Beyond The Blueprint is the Blog Series by Pune International Centre (PIC) under Cooperative Federalism and Multilevel Governance (CFMG).
This month’s blog looks at dark tourism in India, from Jallianwala Bagh to Roopkund, and the pull toward places built on loss. It asks why we travel toward tragedy instead of away from it. Somewhere between memory, grief and the reason we travel
Chances are you have already been a dark tourist. If you have stood at a war memorial, walked through an old prison, or visited the site of a disaster, you are part of a surprisingly large crowd. In the United States alone, one survey found 82 percent of people have visited a place tied to death or tragedy. What can look like morbid curiosity is also a real economy.
The name is newer than the habit. Dark tourism means visiting places touched by tragedy. Two Scottish researchers, John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, coined the term in 1996, though people were making these trips long before it had one.
The scale is what has changed. Globally, dark tourism was worth about 32.8 billion dollars in 2025, and it is expected to climb to nearly 40 billion by 2032. What was once a niche interest has grown into a settled part of the travel industry. India is one of the fastest-moving corners of that same market, expanding at roughly 5.1 per cent a year, among the highest rates of any country, with crowds that are mostly domestic.
Why are we pulled towards tragedy? Why do we pay to be unsettled?
Behavioural economics offers part of the answer, and so does psychology. Ordinary logic says we should avoid what frightens or saddens us, yet people plan these trips and travel a long way to take them. We rarely judge an experience by comfort alone. We also weigh what a place teaches us and what we carry away once we leave. Psychologists find that facing death from a safe distance can be oddly steadying, a kind of reflection on mortality that tests our fears without making us live them, and economists would add that we are not really paying for pleasure but for meaning. A tragic site offers exactly that, a controlled brush with fear, close enough to feel real but safe enough to walk away from.
The same appetite shows up on screens and in books, not just in travel plans. A screen or a page offers the same safe distance a real site does, close enough to feel it, far enough to close the book. Chernobyl visits rose by nearly a third within a year of the TV series that retold it, and true crime documentaries, war memoirs, and partition literature all draw on the same thing. Some of it is fear, a look at what could happen to us. Just as often it is pain, someone else’s grief told well enough to make us want to stand inside it, or on rarer days, a place to set down grief of our own.
The pull still shows up differently in each of us, and social media has sharpened it further. One dramatic photo now travels faster than any context, and a real tragedy can flatten into a passing trend within a day.
India’s Established Circuit
When History Becomes a Destination
India’s past holds many stories of conflict, and old wars and massacres now draw visitors. Jallianwala Bagh remembers a massacre from 1919, when British troops killed unarmed civilians there. It is now a national memorial where around fifty thousand people visit daily, walking through laser projection galleries and audio-visual theatres before an evening light-and-sound show retells that day. Border regions pull crowds too. Kargil’s war memorial recalls the 1999 conflict, and Longewala in Rajasthan holds memories of the 1971 war, both drawing visitors curious about military history, a curiosity that keeps growing every year.
Legend and Mystery, Without a Clear Tragedy
Not every site here is tied to a known event or history. Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan is one such place, centuries old and steeped in legend. Locals call it India’s most haunted fort, though no record explains why. The Archaeological Survey of India lists it as a protected monument and bars entry after sunset. That official caution has only fed the legend further.
Roopkund tells a different kind of story, written in bone rather than legend. High in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, this lake holds hundreds of unidentified human skeletons. Trekkers now call it Skeleton Lake. Some studies point to a sudden hailstorm centuries ago, others to different groups dying there in different eras. Here, it is the eerie mystery itself that draws people in.
Jail Tourism Becomes Official
Old prisons have become tourist attractions too. The Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands leads the way, its evening light-and-sound show retelling the freedom struggle to a packed crowd each night. Tamil Nadu opened a colonial-era jail in Gudalur, and another, Naduvattam, will soon become a museum. Maharashtra opened Yerawada Central Prison in Pune in 2021. Telangana’s Sangareddy jail lets guests sleep inside real cells, wearing prison uniforms and eating prison food. Officials say the experience should feel real, not comfortable.
Would you want that kind of holiday?
When the Wound Is Still Fresh
Not every tragic site welcomes visitors easily. Landslides struck Mundakkai and Chooralmala in July 2024. At least 254 people lost their lives there. Another 118 people were never found. Kerala Police soon issued an unusual public warning. People were asked not to visit the disaster zone. Sightseeing there could obstruct urgent rescue work. Authorities later barred outside visitors from these villages. Police patrolled the ruins to stop selfie takers. Local residents pleaded for tourists to stay away. For many families, this valley still feels like a grave. Some people still wanted to see it anyway.
What does that impulse say about us? What are we seeking?
A Newer, Stranger Debate
A newer case followed closer to Pune. Lohagad Fort near Lonavala is centuries old and carries heritage status for its history. In June 2026, a death changed its image. A visitor died there after a fall, and police alleged two people were involved. Visitors soon began arriving to see that exact spot, and they started calling it Siya Point among themselves. Footfall reportedly rose between 25 and 50 per cent, with holiday crowds growing from about 1,000 to 1,500 daily. Police eventually sealed the fort during the investigation. A fort became a crime scene, then an attraction.
How quickly can grief turn into gossip?
The Business of Remembering
Governments have caught on to the pattern and have done the math. These very sites sit on state tourism portals, not just in history books. Punjab promotes Jallianwala Bagh, the Andaman administration runs the Cellular Jail, Uttarakhand markets the Roopkund trek, and Maharashtra opened Yerawada jail to visitors. The logic is simple. Guides, drivers, hotels, and food stalls all earn from the footfall, and each rupee circulates several times before it leaves the local economy. Preservation gets funded, jobs appear, and a town’s difficult history becomes a reason to arrive rather than pass through. The only condition is care. Education is where that respect actually shows up: a gallery or an information board that helps people understand rather than simply look. These are places built on real loss, and that calls for a certain restraint in how they are promoted and visited.
The government can build the site and set the tone. It cannot decide how you stand in it. Whether you come to understand something or only to be seen there is your call, and no policy reaches that far. Which brings back the question.
Are we remembering, or are we simply watching? Perhaps the answer depends on why we went.
Disclaimer: The blog represents the author’s own views and opinions and not those of the organisation.
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