Volume 5 Issue 3 September 1997

For Private Circulation Only

The Need of the Hour: Involvement

n my preoious Editorial, I hail asked you to add your uoices to the debate on the role of tourism in our country's deaelopment
straiegy . In rcsponse, we receiveil your comffients on the way tourism is impinging on liaes of peoples. A glance through this
issue of the ANLetter would gioe you an idea of the myriad of issues that hatte been thrown-up.

In a recent paper titled Eco Tourism and Social Development, EQUATIONS discusses the new Draft Tourism Policy, which
I referred to, in the preaious Editorial. The Draft Tourism Policy L997 states that " in the context of economic liberalisation and
globatisation being pursued by the country, the deaelopment policies of no sector can remain static" . The policy further states that
;'tht e*rrgrnce of tourism as an important instrument for sustainable human dettelopment including potterty alleuiation,
employmeit geneiation, enoironmental regeneration and adaancement of women anil other disadaantaged Sroups in the country"
requires support to realise these goals.

India,s tourism resources haae always been consiilered immense, in a tourism audit, "the geogtaphical features are iliaerse,
colourful anil varied. The coastline opportunities for deaeloping the best beaches in the world. There are a wealth of eco'
ffirs
systems including bio-sphcre resernes, mangroaes, coral reefs, ileserts, mountains and forests as well as an equally wide range of
flora and fauna".
The Policy further states that "international tourists oisiting interiors of the country for reasons of purity of the environment and
nature cin'tribute to the deuelopment of these areas particularly bnckward regions" . Thus, tourism " Should also become a reason
for better preseraatilon and protection of our natural resources, enaironment and ecology" '
The policy recognises that sustained growth of tourism can giae rise to conflicts. To ensure that the growth of tauristn takes place
along desired lines, certain guidelines haae been frametl:

7. To remove the constraint of the information gap'

2. To create a tourist product that is desirable and supportedby an integrated infrastructure.
3. To inaolae all agencies, pubtic, priaate anil goaernment, in tourism ileaelopment.
4. To create synergy between departments and agencies that have to ileliaer the composite tourist product.
S. To use both the circuit anil scheme approach so that people's participation through panchayats, local bodies, NGOs, and youth
organisations will create a greater awarcness of tourism (The Central Goaernment can thus concentrate on larger inaestment
orienteil projects.l
6. To create direct access for ilestinations off the beaten track.
7. To diversifu the product with new options tike beach tourism, forests, wildlife,landscapes and adaenture tourism, farm anil
health tourism.
8. To ensure that the ileoelopment does not exceeil sustainable leaels.
9. To deoelop the seae,n North-eastern states, the Himalayan region and lslands for tourism.
I0.To maiitain a balance between the negative and positiae impacts of tourism through planning restrictions and through
education of the people for conseraation and ileuelopment.

?/t* *t ,rt"Lrr"* to oe,fndre/Ou*a.lale d4" o( t/* o*alen:al h, t&io ttzqolnffietu. ?kaoa cQzdtt ce,
,;ffr"f"t"t"1q a*d azad'ao a, eftV al rb oep"dzizZ oaale'tat /ot oon *fuucafau. ?io uleata e*frnM
ei the a.aiecho 6we cL.u.e oj ti.e a,utl.oaa, a.od erct .oecu4au&dA? o/ td.e pa'6ho6'e'ta.
 MANILA DECLARATION
ON
THE SCCIAL IMPACT CF TCURISM

We, the representatives of governments and private groups from 77 countries and territories, gathered for the
World Tourism Leaders' Meeting on the Social Impact of Tourism, under the auspices of the World Tourism
Organization (WTO) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,

* HAVING DISCUSSED the social impact of tourism and considered how to maximize their positive aspects
and minimize their negative effects,

* BELIEVING that tourism will continue to generate substantial economic and social problems attributed to or
associated with it,

* BEING DETERMINED to remove the social abuses and exploitation arising from, associated with or
occasioned by tourism and its related activities,

HEREBY COMMIT OURSELVES TO:

1. Support greater involvement of communities in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of processes of tourism policies, programs and projects within the context of national objectives and
priorities, and for this purpose introduce community awareness campaigns to inform people of the benefits
to be gained from tourism development;
2. Improve people's standard of living through tourism by providing economic and social opportunities for
wider participation and, wherever possible and acceptable, dispersal of tourism activities and destinations
to outlying areas to increase rural incomes;

3. Ensure that tourism development planning the legacy, heritage and integrity of tourism destinations
worldwide and respect the social and cultural norms of society, particularly among the indigenous
communities and to this end, control the rate of growth of the tourism sector where it may jeopardize local
communities and social values;
4. Cooperate with and encourage the business community engaged in tourism and the travel trade to create
the right image and develop appropriate marketing tools for the destination countries, and to undertake
education, information and communication services to sensitize visitors to the culture and behavioral
expectations of host communities;

5. Recognize the role of human resources development in tourism and establish long-term programs that
support greater employment of the local labor force in tourism and provide appropriate measures as well
as opportunities for a greater and more positive participation of women and youth;

6. Enhance and strengthen international coordination and monitoring systems through liaison and
networking among governments, private sector and concerned parties with a view to promoting the
positive aspects and eradicating the negative impacts of tourism;
7. Further mobilize local and international support to prevent and control tourism-related abuse and
exploitation of people, particularly women and children and other disadvantaged groups;
8. Encourage governments to promulgate and enforce legal regimes, both in the domestic and multilateral .

arenas, in order to eliminate undesirable social consequences of tourism through, among others,
agreements that deprive malefactors of any safe haven anywhere;

9. Take into account the importance of tourism in the context of Agenda 21, for tourism is a major source of
development but like other sectors, it uses resources and generates wastes and in the process creates not
only social and cultural but also environmental costs and benefits, of which the effects on biodiversity and
fragile eco-systems like coral reefs, archaeological sites, mountains, coastal areas and wetlands constifute
a particular concern and pose the imperative of having the world celebrate and, more importantly, observe
the tenets of eco-tourism; and

10. Work towards the formulation and eventual adoption of a Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.

ADOPTED in Manila, Phitippines on 22 May 1997.

