Never the Twain Shall Meet

TRAVEL AND CULTURE ARE intertwined, and more so in India. It is tragic, however, that for ages, we in India have not been able to market our soft power. It is quite another thing to market yoga at the United Nations, which is a far cry from creating spaces that are both harmonious and non-threatening for people who want to visit our country. I have never understood why India has not taken advantage of its magnificent sights, of its diversity, and its breadth of experiences that are on offer, unlike other countries.

I just spent a week in Italy and Croatia. These are small countries by any definition, and they pull in thrice as many tourists as India does for the simple reason that they allow tourists to experience their sights without having draco­nian laws implemented for no rhyme or reason. In India, we have very poor lighting of our monuments. We do not have experts or guides who are well-trained. Besides, we have an infrastructure that is creaking.

Take Goa, for example. Goa was the cradle of culture, whether it was Hinduism or Portuguese culture. Temples and churches coexisted in a magnificent manner. But today, Goa has been destroyed. It has been destroyed because of wanton greed and the desire to keep building without any thought for zoning laws, any thought for the look and feel of the place. Which is why India, to my mind, is a terrible place for a lot of tourists for the simple reason that they do not find any excitement.

The world has changed. Tourists are not looking at the usual humdrum of visitations. People have moved beyond the Maharaja Express. People have moved beyond beaches. People are looking at solitude. They are looking at wellness spaces. Take, for instance, Ama, which was launched by the Taj, which are staycation homes, homes which belong to people and are managed by the Taj. Ama has created, to my mind, a whole host of avenues for the average tourist, both domestic and interna­tional, to not only enjoy the city in which those Amas are, but even enjoy local flavour, food, the farm-to-fork experience.

More recently, the same Taj group launched, to my mind, something which is remarkable, which is this whole pro­gramme around spirituality, creating a spiritual passport. More and more Indians, whether they are Indians living in India or of Indian origin from overseas, come to these pilgrim centres. But what do they get? They get the noise, they get the dirt, and they get an experience which is traumatising. To what end do we want India to be a state or a country which is positioned in such a terrible manner that people almost balk, notwithstanding the other issue of visas and the way we welcome our visitors?

I am actually delighted that recently the Government of India has taken steps to manage the entire immigration pro­cess in a more organised, digitalised manner. But there needs to be more. Look at what we have in our repository. Look at our repertoire as a country. We have temples, we have churches, we have mosques, we have the influence of the Mughals, we have the influence of the Mauryan Empire; more recently, we have the English influence. But what have we done with it? We have not been able to optimise it, we have not been able to capture it. But most importantly, we have not been able to market it.

Many years ago, Amitabh Kant launched a brilliant campaign called Incredible India. But where is that today? We don’t have that anymore, even though we have an outstand­ing minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who has taken over tourism and culture. The finest move that Narendra Modi has made is by combining both these departments, because as I said, they are not only intertwined, they are interdependent. I hope a Gajendra Singh Shekhawat does to Indian tourism what is sorely lacking. Take for instance the Venice Biennale. India is the only absentee nation. We have nations like Senegal and Venezuela there, but Indian art has been left on its own. And that is my problem.

My worry is that not only does the average Indian not know enough about India’s soft power, India’s contribu­tion to the world and its exhaustive offerings, but even the foreigner has been deprived of an India that is so rich, so varied, and so brilliant. We have to create, to my mind, avenues of hope, avenues of delight, and avenues which allow tourists to experience a country that is not only a na­tion but a civilisational legacy. Any civilisational legacy is anchored in culture. Tourism is only a subset. Tourism allows you to experience, but culture is the infrastructure, culture is the edifice. And without actu­ally understanding what we have to offer, be it in the fine arts, be it in the performing arts, be it in our temples, in our mosques, in our churches, in our gurudwaras, we have left all of this aside and we are to­day chasing the same rainbow, which, by the way, is now not only common, it is slowly being rejected by global tourists.

I BELIEVE THAT IF India is to progress, it has to do three things. First, India must recognise that it is not a republic, it is not a nation, it is a civilisational legacy. Second, the fact that tourism is a state subject needs to be re-exam­ined. There must be some level of Central influence without the dirty politicking. States have to understand that tourism is a huge economic generator. Therefore, you have to give sops to hotels, to wellness places, to motels, to restaurants, because that is what people want to experience. They do not want to come in and be closeted or just spend one day at the beach because beaches are everywhere. Where there is a sea, there is a beach. Third, the government needs to understand that tourism requires a different level of cul­tural and aesthetic experience and expertise.

In the good old days, when you had people like Pupul Jayakar or Mapu Singh or Rajiv Sethi, you could do things because they understood culture. They understood aesthetics. They were educated. They were not following a political dogma or political strategy. For them, it was not about Hinduism or Islam or Christianity. For them, it was about India’s civilisational legacy. It was about India’s worth. It was about the country’s contribution and how it could change the world by offering a different experience.

Consumers do not buy brands, they buy benefits. What is the benefit that India offers? To my mind, India offers an experi­ence like no other. Mark Tully famously said that whatever you see of India, the opposite is equally true. India is a land of con­tradictions. It is dichotomous. It is varied and it is puzzling. There­fore, the mystique that India has, very, very few countries do. The repertoire of both arts and culture and spirituality that India has, very few do. We gave the world Buddhism. We gave the world Hinduism. St Thomas came to Kerala and brought Christianity.

We have a large repertoire of experiences that are untapped. And we have allowed them to die. We have allowed them to be extinguished at the hands of a ridiculous bureaucracy. If I were the government, I would create an entire cadre for tourism, both at the Centre and in the states, where this cadre would not only be trained but also educated, aesthetically aligned and made to understand the demands, needs, and requirements of tourists, both domestic and international.

We cannot become a country where we create hotels, where we have beautiful palaces which are now running hotels and then let them die as just places of residence. They have to become places of culture. Look at what the Jaipur Literature Festival did many years ago to the city of Jaipur. Look at what the Kochi Biennale has done to the city of Cochin. There are examples abound. Look at what the Kabira Festival has done to a city like Varanasi. Varanasi is not only about the temple or the ghats. It is about a magical experience. It is not about the drama of the aarti. It is about the soul-finding salvation. And until and un­less we realise the intricacies of how culture and tourism are intertwined, we will always allow ourselves to play second-fiddle. We will not be able to market ourselves. We will be poor amplifiers of our cultural riposte and more so, we will not take advantage of who and what we are.

Croatiacultural heritageIndian TravellersJaipur Literature FestivalKochi-Muziris BiennaleTravel Issue 2024