Call For Youth To Play Role For Religious Tourism

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Jun, 2023 ) :Calling the youth for playing a role for the promotion and protection of religious tourism in Pakistan, Gandhara Chair at the University of Wah Dr Nadeem Omer Tarar said that Pakistan had huge potential for religious tourism and attracted religious minorities both from home and abroad.

"Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country but we have footprints of major religions of the world and historical worship places of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism making a vast historical canvas of this land." "Pakistan being a Muslim country is also the custodian of all of these religions," said Dr Tarar in an interview with APP.

"When we talk about all the religious minorities in Pakistan, the less information we have is about Buddhists." We had Hindus and Christians on the minister level but this constitutional minority of Buddhists could not get the proper representation compared to the other minorities, he added.

"It is very important for these minorities to visit and perform religious rituals in their sacred places. The teachings of Budha make it mandatory for the followers to visit their places as they serve as a spiritual center for them," Dr Tarar said, who is also working for Gandhara Resource Center at Taxila.

"Potential in religious tourism is like 'if there is a smoke there is a fire', so we have the smoke and it must be ignited into the fire. We have the sacred places and our Archaeology and Aukaf departments have well preserved them at some level." " All we need is to realize this potential to grow our economy." "There is a dire need to educate the masses to play a role in this sector of the economy which needs to be explored and maintained." "The awareness cannot be created merely through lectures, but the media should play its role in making films, writing stories, and short film festivals having stories and information about Buddhists who visit Pakistan as thousands of foreign visitors come to Lahore and Taxila Museums every year.

" "We must speak to those visitors to get advice on how to make facilities better for them," Dr Tarar said.

"We have less information about the importance of sacred places of other religions, if this huge potential is explored, we can attract hundreds of thousands of religious tourists. If the general and public knowledge of the masses gets this responsibility, we can turn this sector into an industry. We can meet the Dollar crisis through this single sector." "We must invite, facilitate and involve foreign tourists in religious tourism to create awareness among the masses, especially youth," he remarked.

"Today in the era of social and digital media, the youth must be utilized to filter this messaging into their scrolling time in an interesting way. Such digital content should be produced and promoted by youth to attract foreign visitors to their sacred sites and this effort will also promote cultural diplomacy." "If the Islamic image of Arabs, Turkish, and other such countries has not been in danger by preserving the sites and promoting religious tourism, then we will also not suffer from this misconception," he said.

"When we will take care of sacred sites of other religions, they will also take care of our places and values and respect them. Religion can be a vital tool for peace in the world. All connected departments must be united to promote interfaith harmony in the region. We must receive the religious tourists with open arms as we have their heritage," Tarar added.