Festivals Get A New Avatar

The plethora of festivals in the frontier state are struggling to strike a balance between the old and the new, and to ensure that traditional customs are being preserved even as they embrace modernity.

- Ranju Dodum

This January, Chief Minister Pema Khandu announced that the conservation driven Pakke Paga Festival will be celebrated as a State event. If the announcement turns to reality, it will become the seventh and the latest to join the list of the Arunachal Pradesh government’s calendar tourism events. Tucked away in one of the extreme corners of Northeast India, Arunachal Pradesh has been referred to as the last bastion of unexplored tourism. Indeed, with landscape ranging from the Alpine to subtropical, and a plethora of tribal communities, each offering unique cultural experiences, it is little wonder that it has often been named in lists of must-see places by several travel magazines including Lonely Planet. Yet, despite its immense potential, tourism has not flourished in the State. It is, then, but natural that successive State governments have made efforts to push for a realization of that potential.

Festivals Flourish by Showcasing ‘Indigenous Unique Culture’