Atithi Devo Bhava for us, “curry bashing” for them

The Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has added another weapon to its “Incredible India” arsenal. Yes, the same campaign which seeks to sell India as a safe, oriental and culturally exciting destination to the rest of the world. This latest “weapon” is simply the new advertisement that the ITDC has been circulating on most television channels lately – that of a culturally sensitive and clearly right-wing Aamir Khan saving the day for two white, foreigner girls as they shop around in the back-lanes of Bombay – that oriental paradise that Gregory David Roberts (incidentally from Australia himself) hails as the city of cities and one that is closest to his heart.

 

Anyway – so there’s this ruffian, see? And he tries to touch the girls and then tries to sell them a cheap hotel room, and then he’s joined by taxi drivers, tourist guides, auto rickshaw drivers et cetera – each selling his own…er…”service”. As the two unassuming and helpless girls drown in a sea of invitations and echoes of “Madamji, madamji”, their knight in shining armour appears – to reprimand his own countrymen for the ill treatment that they are subjecting their foreign guests to and reminds them of their ancient heritage – of their land being that of guest worship (read deifying anyone with a less-flatter nose and better skin tone – you know, as part of our continuing respect for our erstwhile colonial masters). What he does is all too visible. However – what is of consequence, in my opinion, is what he says. Aamir Khan of the Narmada Bachao aandolan and Lagaan fame says “respect them because its from them that you get your income. If you cause them displeasure – believe you me – they’ll go back with a very bad impression of our company (oops! I meant country) and never come back!” How…beautiful! This is certainly a great service that Aamir does the country, you know – no matter how right-wing and begging for the love and respect and (don’t forget) money of the global tourism community he seems. A country which is so firmly entangled in the web of international politics, the neo-liberal economy and needs resources from the world market to fuel it’s ever-expanding capitalist fantasies. We surely must respect the world community then,  shouldn’t we? Of course!

 

As the idea for this post gets formed in my head – I change the channel as soon as Khan’s tirade is over – to a news channel. The events in Australia – quite well-referred to as “curry bashing” present a sad irony, to say the least. So I realize, that as I watched Aamir Khan reprimand his countrymen for the lack of respect that they show their foreign “guests” (who come here to do nothing except get their illegal income exchanged for the US dollar, or buy cheap drugs, or smoke the best hashish in the world, or to molest minors or participate in ‘rave’ events) some hooligan in Australia stabs an Indian student at a party just because his skin is a few tones darker. Some good for nothing “mate” with another one of his “mates” with nothing to do, decides to throw a Molotov on an Indian student who's reading in his front yard. The media – as we know it – was surely sent into a tizzy. Coverage – yes. Adequate coverage – I don’t think so.

Compare this group of incidents (I believe 4 at the time of writing) to the hullaballoo that had been created when a Swiss and a German tourist had been molested in Rajasthan and raped in Delhi, respectively. The Tourism Ministry went into denial initially, but was soon forced to acknowledge the incidents and apologize to the world's tourist community. Similar was the case of Scarlett Keeling – the teenage neo-hippie girl of a classic hippie mom who had come to India to have a “nice time” (read mixing psychotropic drugs like LSD and Ecstasy with alcohol for that ultimate kick) – but ended-up getting raped and killed instead. The country was again criticized for not being able to provide a better environment for drug-crazed junkies and a few police officials were suspended and their seniors transferred. The media ate it up and barfed it for months. However, is the media acting with the same “responsibility”  now?

 

Sure. We’ve got the Australians saying that the attacks were not racially motivated. Then we have Indian officials saying that they were. Then the Australians say, “Yeah – I guess” and then the Indians say “How bad! How rude, I say!” and the victims of these assaults lie in hospital – either in coma, or nursing head injuries, or 30 per cent of their burned bodies.

 

MR S.N MISHRA, SHRIMATI SONIA GANDHI (it is an established fact that YOU run the government) MR. PRIME MINISTER – I’m sure you know about these attacks. But – what are you doing about it/them? Does your dialogue with Australia depend only on nuclear energy raw-material sharing agreements? Like the time you were in constant touch with that country when you needed plutonium so that you could go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal?  

 

What is more aggravating is the fact that there are completely ludicrous reactions coming in AND being reported – that Indian students are more vulnerable to such attacks - being one of them. Oh please! Wouldn’t they be? Because they hail from a country whose government is more into making money from its foreign trade and tourism? Which has recently bent over backwards to the US on a million counts and occasions?  A country which WANTS to send scapegoats to these rogue states in the name of bilateral relations? The establishment clearly doesn’t care about what happens to these people after they’re out of the country’s borders (as if they really did while they were inside it either, hah!). So while Air France routinely ill-treats passengers of Indian origin, Sikh sects clash in Vienna and Indian students in Russia (oh dear) as well as the US are targeted – we should all sit in our homes and watch the story unfold on the corporate media’s stage (most of their bosses are American, Russian or European anyway). We watch what they want us to watch. We read what they want us to read – after doctoring it, deleting whole paragraphs of information which is considered “sensitive” for us brownies. As the white man expresses his dejection at being knocked-off the world’s stage and Indian middle class families indoctrinate their kids with “ideals” such as minding their own business while in another country – the establishment kisses the international community’s feet. After all – we can’t blame the parents, can we? They’ve been privy to the Indian government’s disregard and lack of involvement for a long, long time and hence, are in a position to give such advice.

 

Well – I’ve got a solution. Something that LTTE supporters may approve of. MISTA PRIME MINISTA – why don’t you send the IPKF to Australia? They can go there – have a few drinks, check out the Sydney Opera House and then get down to doing what they did when they were sent to Sri Lanka to quash the embryonic eelam struggle; something that they’re best at – raping women of all ages and sizes (lets keep the looting and plundering details to orselves this time at least!). But hey – this time it’ll be better than the last. There’s no Prabhakaran to blow-up a war criminal in India. Besides, guess all those who believe in punishing such wrong-doers by death have started looking to America, the European Union and Israel. Which is a good thing for the Congress and especially the UPA government.