Goa’s ugly side

The ugly side of Goa’s tourism industry has been very sadly exposed by the investigations into the death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling. The 15-year-old’s body was found 20 days ago and it was only on her mother’s insistence that the case was re-investigated, a second post-mortem carried out and now three men detained on suspicion.

It is not just the fact of the death that is so sordid. The casual manner in which the local police treated the issue initially, declaring that it was a case of drowning, calls for condemnation. Had it not been for the media outcry and the mother’s insistence, it would have been written down as one more unfortunate death of a tourist.

For years, Goa has been known to be a hub for drug-related tourism. The film, Bangkok Hilton, exposed this over 20 years ago. Since the hippies discovered it in the 1960s, the idea of a free and easy life in Goa has been a huge attraction for the west. Add to that the general impression — erroneous as it has turned out — that the people of Goa either supported or accepted such behaviour. It was more a case of official apathy that allowed this culture to flourish; to the outsider, it looked like a state where people were laidback and thus more tolerant.

But below that clichéd image highlighted by brochures and ad campaigns lay serious social problems. Until the Freddy Peats case was exposed in 1991, the idea of children being sexually abused by tourists was ignored, perhaps more by ignorance than complicity. The past few years, with numbers of visitors going up, tourism in Goa has become a mixture of sleaze and trash, to say nothing of organised crime. Locals have protested about the damage done to Goa by unbridled and unregulated tourism, to little avail. The drugs have never gone away — just changed from marijuana to designer drugs. And, for the first time, tourists have become targets of crime.

The deaths of Stephen Bennett last year and Keeling last month have followed similar patterns: disappearance of the victim, initial police indifference, and accusations of incompetence by family members. The case of Keeling points to too much freedom given to a teenager, simple safety precautions not taken — the seductions of Goa’s apparent insouciant attitude — and officials unwilling to accept that Goa’s tourists need more security.

They may feel that to accept that will threaten the very foundations on which tourism is based. Yet, it is short-sighted and dangerous for governments to try and brush these attacks under the carpet. The problem is not restricted to Goa. The increasing threat within India to visitors has to be examined and steps to protect them must be taken or there will be severe repercussions, not least to the Goans themselves.