39
unquestionable. The World Travel and Tourism Council, for
example, exists to 'eliminate barriers to growth of the industry'.
This ignores the reality that people and nature have lived in
harmony for centuries, based on principles of nurturing and
compassion. These fundamentirl ethics have been subsumed,
ever since the industrial era began, by a relationship between
man and nature rooted in the rhetoric of consumption, resource
management and profit. It ignores the fact that the future of
humanity and the earth are intimately bound up: one cannot
survive without the other.
Although the tourism industry wears an eco-friendly face, and
pays lip-service to environmental concerns and good practice, it
has on the contrary served the cause of environmental
destruction, particularly in the developing world.
In Hawaii, traditional burial grounds have been razed to make
way for new resorts. In Bali, devout Hindus are horrified that
their temples are overshadowed by monstrous, ugly marinas
and condominium-style hotels. In Goa, farmers and fisherfolk
have been forced off their iands, forced to seek new livelihoods,
which they are ill equipped to handle.
In Costa Rica and Belize, coral reefs have been blasted to allow
for carefree, unfettered watersports. In Phuket, Thailand, the
yacht club has been constructed over a public road, effectively
denying local people access to their homes beyond.
The Political
Economy of
SeIf-RuIe
(The following is the second part of the article The Political
Economy of Self-Rule by Anita Cheria and Edwin. This note
Iooks at the conceptual and ideological framework inoolaed in the
adiaasi struggle, based on its impact at the grassroots, and a:ill try to
answef the question as to why the adioasi oppose projects that will
rehabilitate them outside the forest, and gain them access to 'modern
Iife'. It argues that the globalization process seeks to make other
holarchies waste absorbers, and it is this unequal and dehumanising
exchange that the adiaasi are resisting. As a corollary, it will also
explain why few people are brought aboae the poaerty line by
globalization. The final part wiII appear in the next issue of the
ANLetter.)
The Slow Strangulation Process
How does sequential expropriation work in practice? Initially,
the people might see some increased benefits - more wages,
welfare measures to 'ease their transition to the mainstream',
aid or charity for instance - but the end result will be the same:
they will end up a waste absorbers, because the dominant
system cannot relate to them as equal, since it will defeat the
very purpose of extraction of the best and expropriation.
3
The world over, golf courses - all the rage today - take land
away from local communities, consume enormous amounts of
scarce freshwater, leaving in their wake hazardous chemical
effluents. It is estimated that the water needed to water a
single new golf course can supply a village of 5,000.
The bottom line here is that tourism brings with it a form of
urbanisation, in conflict with nature and the human habitat.
It is not just destination areas (or host communities) which are
affected by the untrammeled growth of the industry. Concerns
about the destruction of the ozone layer, for example, cannot be
separated from the inexorable demand for long-haul aircraft
which pollute the skies in ways which are not even beginning
to be understood.
Environment is not just about trees and animals, it is about the
livability of the human habitat. We need look no further than
London's Westend in the summer months to see the truth.
It all boils down to a question of numbers. Good practice is not
good enough. There must be, as the Club of Rome said, limits
to growth. Regulate, rather than throw wide the floodgates.
That is the kev to the future.
PauI Gonsalves, the founder Coordinator of EQUATIONS is
presently with the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism.
This article was written for People & the Planet, special issue on
Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 5/4, 7997, London.
Let us take the question of land. The plan calls for the eventual
eviction of the adiaasi from their homelands. According to the
Eco-development plan, 'in the long term excluding these areas from
the PAs. . . woulil not be compatible with management .of the area for
conseraation of biodioersity.' The adiaasi homelands are not taken
over at one go. This is in tune with the slow strangulation
process that we found in our study.r
As Additional Inspector General (Wildlife), Dey, admitted at a
meeting on joint protected area management at IIPA in
September t994,'eoen if the sanctuaries and national parks were
declared, the process of section 19-25 of the WLPA was not undergone
extinguishing or admitting the rights etc of local people.' The World
Bank plan also admits that the resolution of rights would be so time
consuming, and enforcing of the law would be so socially and
politically difficult, that state goaernments haoe tried not to do so.
Call it lethargy, lack of will or what you will, officialdom
prefers instead to'proaide incentiaes for people to moae uoluntarily
to the buffer or peripheral areas of the PAs.'But the process by
which these incentives are provided is interesting. To make the
life of the adfuasi unviable within the area encroached by the
forest department, the forest department resorts to processes of
slow strangulation. This is the process of whittling that we
have found in our survey. The declaration of the area as a
National Park is preceded and succeeded by several silent
methods of making the lives of the adipasi unviable. The
method used has four distinct stages.
1. In this stage the adiaasi are not allowed to grow any of their
fruit trees and what they have is taken over by the forest
department and then replanted with teak. Vast areas of the
 so-called Rajiv Gandhi National Park are thus, in reality,
government owned teak plantations.

2. The next stage is the prohibition of cultivation. This

effectively destroys their life suPPort system' The people
thus become dependent on the forest department for any
work, or else they have to go out.

J. The courtyard and the little space around the village is also
taken over by the forest .department' The 'village' now
consists only of the huts. The people have been reduced to
daily wage labor. This can be seen in Nagarahole village
itself.

4. This stage depends on how badly the government wants the

land. If the resistance of the people is high, elephants are let loose
on to the land. With the buffers gone, the people are defenseless.
They then agree to do whatetter the goaernment wants.
Alternately, the government says that those who will agtee to
moae out wilt be giaen some land and help to settle. For those
who do not agree, intimidation anil harassment result. These
different stages can be seen in the villages Aiyarhoshalli,
Shreenihadlu, Nagarahole village and in ]unglehadi colony
in Nagarahole.

