India: The Rise and Rise of Poverty Tourism

There is an old brand of tourism resurfacing in India – “poverty tourism”. This brand of tourism was fashionable in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It vanished for a little while in the 1990s and the early years of this century. Poverty tourism involves highlighting and promoting the wretched condition of approximately a quarter of India’s population, for the benefit of tourists from other, wealthier nations.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, this elite group of tourists generally consisted of members of the Peace Corps, left-wing economists, hippies, eccentrics, do-gooders of all stripes and spiritual seekers who kept harping on India’s material poverty and supposed “spiritual” wealth. This Indian trend of promoting poverty tourism diminished in the last twenty years, as the story of India’s economic boom took centre-stage. It has now returned with a vengeance, possibly as a result of the global recession. Miserable people always feel better when they know that there are others who are worse off than them.

I will use two examples to explain the revival of poverty tourism. The first example involves our eternal political child Rahul Gandhi (better known as Rahul “Baba” despite his middle age) taking the British Foreign Secretary David Milliband to the rural, backward town of Amethi in Northern India. The idea, Rahul “Baba” said, was to show Mr. Milliband the “real India”.

The second example is the international success of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”.

But first, let me illustrate the phenomenon of Rahul “Baba” as global ambassador for India’s poverty tourism. David Milliband, British Foreign Secretary was in India on an official diplomatic visit, ostensibly to show his support to India in the wake of the terror attacks in Mumbai. Rahul Gandhi, rich and privileged scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, saw it fit to take Milliband to a poor, backward village in his constituency of Amethi in Northern India. Mr. Milliband stayed the night in a village of “Dalits” (a supposedly backward caste tribe), without running water, plumbing or electricity, and slept in a poor Dalit’s hut for the night. Rahul Baba wanted of course, to show Milliband the “real” India.

The Indian media gave this “event” a great deal of publicity, gushing over what conversations Milliband and Rahul Baba had with the poor uneducated locals, and how admirably these two gentlemen coped with the hardships they faced for the night. Very little was said about the villagers who have been living in Amethi all their lives.

The one and only important question the media did not address was – Why is Amethi, the constituency of the ruling dynasty, still so poor and backward after so many years? What has the Gandhi family done to improve the wretched lot of the people living in this village? Surely, the constituency of the Prime-Minister-In-Waiting should have had running water, electricity, literacy, jobs and schools by now? If not, why not? But our media conveniently chose to ignore this all-important question.

The next day, as Milliband and Rahul Gandhi departed for Delhi in a private plane, the charitable organizations that had donated clean, warm blankets and bed-sheets for these gentlemen quietly came by and took these items back. The villagers had served their purpose, which was the promotion of poverty tourism. They were now forgotten, and welcome to go back to their primitive, poverty-stricken lives. The cause of poverty tourism had been promoted and publicized, and that was all that mattered.

The second example I would like to highlight is the phenomenal success of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”. I have not watched the movie yet. I am told it is an excellent movie, which it probably is. Daniel Boyle, the movie’s director, probably made the movie because it was a good story worth telling. However, it has been received very differently by many members of the Indian media. Instead of treating “Slumdog Millionaire” as a good movie, they are somehow reading much more into it than there actually is. They are treating the movie as somehow representative of the country India is, which this film definitely isn’t.

One prominent South Bombay socialite waxed eloquent about the movie, about how it portrayed the struggle of the poor in India’s slums. While this may be true, I got the distinct feeling that she was somehow suddenly proud of these slums which she has probably never ever visited or talked about before. Somehow, these slums, that she would wrinkle her nose at in disgust on any other occasion, had become a symbol of India’s “pride”, “spirit” and “resilience”. Why? Only because a Hollywood director made a famous movie about them.

She would much prefer India to be a poor country which draws the world’s attention with its misery and poverty, than a quiet, staid prosperous nation with no poverty. Look at Sweden, she must be thinking to herself – it is rich and boring, nobody talks or makes movies about it.

I am sure Daniel Boyle (the “Slumdog Millionaire” director) did not mean to portray all the residents of Edinburgh as crazed heroin addicts living in squalor, when he made the movie “Trainspotting”. That is because Edinburgh, like Mumbai, is a diverse place, with own share of rich and poor, sublime and tragic. Just like all residents of Edinburgh are not crazed heroin addicts, all the residents of Mumbai (Bombay) do not live in slums.

The fact of the matter is Boyle was only making a movie. The image of India being a miserable, poor country is promoted by many Indians more frequently than anyone else. Why? Because our poverty becomes the source of international attention, a form of celebrity. And of course, it is better to be famous for being poor, than not being famous at all. Right?

To those overseas tourists who are planning to visit India, I would like to say this. India does have pockets of abysmal poverty. This is a shameful fact of Indian life, it cannot be ignored and it is not something most Indians are proud of. But India also has a prosperous middle class, good schools and education, good jobs and yes, many of us actually live in homes with running water, electricity and indoor plumbing. All of us do not defecate on the street.

We are ashamed of the poverty that afflicts many of our countrymen and women. It distresses us as much as it distresses our foreign tourists. We would like our politicians to provide proper homes, education and jobs to the poor, instead of promoting poverty tourism.