We need to cleanse our popular tourist spots of drugs, touts and thugs

If it had not been for the fuss the media made about the terrible and tragic end of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, her death may well have been hushed up. That was what the local police seem to have tried to do first, and the clearly unprincipled man who performed the first autopsy and said her death was due to drowning is now saying, because of the obvious media attention it will get him, that she was murdered. If he’s a doctor he must be a very funny kind of doctor.

The terrible nature of the incident points to something that is much more dangerous. There have been regular reports of women tourists being raped, even killed. A German tourist was raped in Pushkar, in Rajasthan; three Japanese women were raped in Agra; a British woman was molested in Goa, and earlier there have been a number of cases in Delhi. 

These are only a part of a larger number of cases in which foreign tourists, men and women, have been cheated, robbed and killed. Many of these cases may have been drug-related, and the overwhelming numbers have been of the kind of tourist that is referred to in the media, conveniently, as back-packer. And that is where the danger is.

Over the years the kind of tourists visiting India has changed; the largest number is young back-packers, and it is they who bring the largest amount of revenue, not the well-heeled kind who stay in 5-star hotels. Their lifestyle is laid-back, and they are less inhibited when it comes to interaction with locals. 

The locals they meet are not, very often, familiar with the uninhibited ways of the young foreign tourists, and either mistake friendliness for promiscuity or deliberately take advantage of it. The kind of person Scarlett Keeling met in Goa can be found lounging about in Paharganj in Delhi, in the various tourist spots in Rajasthan, and in the more squalid areas of Mumbai. There may be the odd exception — like the son of the director-general of police from Orissa who raped a German woman in Rajasthan and then vanished when released on parole, but most of those who the tourists meet are not like him.

These are people who pass themselves off as tourist guides and many of them probably are, but behind that façade they are looking for money and valuables to take, and, if the opportunity offers itself, rape women tourists, and kill the inconvenient ones. Not so long ago a middle-aged British woman was raped and killed in a particularly brutal fashion in Delhi when she took a taxi at the airport late at night. The culprits were, in fact, taxi drivers who confessed that they were overcome with greed and lust.

It is this lot that needs to be looked at very carefully, and so far precious little has been done. One hears that recently tourists in Delhi have been provided with a major facility: a control room, whatever that means, where they can lodge complaints. Presumably, if they have been raped, robbed or molested they can now actually lodge a complaint. One finds it difficult to understand if this is some kind of a joke or yet another example of monumental stupidity.

Is it not possible for the police and authorities responsible for promoting tourism to do something effective? Can touts, ‘guides’ and others who come into contact with tourists not be screened, questioned, and suspicious ones dealt with as only the police know how? It seems obvious that it will take a generation for people of this kind to become a little more civilised, so why not some effective protective action? And why not some firm steps to gather intelligence on and destroy the drug mafia that clearly is one of the tourist attractions that appear to be giving places like Goa a new and repellent image?

It has taken the Thai authorities years to alter, even if only partially, the image of Bangkok as a centre for sex tourism. But they’ve not stopped, and the results are beginning to show. Can something similar not be organised here in India? 

Knee jerk reactions will serve no purpose at all. Catchy slogans like Incredible India will look grotesque if the India that young backpackers are looking for and finding is one filled with drugs and cheap liquor. As usual, everyone is pointing at everyone else: the tourism people at the police, the police at the tourists, and everyone other than themselves. 

It is time someone realised just how dangerous the situation is, and demand that realistic and effective steps be taken to cleanse tourist spots like Goa and Manali of drugs and the thugs, touts and predators who hang about where they see young foreign tourists. It is not an impossible task; it needs determination and a willingness to work together. We are not very good at either, but we can at least try. The other option is too dreadful to contemplate.        

The writer is a commentator on social affairs.