If the integration was to be at 'equitable' standards, then the only

wav would be the creation of a similar forest - in which case the
present one need not be taken over - or invest enough in them to
bring them to at least middle class levels. Taking into account
the various subsidies enjoyed by the urban middle class, one can
see that the investment is nowhere near those levels.
A Continuous Silent War
But the slow strangulation process is operative not in land or
land-related issues alone. It covers every Part of the life and
livelihood spectrum including the abstract'superstructure' such
as religion and culture. Exploiting holarchies first take over
relatively unfilled spaces of the ones they want to subsume,
then claim plenary power over the entire holarchy. The wealth
of marginalised holarchies are declared to be the property of the
larger society - whether for 'national interest' as in the case of
the Indian State, or ' global sinks' in the case of the United
States of America. Global agreements - all drafted by the West
- routinely talk of all biodiversity as 'global' heritage while
tightening controls in safeguarding their own property such as
'industrial' and'intellectual' property. In the Eco-development
PIan, the World Bank says - contrary to the declaration of the
Indian government - Lrdia is'expecteil to conseroe biodiversity not
just for India but for the Earth as a whole''
The marginalisation of the adioasi is sequential. First they lose
their plenary powers. Then they become advisors, lose usufruct
rightJ, become labor, illegal settlers, and finally slum-dwellers.
Famous scientists who first took their help in identifying the
tigers push for their exclusion from the forests. From being
equals, they are slowly pushed towards being, as the World
Bink and the Government of India say in their
development project, disturbances, waste absorbers, and finally
to being waste.
The Legal Angle
till recently, permitted the adiuasi
The forest laws of the nation,
the use of 'non timber forest produce' and 'minor forest
produce'. This is not a concession on humanitarian grounds
nor an oversight - for the fact is that the adivasi have nbt used
either timber or the 'major' forest produce. After a while, when
the rest of the population got used to the idea that the
government had the right to legislate on forests, came the laws
that excluded the adivasi totally from the forests. This is done
by declaring the forest a National Park. Only then do the
adiaasi wake up, and there is a bitter conflict. Legally also, the
tactics are the same. From rights and privileges, it becomes
rights and concessions, then only concessions, and finally, as in
the case of 'National Parks', total exclusion. Even if. the adiaasi
manage to get their rights admitted - permissible only after a
Herculean effort, and when the state cannot deny it - the rules
are still slanted in favor of the state.
As the present Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 tell us, (on)
Separation of Privileges from Rights - Regarding priaileges, a
Forest Settlement Officer may make such recommendations as the
circumstances justifu or necessitate. But the question of priaileges
must be kept entirely separatef'rom that ofrights and no right should
be admitted except those which are satisfactorily established.
This is what the Karnataka Forest Act 1963, and its
amendments up to fanuary 7, 1994, as operative on date says:
Section 19: Power To Revise Arrangements made under
Section 14 and to Redefine the Limits of Reserved Forests in
Certain Cases
Eco-
1. The state government may within five years from the
publication of any notification under Section 17 revise any
arrangement made under Sec.14 and may for this Purpose
rescind or modify any order made under Sec.14 and direct that
any one of the proceedings specified in Sec.14 be taken in lieu of
any such proceedings or that the rights admitted under Sec.12
be compensated under Sec.15. Stripped of the legal iargon, this is

4

what it says: The state government may within five years from
the publication of any notification revise any arrangement
made and may for this purpose rescind or modify any order
and direct that any of the right admitted be extinguished.
This is slipped in so that even after getting the most favorable
judgements, by stacking the deck in its favor, the government
can still acquire the land. It must be remembered that any
rights and concessions granted are only because the
government has failed to extinguish them.
After a while, it can unilaterally back out and again encroach on
if the people resist,
the adiuasi homeland. This is a ploy so that
the government can always bide itstime. After granting some
rights and privileges, the government can rescind or modify
these after the people's movement has lost its initial vigor2.
Unlike the bureaucrat who has an assured paycheck no matter
what, and can thus afford to sit out the adioasi, the ailiaasi
cannot sustain a struggle for long. The fact that they now
sometimes do is a measure of their desperation.
Salami tactics are at work here also, and many adiuasi are now
part of urban slums. This is because the dominant holarchy
cannot absorb all the resources of the subsumed at one go right
at the outset. It needs the resources, and it needs the
indigenous managers to help them find their feet. It is for this
reason that the forest department anti-poaching and anti-
smuggling squads are almost fully adiaasi. But once skills are
gained, the adivasi can be, and are, pushed out.
A question of perception
Indigenous peoples are portrayed as primitive3, savage and
incompetent. Their integrated livelihood and resource
management systems are dismissed as 'unscientific' - and
therefore, legitimate targets for takeover. The dangerous part is
that adivasi themselves are beginning to internalize this. The
5
culture of the adiaasi is that decisions are taken collectively and
consensually - not by leaders. Unless this is done, initiatives,
even of those compiling best practices are not rooted to that
extent. For the adivasi with their emphasis on consensus -
democracy - with its majoritarian decision making - is a step
backwards.
Forests are protected by villages - ironically against the forest
department, FD, too - by designating them 'sacred groves' or
other 'superstitious' but ecofriendly beliefs, and by restricting
access to themselves and outside. This has happened in many
areas in India and outside, and near the Nagarahole area itself,
where the people fought the forest officials against mono-
cultures. The adioasi know where the forest exists and they
protect it whether officially designated a PA or not. The saga of
the fight by the people against KPL, a forest based industry -
vindicated by the Supreme Court - to protect their common
lands, also had the forest department against them. And
history does repeat itself: there are new proposals to 'jointly
develop' the forests. |ointly that is, by the MoEF and the
industry. The Orissa FD has recently gifted 250 Square
Kilometers to 'Kitply', the makers of plywood. This is no
isolated incident.
But in the creation of the'primitive savage', however'noble', all
these are dismissed as superstition{. When the adiaasi want to
protect biodiversity, it is because they are primitive and do not
understand the economic importance of commercial
monoculture plantations. When the forest department goes
begging to the World Bank for money, that is because they have
national interest in mind for protecting biodiversity - never
mind that they are actually selling it cheap.
The Identity question
This is not in economic interaction alone, though it is definitely
present in its full imperialistic extent there too. We can
definitively show the progression of sequential appropriation in
even the religious sphere, where the ailioasi gods are subsumed
into the Hindu pantheon, often as a minor deity, and the adivasi
are slowly forbidden to worship the gbd directly, since only a
Brahmin can do so. The expropriation at'Sita devi' temple in
Kerala, and the transformation of the adivasi god
Neelamahadev into Lord |agannath of Puris are prominent
examples of this kind.
For the unfortunate adivasi - the indigenous people of India -
this means that their gods are. taken away. When the adioasi
god becomes a minor deity in the Hindu pantheon, along
comes the Brahmin to educate the adiuasi on how to worship
god. This begins a slow process of alienation of the adiaasi fuom
their gods. The adioasi god comes under the 'protection' of the
Brahmin. He now interprets the will of god and the right way
to worship.
The adivasi, who till then worshipped the god freely, are told of
the 'right'way to worship. The god then has to be housed in a
building. Then the god can be approached only by the
Brahmin. The adipasi are now told that the god must be
worshipped only in Sanskrit. This obviously only the Brahmin
can do, for the adiaasi seldom know the language. Then it is
slowly made clear that only the Brahmin can recite the prayers,
and the attempt by anyone else to learn Sanskrit or the prayers
will result in their punishment. The ritually prescribed
punishment for the offense is pouring molten lead into the
mouth and ears. Together with this comes the recreation of
history of adiaasi origins that often has to do with incest or
other such unclean, socially taboo relationships. Even the
history of the people of the marginalized holarchy is rewritten
to make them the waste of the dominant one. The struggle to
retain their non-Hindu identity is an intrinsic part of this battle
against absorption, since the expropriation of their gods results
in the destruction of their distinct identity also. It is no accident
that the most exploiting holarchies refuse to use the term
adiuasi, meaning indigenous, preferring to use the term
vanaaasi, forest dweller, instead6.
The saga of the imposition of Vaishnavism in Manipur in
the latter half of the eighteenth century to the end of the
twentieth, grafting of the Brahmins from Uttar Pradesh and
Orissa, the reaction of the people and its consequences -
when the people were declared 'polluted'by the Brahmins,
Sanskrit began to be imposed, and the people had to pay the
Brahmins to get back the goods which the Brahmins stole
from them - is detailed by R.K.Saha7. This is a continuing
process, and its impact on their culture has not ended, and
neither has the controversv ended.
Endnote
7. Anitd Cheria; Why does Nagarahole Burn?;1995. The book also has a
detailed analysis of the forest policy and the laws that arise out of it. It
contains a clause by clause analysis of the contemporary forest laws in
Karnataka. The follouting extract on the law in'the legal angle' is also
from it.
2. The most obaious illustration, howeaer, is Kashmir and Article 360 of the
lndian Constitution. The northeast has neaer considered itself a part of the
*tt,rd
nation, so there it is forcible imperialist integration. The process can,
howeoer, be discerned in the 'accords' that are foisted on the people.
The rationalizntion and the intellectual compulsions are described by E'ic
Eromtn: The deaelopment of the economic system is no longer determined
by 'what is good for man' but by the questiotr 'what is gooil for the growth
of this system.' Human nature is 'bad' - greed etc, so the system is based
on human nahre and so societies in which egotism, selfishness and greeil
do not exist are supposeil to be'primitioe', their inhabitants childlike.
People refused to recognize that these traits are not natural drioes thnt
caused industrial society to exist, but that they were the products of social
circunstance.
As Eric Fromm put it, in 'To Be or To Haoe,' industrial society has
contempt for nature - as well as for all things that are not machine nnde
and Jor all people who are not machine makers.
5. The Shabra, eoen today, intrinsically mistrust otrtsiders - more so those
with proclaimed good intentions. ln brief, it is because outsiders from Puri
came and stole their god Neelamahadeo, by befriending them, marrying the
daughter of their chief and then deceioing her. This god was later installed
in the famous lagannath temple at Puri as Lord lagannath. This is
admitted by the Hindus, who commemorate this myth, and also by
depicting the tale of this treachery in the temple museum eaen today. To
add to the injury, the ndioasi are now forbidden to enter the sanctum
sanctoru,n of the temple to worship their own god.
6. Our use of the term adivasi is an explicit political position, recognizing
them as indigenous. 'Tribal' does not conaey this meaning, and in India
' tribal' is an administratioe category.
7. 'An Ethnic Mooenrcnt in Manipur Valley.'Tribal Mooements in lndin,
K.S.Singh (ed.) Manohar ; 1991 ; pp97 -11. 3.
Anita Cheria and Edwin wrote this article. They are based in
Bangalore and are inuolved in snd write on tribal issues. This is the
second part of a series in which this article is being pttblished. Tlrc
final part shall follow in the next issue of the ANLetter.
., P-O
uc)
c9
:OE
9?
?q
 arnpal

