From potters to websites, Ram temple frenzy goes beyond street buzz

Laal Chand is not happy with the weather gods. The biting, damp, and hazy winter in north India is coming in the way of what he is trying to do in the runup to the Ram temple’s consecration in Ayodhya, slated for Monday.

“There is no proper sunlight these days. We can’t put our hands in the cold clay,” he says.

That is a real problem for Chand and his brethren in the potter community of Uttar Nagar Kumhar Colony in Delhi. The pottery market saw a spurt in demand for diyas, or earthen lamps, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the devotees to light diyas on the day of the consecration.  “We used to see such demand only during Diwali,” says Ram Kishore, another potter from Uttam Nagar.

This market is finding ways to dry up the wet clay. “We are rejecting some orders, and fulfilling some others with the leftover stock,” says Kishore.
 

In a different realm altogether, Gita Press, the world’s largest publisher of religious texts, has allowed free downloads of the Ramcharitmanas on its website.

Perhaps spurred by how commerce across physical and digital boundaries, from potters to websites, have aligned themselves to the temple’s opening, the Confederation of All India Traders issued an estimate that business related to the event could hit Rs 1 trillion in value.

Bazaar of bounty

The stretch along the lanes of Delhi’s Paharganj has walls covered with posters, and shops and houses with religious flags flying over their roofs. The Ram theme-decked roads lead to the city’s largest wholesale market, Sadar Bazaar.

Once inside Sadar, you will find shelves of the shops filled with merchandise related to the theme of the Ram temple, a lot of them in orange. But the most sought-after item seems to be miniature models of the temple in Ayodhya: The shopkeepers here expect to sell them in millions.  But there is more.

“The demand for flags is very high. We are also seeing an uptick in merchandise, such as T-shirts and scarves,” says the owner of Muskan Traders, barely able to look away from the swarm of customers. One of Muskan’s customers, Babu Aggarwal, says: “We have a four-hour shobha rath yatra planned in Buddh Vihar on January 22. We have come here to buy flags.”  “There is a 2-4 four per cent rise in the demand for Ram Darbaar and related statues,” says a trader from Paharganj Murthi Market. 

Clicking away

The demand for products related to cultural significance are lining online shopping carts at independent websites as well as e-commerce giant Amazon and Flipkart.

Suppliers are riding the wave. “In the past 1.5 months, we have observed a threefold increase in demand for products related to the event,” says a spokesperson for Meesho, adding 70 per cent of these orders are from Tier 2 Plus cities, such as Gorakhpur, Raipur, and Vijaywada.

Flipkart has observed a 100 per cent surge in the sales of spiritual items. Search for religious books has risen by 50 per cent in January compared to November and December 2023. 

 Nearly 90 per cent of the sales for the specifically curated Ram Mandir merchandise on the platform originated from West Bengal, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra.  Rishabh Gupta, chief executive officer of A&S traders, a supplier to Amazon, says the demand for Ram mandir has risen from 50 pieces a day to nearly 4,000. 

Arjun Mahajan, founder of BudhShiv, which makes handcrafted brass products for online sales, says: “ We have seen the most demand for Ram Darbar. Even the demand from southern India is very high,” he says.

It is not just about miniature models and other products. Online platform Kan Kan me Ram launched a voice-based artificial intelligence application on Dussehra 2023 at the Ayodhya venue. “The app is seeing good response now. The idea is to provide easy access to Ramcharitmanas,” says Amit Gilra, co-founder.  
 

He adds that demand for gold, silver, and brass coins based on the Ram theme is seeing a huge demand.