Comments on: Ripping-off Foreign Tourists

By: Usha Kutty Juman

Usha Kutty Juman — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:07:59 +0000

I agree totally with those who say that this is pure and simple RACISM!!! It is NOT ok to say that India is such a ‘huge bargain’ that what does another few dollars mean! It’s not the money, it’s the principle behind it that we are talking about here. Unless all NRI’s who are foreign passport-holders are checked at the gate, rather than waltzing by smugly for 10 rupees, on the strength of their brown skin, this is incredibly unfair! Who is a foreigner…define it by passport, not by skin colour.
I would like to add just how painful the dual-tier pricing policy has been to me personally. I am Indian and a Indian passport-holder. My husband is white American and an Indian PIO card holder. For the past five years, we have lived in India, and paid Indian taxes (diligently!). Yet he still get asked to pay 10 times more. As he pointed out (much more politely than I am wont to) to a forest officer in Silent Valley, Kerala (near my parents’ farm) that if this happened in the US, it is called racism. It really, really, really upsets me…I would rather pay the higher amount myself as well. It reminds me of Jews who were made to wear a Star of David armband during the Second World War. Why are not more people agitating to change this…it looks so greedy and hostile to visitors. Let’s put our signatures to a petition for change.
And where does this leave my daughter…half-white, half-brown? Is she a foreigner too?
Hyderabad, India

By: Friedrich Kelm, Germany

Friedrich Kelm, Germany — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 08:59:53 +0000

Thanks to Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, who did give back to me my (former) belief in the deep democratic character of the political institutions of India, as he wrotes on 8th February 2007 a letter to the Indian Minister of Tourism and Culture, Mrs. Ambika Soni (mentioned in the newspaper INDIAN EXPRESS from 8th February 2007), that she should please try to evolve a new procedre to put away the existing practice of a dual-tier entry fee, which discriminate permament foreign visitors at the gates of Indiaâ€™s monuments.

I could also read on 14th March (at my stay in Bhopal this year) in the newspaper THE PIONEER, Bhopal, that: “Elders seek single price tickets at heritage sites”, that even the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi seeks to end this unbalanced dual-tier entry fee system.

After ten journays to India (my first trip was in 1986, my last in Marh 2007), I know there is less interest in the Indian public to discuss the case of the dual-tier entrance fees system, because (as the majority feels) itâ€™s only the money of others (and we have other problems) â€“ but it is stolen money. (Unjust enrichment is an offence – even in India.) And much more important: to install a government organised entrance fee system in which the origin or descent of a human beeing makes the difference (and not rules the principle of equality) based on (itâ€˜s hard to say for me, but unfortunately the truth): hidden racism. To realize this connection, was a shock to me.

If India maintain such an unbalanced system of entry fees, it will, in longer terms, going to loose its good reputation around the world and even its status of beeing a constitutional state.
Manmohan Singh has recognized this, as he wrote this letter to Mrs. Ambika Soni to end this practices â€“ therefore thanks to him from all Indian lovers. He represents, what is calling, best Indian democratic tradition.

By: Neethu

Neethu — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:13:36 +0000

Hai

you don’t feel ashamed to say like this in public about a country you visited. Nobody called you to come to Inida. India is a wonderful country with lots of resources and Inidans can proudly say they are from India. One day you will see India will be the most powerful country in the world. Whichever country you from you never see poverty and bargains in your country. it is common Sir .So don’t think India is the only country have all these problems.

By: Vishal Patel

Vishal Patel — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:06:37 +0000

Foriegn Tourist have no manners and a parnoid when they come to India they think indians are thieves and pick pockets they feel behave the same to indians who live in their countries like the uk and usa considering that indians there are the most law obiding and in high earing jobs

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Ripping-off Foreign Tourists — Part 2

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:14:16 +0000

[...] ters bureaucratic.) I had written about this in Dec 2004 in the post Ripping-off Foreign Tourists: Another thing that bugs me no end is the differenti [...]

By: V.K.

V.K. — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I am an Indian and I have always found the pricing discrimination based on race to be appalling. I have been speaking against it ever since I first visited the Taj Mahal as a teenager. I have visited and lived in foreign countries and no tourist destination in any of those countries that I have been to ever has engaged in this kind of policy. This stems basically from the belief that a foreign tourist who could afford a plane ticket to visit India must well be able to afford the higher price of admission. Granted this is generally true of visitors from Europe or United States, however the question is of principle. When you invite someone over as guest to your home for dinner, do you charge them a fee at the end of the meal just because they are wealthier than you ?
The key to welcoming more foreign tourists is to make the foreign tourist feel welcome.
Also as you pointed out, the only way they distinguish a foreigner is by color of skin. A white skinned person is charged more than a brown skinned person purely on the basis that most “white” countries are considered “developed” and most “brown” countries are considered “developing”. What about a black african student who is studying at an Indian university ? Is he considered “poor” and charged less ?