r|on ilE$
€ Encourage private participation for development of
infrastuctural f acilities.
q Develop wildlife tourism with the intention of enabling
tourists to appreciate the flora and fauna of the State and
also promotion of Eco-tourism.

In the First Report of tungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd. on the

o'{^\
KARNATAKA STATE TOURISM POTICY
arnataka announced its new tourism policy with effect
from 1 lune 1997. A number of new concepts and new
areas of focus are part of it. The policy has envisaged
an amount of Rs.4,500 crores which is an indicator of the
magnitude of the tourism development that is being planned.
The policy has sharpened its focus on Uttara Karnataka. Places
like Hampi, Aihole, Badami, Pattadakal have been identified as
areas of tourism significance.
A summary of the investment for the period of 1997-2002
(In Rs. 00,000)
Demands for the Year 1995-96 submitted by the Subject
Committee of fnformation, Tourism, Youth Sports, Kannada
and Culture Department, the Committee very clearly says
that...recently, mushrooffiing of the priaate tourism ileoelopment in
the ecologically sensitioe areas is ueating a threat anil is the main
reason for the ecological imbalance. Promoting priaate entrepreneurs
in tourism is promoting enaironmental degradation. In spite of the
government's own Committee Report, the Department of
Tourism is going ahead with privatisation in the Eco-tourism
sector.
Already there is a strong protest on against the Taj resort in
Nagarahole National Park. The Forest Minister of the state,
Mr.Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli has given a statement in the
Karnataka Assembly that the Thj is building only "rest houses"
for visitors in Nagarahole and not any S-star hotel . We do not
understand how a rest house can charge rent to the fune of US$
235 (around 5,000 rupees) per day without offering food and
other facilities.

