mid-day Opinion: The poor, misunderstood Indian tourist

These Indian tourists were criticised on social media for dancing on Vietnam’s Train Street. Pics/Instagram/@ShwetaJain

There was a bit of bad news from Thailand a few weeks ago following its announcement of a change of entry rules. Its popular 60-day visa-free scheme for 93 countries was cancelled, and I can only imagine how that must have upset a lot of Indian tourists who have treated Bangkok and Pattaya as weekend destinations in recent years. I have no doubt that they will soon rally and sail forth again as they usually do, but that change in policy did prompt a bit of soul-searching on my part.

The official reason put forth by the Thai government was safety. Apparently, tourists from some countries weren't behaving in a respectful manner, and they wanted to have more control over who was allowed to come in and stay. It felt like a reasonable explanation, until it was countered by several unofficial reasons from Indian travellers, many of whom maintain that their countrymen are among the worst behaved tourists abroad. There were complaints about Indian families being loud at restaurants, of being uncouth on airplanes, lacking basic respect at sacred sites, and exhibiting an overwhelming sense of entitlement that compelled them to treat other Asians as lesser beings. All of this sounded familiar enough, because I have had the misfortune of seeing many examples over the years. And yet, it felt as if something was merely lost in translation here.

One of the more common complaints, for example, involves Indian men and their inability to behave in a respectful or sane manner around foreign women. This alone convinced me that Indian tourists are just misunderstood. Consider the videos of Indians dancing across America and Europe that are currently flooding social media platforms and triggering a wave of vitriol in their wake. They tend to feature young couples thrusting their hips in front of government buildings or monuments, and I think of these videos as nothing more than a beautiful introduction to contemporary Indian culture. What ought to become a source of pride for us has turned into a joke simply because foreigners don't understand this compulsive need to perform.

A long time ago, ancient art forms like Kathak or Bharatanatyam would be used to proclaim Indianness, but that India no longer exists. Today, I believe it is suggestive pelvic thrusting that most defines what dancing means for young Indians. When they replicate these bawdy moments for TikTok or Instagram, what they are really doing is giving foreigners a taste of today's India, preparing them for what they can expect if they ever cancel their plans for Vietnam or Singapore and choose to experience the world's fifth largest economy instead.

I would make the same argument when it comes to how Indian men treat foreign women. Foreigners always accuse Indian male tourists of staring, of making women feel uncomfortable, or of being lewd in ways that are hard to explain, and it all points to a lack of understanding. When Indian men stare at women abroad, they are also preparing them for what Indian women deal with every day of their lives.

Again, this only serves to prepare foreigners for what they can expect if they visit India themselves. It's the sort of thing that ought to be turned into a marketing campaign, the way ‘Incredible India' was promoted back when our cities were still walkable and liveable. Imagine a series of advertisements featuring Indian men just staring, and how it could do wonders at Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle airport.

Indians are also accused of being loud and obnoxious, of being unable to queue, and unable to follow rules. Again, all of this is untrue because what foreigners are describing is just our way of life. We are loud because our cities don't allow silence, obnoxious because we have seen how this trait enables us to become leaders, and unable to follow rules because they are never implemented uniformly. Indian tourists aren't behaving inappropriately; they are just being Indian, and that simple concept is what outsiders fail to grasp.

Maybe the government should now step in and start educating the world about what they can expect when we turn up at foreign doorsteps. That way, if they don't like what they see, they can all do what Thailand, America, the UK, Canada, Europe and Australia have begun doing and start giving out visas a little more judiciously to people with an Indian passport. I suspect it won't be hard to adjust to, given how far that official document has already fallen.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He can be contacted at www.lindsaypereira.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.