.