No Circuits Govt. Private Total To sum up, the question is not whether a group like Taj should
1 Northern Circuit 85,878 20,305 \,06,783 or should not come into National Parks with their projects. The
2 Southern Ciratit 2'1,210 2,06,Li0 2,27,340 question is about the impact of tourism in a National Park, for
J Coastal Circuit 10,225 73,830 84,055 which Taj is setting a precedent. In spite of protests from
4. Hill Resort Circuit 7,371 7,820 'j,.5,797 people, the government has taken a unilateral decision to go
5. Wildlife Circuit 1,475 1,950 3,425 ahead with tourism development. There is a need for a debate
(A) Total (1 to 5) 7,26,7.59 3,10,035 4,35,794 in this regard among policy makers and people of the locality.
6. Human Reiource Development 600 7,400 2,000 Without a clear consensus from both sides, any kind of
Sculpture Promotion 100 100 development will be of little use, especially for the local
7. Marketing Strategy 5,000 5,000 community for which the project is meant.
8. Incentives & Subsidies 2,500 2,500
(B) Total (6+7+8) 8,200 g,600 The Coast of Karnataka as Special Tourism Area
(c) Grand Total (A+B) 1,34,359 3,11,435 4,45,794
The other important area of focus is the declaration of the entire
From the above table, it is evident that throughout the policy, stretch of the coast in Karnataka as Special Tourism Area (STA).
one of the major areas of focus for investment is that of wildlife Already, there has been a tremendous pressure on the coast
and hill resorts, in places that have thick forests and high because of industrialisation. Identifying an area as a Special
density of wildlife. This means more stress on Eco-tourism. It Tourism Area indicates more pressure on the coast and its
also makes obvious the increasing pressure and greater tourism communities. Starting from Majhali in Karwar, upto
development in national parks and sanctuaries. The tourism Mangalore, the stretch of 320 kms has been marked as STA. In
policy says that its objective is to Karwar, protests have alrcsdy started against acquiring the
7
private lands of the local community by the Karnataka
Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), for a beach resort
of the Taj group. All these processes clearly indicate that
tourism development is considered as a means of revenue
generation and holds no benefits for the host community. The
policy has also identified several districts as Special Tourism
Areas. The important aspect to note in this list of STAs is the
declaration of the entire 320km coastal stretch of Karnataka as
STA. To quote the policy statement in regard to Special Tourism
Area.
Annexure - III
Following are the Special Tourism Areas identified as Category
'E'
5) South Canara - One Km. Width of entire coastline from the
hightide line except the area covered by Mangalore City
Corporation limits.
7) North Canara - One Km. width of entire coastline from the
hightide line
IOURISM AND C}III"D
?|TOSTITUTIONI INI GOA
(This article speaks of the link between tourism and the prostitution of
women and children in Goa and the inaction of the police who feel
they are not equipped to deal with it.)
\ \ hile the focus of most deaadasi (young unmarried
lllt ^ women who are consecrated to the goddess
'J 'J Yellamma in temples in Maharashtra, Karnataka and
Orissi) rehabilitation programmes and awareness drives have
been Karnataka and Maharashtra, Goa has escaped notice.
However, there is a thriving community of deaadasi women in
prostitution, some of whom are tharwalis (brothel owner) as
well. The younger lot of the women has been dedicated to the
goddess Yellamma in recent years. Like others, they are
attracted to Goa to earn a livelihood by selling their bodies.
Pushpa (name changed), who, her gharwali said, was 18 but
looked younger, was dedicated two years ago. "I went to the
Yellamma temple at Saundatti for the dedication," she said.
Her mother is a daily wage labourer and her father has a
regular job. However, as the eldest of six girls, her mother had
little choice but to dedicate her to support the family income,
her gharutali explained. All four girls in this gharwali's employ
are ileaadasis. "Here, whoever is from Karnataka has been
dedicated to the goddess," she proclaimed.
R, another devadasiwith matted hair and chunky gold jewellry,
presides over her brood as they sit on the beach, waiting for
clients. One of them plays with her little infant, her fourth. "I
have brought this one, she is mute. What will she do in the
village. I have no minors," she adds defensively. "They are all
mothers of two or three children."
Since the famous visit of Ms. Mohini Giri, chairperson of the
National Commission for Women in February, who declared
that child prostitution was rampant in Goa, the police
conducted some raids on Baina, in a bid to pick up minor
children. There are at least 400 minors in the locality involved
in prostitution, according to unofficial estimates.
I
It is a known fact that Coastal Regulation Zone Notification
says that within the 500 meters from the High Tide Line (HTL)
there should not be any developmental activities. But
according to the Tourism Policy, the tourism development will
be on 1km width from HTL of the 320-km coast. This is a clear
violation of the CRZ Notification.
Overall, the focus of the tourism policy has been only on
income generation and the local people's needs have not been
considered or even mentioned. The policy is a bonanza for the
industry people but is against the welfare of the people in the
place where these projects are intended. In this regard, it is
EQUATIONS' concern that there must be a re-examination of
the policy and space should be created within the policy for
voicing people's concerns.
This article is written by M,G.Ramesh, Programme Coordinator,
EQUATTONS.
1 Deccan Herald - 14 August 1997
However, according to reports in the local papers, the minors
were packed off as the women received a tip-off about the
raids. As a result the 25-odd girls arrested and kept in the
observation home were summarily released as they were all
found to be over 18, according to the police.
P R S Brar, Inspector-General of Police, Goa, said there was no
organised trafficking of women into the state. The law does not
prevent prostitution as such. "I am not saying or denying there
are minors in prostitution but if you conduct raids, then
women's gfoups and others tell us we are disturbing their pro-
fession. If we do nothing, then also we are damned. It is not my
problem really. I have problems defined by the law for me and
enough work. If I remove children from the beaches, I am told
I am interfering with their right to work. Poverty leads chil-
dren to work on the beaches-these things are social problems,
the police are not equipped to handle such cases," he said.
While a lot of heat has been generated over the issue of child
prostitution in Goa and with the numerous seminars on the
subject, arbitrary measures like the raids in February have come
in for strong criticism.
Tara Kerkar, a local municipal councilor said, "Many women
have gone home, fearing the police. The government wants to
rehabilitate them. The question is where. It cannot do anything
for unemployed youth what will it do for these women. They
support about 5,000 others. At least they are earning a living
and not impinging on anyone else." The fact that Goa has a
vast migrant population, which swoops on this tiny state for
their livelihood, is well known.
Children of these migrant workers and women often end up as
the target of sexual abuse. Prostitution is but the next step for
many of these women and children, who comb the beaches or
install themselves in brothels. The only organised red light
area, Baina, is located on a wide, curving beach, fringep with
palms and fronted with numerous bars.
Populated by migrant women from Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh, their main source of income is from tourists or local
men or college boys. On weekends, carloads of men come all
Garrrpai
the wav from neighbouring Karnataka or even Panaji to visit
Baina. Some even pay taxi drivers to escort the women to their
hotels in Panaji. The women are then ferried back the next
morning by the taxi driver.

Children are often the victims of sexual abuse as well. Sr.

Lourenca, who runs Asha Sadan at Baina, which cares for the
children of women in prostitution, in a paper presented at the
Stockholm Conference, said in the evenings and nights, a
number of children performed dances and songs in the bars for
customers. Sometimes, the mother forces these children into
prostitution. There is also evidence ofhow children are offered
for pleasure, activists said.
However, official sources insisted that the police report to the
government had said there is no child prostitution and no cases
of sexual abuse of children. The fact that the protective home
was empty was touted as evidence of this.
Along the long stretch, away from the water, well-dressed
young girls hang out at bars and men are taken to the small
stuffy rooms behind, most of which have high concrete beds.
L, a gharwali from Bijapur, said no one brings the girls, they all
come on their own. "Men come and ask us for younger girls.
The girls can charge clients more money. Older women
sometimes have to be content even with Rs 20," she said.
Ameena is from Andhra Pradesh. She ran away from home to
marry a man of her choice. However, after three children, her
husband married again. "What can I say about how I got here,"
she exclaimed, while her gharwali insisted that such women
have little choice but to take to this profession.
Most of the Andhra women were here from the coastal areas,
their numbers increasing after the last cyclone. A local
policeman remarked, "]ust as we Goans go to the Gulf
countries to make money, these women come here. This is the
place to earn money."
place with lots of good clients and fun but the clients are third
rate," she added.
The women are contacted by agents in their respective towns or
cities and paid an advance. They are given the address and
directed to report in Baina on a particular date. It all seems
very organised. The women return after their contracts are
over. Most of them are already into prostitution in their towns
but find Goa an easier place to operate. "Here I can drink, it is
so cheap, back home I have to do it secretly and it is also very
expensive," ond of them said. These women keep coming back
for short stints but never stay for long periods.
Even on a hot day on the beach, the ubiquitous "pilots" or the
motorcycle riders hang about. S, is one of the 200 pilots who
operate from the beach to the town. A third generation migrant
from Karnataka, he said he earns Rs 150 -200 a day charging Rs
7 per ride. Some of the pilots hang out at the port where the
seamen pay in US dollars, at least 10 to 15 for a round trip,
which is a day's earning for some. "The men ask us which are
nice girls, or bars and most of them already know the place", he
added.

