First the Russian Mafia in Goa, now foreign animal activists in Kerala arrested for manhandling dogcatchers after breaking ! And here people thought the worst tourists could do was disguise themselves as missionaries or play into the hands of the communists in limiting Indian growth. What next?
Krismira
3
arunchs
After seeing India for sometime, I would not blame people thinking that they can getaway doing anything.. Because most of the time, people do getaway doing anything.
And then there is Shantaram to set bad example. I have often wondered why a book like that is strongly recommended to people travelling to India. 99% of the tourists never get to go through things and places that Shantaram made through. I am not sure, but a book like that can only make first-timer tourists arrive in India hoping to soak in a fantasy world of drugs and crime and easily getaway doing what they please.
4
indianresident
hell..
99% of indians never get to go through things and places that shantaram made through.
5
indianresident
ok a bit of an exaggeration..
i meant about the crime.. not the sqalid conditions and poverty.
6
Krismira
True, I left out a few other problems thinking someone seeking nirvana/getting stoned on the hippy trail or emulating a monk at Dharamshala didn't really affect the country as much, though that Shantaram movie is definitely going to attract a few more to take on a similar route. Oh that reminds me of a case involving some foreigners in a child pornography ring in Goa a couple of years ago.
Then just today I was reading about a British girl raped by a Polish guy in Delhi! Let us hope they limit all such activities among themselves and not involving locals like that murdered British guy did in Roha last month. I wonder whatever happened to 'leave only footsteps and take only photos' ????
7
Krismira
No, I am not becoming someone else around here with long winded posts, but had to emphasize this "playing into communists’ hands" a bit more, to counter certain propaganda here, since I see that more of a recent problem (eg: BBC series) than those age old missionaries. Reporters posing as tourists and coming out with all kinds of surveys and reports about growing 'inequalities' and other ‘problems’ in India, however finds prominent displays in the communist dailies of India. Not that one should take these reports too seriously, as one such 1977 article claimed India was headed for utter destruction by 2000!
The point is that you certainly won't find any positives about India such as the recent BBC survey noting a higher percentage of Indians believing in their country’s better future, or that Goldman Sachs' report on BRIC economies in those communist papers! All this at a time when the communists exerts too much pressure (mostly roadblocks to slow down the economy thereby hurting the poor, their own ‘constituency’, though the mainstream communists already in power are being converted leaving most doomsayers biting the dust) on the coalition government in India.
Imo, it goes without saying tourists and backpackers are better off leaving the place the same way they found it. Political activism and vigilante justice etc are best left at home!
8
anonymous
It's got nothing to do with tourism, Vultures appear on every horizon, backdoor land deals, vice, preaching the almighty and numerous other. A lot of people do leave the place the way the find it, polictical activism and vigilante justice etc as been here a long time with no signs of fading. India could show the world how to how to achieve success through corruption.
9
Krismira
#8, you are right, certain things have nothing to do with tourism and in fact, in the case of India, the pros outweigh the cons many times over. We just want to keep it that way though!
As for your comments about corruption, India never had a monopoly in corruption and isn't as widespread as one might think. Don’t read too much into it than a supply and demand imbalance problem, aided by stifling bureaucracy, lack of enforcement & growing pains, and certainly no more than what you saw in the case of that rich guy paying bribe to get onto one of those lifeboats off the sinking Titanic, except that India isn't the titanic, the sinking one that is! So all this will pass as India gets economically stronger.
Enforcement lately has been getting tighter and today, not even the Railway Minister's family themselves couldn’t travel ticket less in Bihar, India’s most corrupt state! I see brighter future for India even otherwise, not the gloom and doom as predicted by communists!
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