One ghartaali said, "We have few agents now. Earlier they used
to bring the girls here and take a cut but now business is down
after the police raids and the fear of AIDS, girls are fewer and
fewer." However, it is the gharwalis themselves who bring the
girls from villages and other places. One of the women let on in
an unguarded moment that G, a brothel keeper had gone home
"to bring more girls".

There is a floating population of women, especially from

Andhra Pradesh who come on contract for which they are paid
a lump sum. Most of them come from Rajahmundry, Guntur or
Hyderabad.

Padmaja is from Rajahmundry. She is married and has two

children. She is here on a month's contract for which she is
paid Rs L0,000. Yasmeen, from Guntur, was sold when she was
15 to a Calcutta brothel. The agent who took her there said she
would work as a maid. For ten years she lived there and
returned after marriage to a man who is now mentally
is'1.4, "ready to get married",
disturbed. Her eldest daughter
she added. Y has also been on such contracts to Bombay, which
she prefers because she lives in a house and the men are
brought to her by the manager. "I was told Baina was a good
I
Like the pilot, the taxi driver is another beneficiary of the
prostitution set up. PR, a local cabby, said, "Indian tourists
come and ask us all the time where women are available and
we tell them. Sometimes they want to be taken to Baina for
which I charge them Rs 350 (Vasco is 35 km from Panaji). We
take them to the bars, which we know. They spend one or two
hours there and return. Sometimes I take young college boys,
Goans also or tourists from Delhi, Gujarat, Bangalore, Bombay
or even Punjab. Some of them are married, they tell me they
have wives back home". "What is wrong in that. Some men
take girls from Baina back to Panjim hotels. The girls charge Rs
1,000 and I take them back the next morning. Sometimes I also
get a chance to sleep with the girls free of charge in their hotel
room. I also get offers from white women but I am scared to
sleep with them in case I contract AIDS. The other drivers go,
specially motorcycle pilots. They take the women around
during the day and in the evening have a beer and spend the
night with them," he adds.
As a taxi driver, he also has another way of earning money - by
taking Indian tourists down to Vagator or Anjuna beaches
where foreigners sun themselves in scanty clothing. Below a
rocky cliff, shaded by palms, white men and women are
stretched out, zombie-like, on the beach, clad in thin strips of
cloth. The hot afternoon sun is turning them a deep shade of
red. Many Indian tourists sneak up to take a look or go to the
rocks beyond for a vantage point. Sources said sometimes there
have been fights here with the foreigners resenting being ogled
at and photographed.
"Indian tourists come and ask us to take them to beaches where
they can see foreigners with no clothes on. I charge Rs 200 for a
round trip." The houses around Vagator are mostly rented out to
foreigners and there are several pizzerias, German bakeries etc.
70
and foreign tourists whiz around on bikes. Many locals own a rent-a-
bike business, which is lucrative. Every home is catering to tourisb
and this has made the people here very rich, a local said.
Roland Martins of the jagrut Goenkaranchi Faua said tourism
was a moneyspinner in more ways than one. "The local police
extracted money from foreigners and there are video films of
such transactions. Prostitution gets a boost with tourism
because of the leisure component involved and about 80 per
cent of the domestic tourists come here lured by the concept of
"wine, women and song." The principal agent of promotion is
the government, which is selling the ideology of lotus eating.
However, it is not women alone who are into prostitution but
men as well. The concept of "bed boy bike" is a fact
- western
women do come here and pick up local men for sex. "We have
to be clear that we do not want tourism at any cost," says he.
According to Mr. Vilas Kamat, revenue from tourism as far as
direct taxes was concerned was Rs 100 crores. But foreign
exchange earning could touch an estimated Rs 600 crores.
According to a survey in 1993, 20 per cent of Goa's workforce
depends on tourism. He feels the fears about tourism were
blown out of proportion.
While there is no doubt that tourism is the mainstay of the
economy, the government cannot turn a blind eye to the social
impact of this large influx of humanity. While countries like
Thailand have woken up to the dangers of sex tourism, it
remains to be seen how long it will take this tiny ten- year-old
state to finally open its eyes.
Meena Menon is a jountalist who has been studying the issue of
child prostitution in different parts of the country. This article first
appeared in The Hindu on 31 August 1.997.
NETWAVES
Information technology is seeing rapid changes today and
the media plays a crucial role in development. While
mainstream visual media contributes to the increasing
marginalisation of the Adivasis and the dalits, a small
section of issue-based film-makers are trying to strengthen
social action. Though there is a growing interest among
social activists to use visual media in the process of
conscientization, there is a big gap in the dissemination of
material. On the one hand, activist oriented film-makers
find it difficult to combine both production and reaching
out to social groups. On the other, NGOs find it difficult to
identify the sources of productions and select important
films that contribute to their actions. NETWAVES has
emerged as a response to the common concern of social
activists and media practitioners to address this problem.
For more details, please contact:
NETWAVES
C/o. ISI, 24, Benson Road,
Benson Town, Bangalore - 560 046

Keralam Government hunts for foreign aid for new
Tourism proiects
If you remember the last Keralam Diary, I have quoted the
Tourism Minister saying,'taking into consideration the state's
special features and limitations, the approach would be to set
up small scale tourism projects and not projects that required
big investments'. Now, the concept of 'small' and 'big', that is,
how small is 'small' or how big is 'big', are one's own
perceptions. And it is left to the reader to determine to which
category tourism projects costing 100 crore rupees and more
belong!
The Tourism Ministry has now decided to seek funds for the
following projects from overseas agencies including World
Bank.
For the development of Eco and Pilgrimage tourism in the high-
ranges of Kollam and Pathanamthitta districts, plans have been
submitted to the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of
|apan to the tune of Rs.155 crores. Another project for tourism
development and sewerage cleaning in Alappuzha district,
worth Rs.120 crores, has been submitted to the World Bank.
Projects have also been prepared for the preservation and
further development of heritage and historical monuments in
Mattancherry and Fort Kochi as 'heritage sites' amounting to
Rs.100 crores. A World Bank official has visited the state twice
for this. The'assistance'would be in the form of 'soft loans and
'grants'.
The Tourism Minister also said that the Centre should provide
atleast Rs.10,000,000 for the year-long 'Visit Kerala Year'
celebrations commencing from the 15 August, 1997.
The centre should also provide more help (economic) to
develop the state's important tourism centers.like Bekal, Veli-
Akkulam, Muzhuppilangad and Thenmala, c6nsidering these
centers as special tourism centers, said the Tourism Minister.
Tourism policy matters
The Tourism Minister is planning a regional coordination
committee for tourism promotion among the states. The state is
11.
also planning to bring about a 'Kerala Tourist Trade Act' to
protect tourists from 'exploitaton'. What kind of exploitation
this means and the details of the proposed trade act are not
known. District Tourism Councils will have more powers,
according to the minister. These centers were paid Rs.335.04
lakhs last year.
New Master plan
The government is planning a new tourism master plan in tune
with the National Tourism Policy (}.ITP). The emphasis is on
the participation of the private sector in tourism development.
Already, the state has a tie up with the Taj group hotels. The
new thrust would be on attracting the Oberois, the Welcom
Group and the Leela Group. The state intends to develop
'destinations of excellence' on par with the NTP. A mega
project at Thenmala for wildlife tourism will be one such.
Similar projects along the beaches are Bakel in Kasaragod
district and Muzhuppilangad in Kannur district.
Back-water hub in peril
Alappuzha, the district now propagated as the hub of
backwater tourism has a history of its own. The new planners
and the media, who push tourism as the option for this district,
are hiding some crucial factors. Why should this region, once
known as the 'Rice bowl of Kerala', adopt a dependent
economic activity like tourism?
The backwater regions of the district are low lying areas below
the sea level. Salt water from the sea enters this region through
the numerous backwater canals (Kayals) that open into the sea
salinating the entire region. Inspite of this, paddy cultivation
has thrived because of the indigenous methods followed here.
The people practised a unique system of cultivation by building
temporary bunds that prevented intrusion of salt water from
the sea. After the harvest, the same rice fields were used for
traditional prawn farming by letting in juvenile shrimps
through sluice gates, keeping them captive till maturity and
then continuing the cycle again. This was the contribution of
knowledge acquired through centuries of experience, making
full potential of an eco-system in a most sustainable
use of the
manner.
Then the 'development' of these regions was thought of, The
planners decided to double the harvest instead of the
traditional one crop a year. Saltwater intrusion was seen as a
menace. As a solution they constructed a permanent bund -
Thannirmukkam Bund - that virtually obstructed the salt-water
flow into the kayals. The plan was 'highly successful'for they
were able to harvest twice. But what was completely
overlooked was the role of salt water entering these regions
annually. This was a mechanism by itself that cleaned the entire
canals and also maintained the eco system. Soon the canals got
waterlogged, weeds locally know as the Alrican Payal (Salainia
molesta) covered the entire area making the mobility of water
near impossible. This, in turn, led to the contamination of the
water and mosquitoes swarmed the clogged waters turning the
entire area disease prone. Added to this was the drinking
water shortage. Paddy cultivation, coir, coir products and
transportation and hade of these products and spices became a
thing of the past. This is not an isolated case. A similar case
could be seen in Kannur, the northern part of Keralam. Here,
the Kattampally Bund was constructed in 1966 to regulate the
flow of saltwater into the river Kattampally. The region
cultivated two crops a year but the 'planners' decided to
increase it to three crops. The result was disastrous. The soil in
the region contained iron and it was the salt water that had
helped to keep the land fertile. When the flow of saline water
stopped, the soil turned rock hard. 3000 acres of land have lain
barren for the past 30 years - a living testimony to
'development'.
The 'development gurus' today realise their contribution to this
disaster but pride will not allow them to accept their role and
remedy the Himalayan blunder that has been committed.
Instead, their new preaching is tourism. But how tourists
would come to an area prone to waterborne diseases like
cholera, brain fever, and elephantiasis and where water
shortage is acute, only the tourism authorities can answer. But
that is secondary. Paddy and traditional prawn cultivation, coir
in small scale and cottage industry sectors are activities the
people would look forward to as a permanent economic
occupation instead of tourism, which is a dependent economic
model. But for this, Alappuzha must get back to its natural self.
If the planners and the government are willing to shed their
pride, Alappuzha can regain her glory as the 'Venice of the
East' with the graceful country boats carrying produce through
the Kayals.
Sabarimala - Tussle in the jungle
It seemsat least some officials of the forest department are
aware of the impact of uncontrolled development in forests.
The development activities in the 'periphery zone' of Periyar
Tiger Reserve for the benefit of 'pilgrimage'to Sabarimala have
been stalled, at least temporarily. The plan was to construct the
Chalakkayam - Pampa road, expansion of parking ground,
construction of two water tanks with 40 lakh litre capacity,
sanitary facility centers and barracks for police are a few of the
construction activities planned here. This requires 2.5 hectares
12
of forest land (a mere 2.5 hectares, according to temple
authorities). The development cost is Rs.3 crores. But this is
just part of the development activities planned in this once
pristine forest. Further development to the tune of Rs. 7 crores
is on the anvil, but that is for the next season. The temple
governing body - Thiruvqthamcoor Dewaswam Board -
laments that the pilgrims would have a very difficult time this
year if these developments were not completed before the
season. They claim that the High Court had permitted these
developments and the forest officials are deliberately putting
hurdles.
But the forest officials clarify - The Devaswam board has to
compensate an equivalent non-forest land or double the area of
denuded forest land in place of the land required for the
development for compensatory afforestation. Since the area
comes under the Periyar Wildlife Reserve, the Central
authorities will come on them harshly if the stipulated norms
are not adhered to. During the pilgrimage season, serious
ecological problems arise in this area. But more important is
the fact that the entire construction material like rubble and
sand is to be mined from the quarries within the forest and the
Pamba River. This, the forest officials explain, is banned under
the Forest Conservation Act 1986 since the forest cannot be used
for non-forest related activities.
But none of these are of any concern to the temple authorities.
Instead, they shed crocodile tears for the pilgrims. The
government, which is the authority to comply with and strictly
implement these regulations, is interested only in increasing the
number of the pilgrims. They expect the pilgrims to take care
of the forest and the wildlife.
In the meanwhile, another proiect is looming over the region in
the form of a new railway line from Kottayam to Erumeli.
Railway Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan has included this line in
the 1997-98 Railway budget demand. This was a long pending
demand from successive governments in the wake of increasing
pilgrimage traffic to Sabarimala. This is a vicious circle. More
and more infrastructure facilities are provided which, in turn,
increase the number of pilgrims. As the pilgrims outnumber
facilities available, more demand is created for infrastructure
development, turning this forest shrine into an urban township.
CRZ debate - The Assembly Committee submits its repotts
If there is one issue where the ruling Left Democratic Front and
the Opposition, the United Democratic Front are on good terms,
it is on the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification. Their
unified stand against the notification is evident from the past
one and a half years when the CRZ issue became a heated
debate. The friendship further strengthened as the realization
has dawned that the issue is more complex than anticipated
and also that people's groups and the coastal community are
more informed than politicians and bureaucrats. An Assembly
Committee on Environment which comprises all political
parties has come out with its findings on wltat the CRZ in
Keralam ought to be. Prime features of the recommendations
by this committee as reported by the media are;
D Coastal areas should be included in CRZ II Zone. (The
notification does not say that the Western Ghats mountain
region should be part of CRZ).
tr The main development sectors of the state including
tourism, coir, industries and fish processing units are
situated on the coast. (This indicates the skewed priorities.
That tourism is the main development sector of the coast
and the state is certainly not right.)
D The population density of the coast is very high. Hence the
encroachment of other industries into the area should be
prevented. (This is the very reason why coasts should be
protected, industries regulated and hence the need for
CRZ).
tr The stipulated norms for house construction should be
removed. (This is sheer hypocrisy. The norms were so set
that the coast does not get congested by uncontrolled and
haphazard constructions).
O The regulation zones in the basins of waterways in the state
should be reduced from 100 meters to 50 meters. (The idea
behind the CRZ is protection of the fragile ecology of the
coasts and other water bodies with tidal influence and not
development, as the state thinks).
tr Coastal pollution and wastes to be treated according to the
directions of the Pollution Control Board.
Itseems that even after all these heated debates among various
interested groups, the state has not the least idea why such a
regulation came into being. Anyone with a minimum
understanding of the CRZ Notification and the zoning wonders
what these recommendations actually mean. One wonders
whether the CRZ also included hilly and plane regions of the
state! The definition of the CRZ is clear in the Notification.
Coastal stretches and banks of other water bodies with tidal
influence are considered coastal areas as per the Notification.
What the Committee is attempting to say is that'all the area
that comes under different zones like CRZ I and III should be
73
brought under CRZ II' - in other words, the entire coastal
regions should be considered as CRZ II. This argument is
understandable since CRZ II is a zone that allows all kinds of
development along the coast without virtually any regulation
or with minimum regulations. Also hidden is the more
fundamental issue that once the zoning is altered as per the
recommendations of the committee, the fishing community and
other traditional users of the coast would lose the settlement
rights that have been protected by the CRZ.
Again, the Committee is correct while saying that the
population density is very high in the state. In fact, it has one
of the highest density of population of 2737 persons per km.
And that is the very reason why the coastal stretches should be
protected against big industries, power and tourism projects.
Or else, it will be the poor fishing community whose life will be
jeopardized.
Norms for housing is another area of dispute. The CRZ
specifies Floor Space Index (FSI) and height regulations ie. only
33% of the total plot can form the built-up area and the height
should not be more than 9 meters. People's groups also have
their differences over this. But the argument is not how the
state sees it. The Committee hides one crucial fact - the housing
norms give settlement rights to traditional and customary users
of the coast, that is, predominantly the fishing community.
Of course, the fishing community cannot afford to have setback
areas asspecified in CRZ during house construction. A majority
of the community is poor and the land available is limited. In
such circumstances, it is for the state to provide them adequate
housing area so that the community lives in a more hygienic
and healthier space. Congested houses and lack of civic
amenities is a cause of epidemics and poor health along the
coast. The state has to take into consideration the economic
contribution of the fishing community to the exchequer. Also,
one has to take into consideration, the value-addition, the
multiplier effect, the rich and cheap source of protein, the
foreign exchange earnings and the employment potential - both
direct and indirect, in fishing. On the 590-km coast of Kerala,
there are 222 fishing villages and226 fish landing centers (1995
figures). The active fishermen population is 377800 (1990
figures) including full time, part time and occasional. 7994-95
figures of fish production show that the state is second only to
Gujarat with 548.37 hundred tons of fish production. Even
Tamil Nadu with a coastline of 1000 km has only 330.50
hundred tons during this period. Is it not the duty of the state
to provide better living standards for this community? Instead
the state helps the rich for whom the beach stands for pleasure
homes. This is evident in the committee report, the priorities
along the coast have shifted from fishing to tourism!
The 100 meters setback for rivers and similar water bodies has
been decided taking into consideration all the factors that
threaten them. In fact, the first recommendation by the Centre
for Earth Science Studies (CESS) whose scientists drew the
Coastal Management Plan of Keralam was 50 mt. only as
against the 100 meters set by the Central Notification. Later, the
1994 amendment to the Notification reduced the setback to 50
meters. This was restored to L00 meters by the Supreme Court
after due consideration and debate. (The idea behind the
setback is protection and not development as the state sees it.
To protect the free flow, protect riverbanks, discourage
encroachments and reclamation and also to reduce calamities
during monsoons when the river flows wider and higher.) All
these factors were debated in detail in the Supreme Court. But
now it seems that the Committee wants to again go through the
same exercise.
Reclamation and filling of marshy land that falls under the
Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ) has been banned by the High
Court. This was in response to a reioinder filed by the Kerala
Swathanthra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF - Kerala
Independent Fish Workers Federation) to an original writ
petition filed by Njarukkal Welfare Association. The Association
has challenged the inclusion of backwaters and rivers in the
CRZ. KSMTF called the attention of the court that marshy areas
were being filled in violation of the CRZ. The High Court
stayed any filling till the final judgment of the original writ
petition.
The general image one can draw is that the state does not want
the CRZ notification at all. That is why instead of rationally
implementing the same it tries to circumvent the same in the
name of local community while actually it would only help big
industry and the rich.
Aquaculture - people had waited enough
In the wake of the latest development on the issue of
aquaculture the people decided to act. Perpetual postponement
of the Supreme Court order to demolish the farms that fall
under the CRZ and the government's move to introduce an
Aquaculture Authority Bill is the present status of the issue.
The Supreme Court had earlier ordered to demolish the farms
by 30 April 1997. This was later postponed to 30 June and then
again to 31 July. The final hearing was on 19th August,1997.
In another move, the Aquaculture Authority Bill was passed in
the Rajya Sabha (the Lower House of the Parliament) and is yet
to be presented in the Lok Sabha (the Upper House). The
Supreme Court's direction to the Government was to form an
Aquaculture Authority to regulate the farms in the CRZ and
prevent environmental problems posed by this industry.
Instead, the bill gives amnesty to this industry by redefining the
status of aquaculture from industry to agriculture. Earlier in
the Supreme Court, the industry had argued that the SC order
had violated the fundamental right of individuals - the right to
work. This was overruled by the SC saying that to pollute and
degrade nature was not a fundamental right.
L4
With this uncertainty, the people decided to celebrate the 50th
year of Independence through peaceful marches to aquaculture
farms with national flags, giving clear signals to all concerned
that they have waited enough and that further delay would be
met with direct action. There are approximately 150,000
hectares of land under aquaculture of which 100,000 hectares of
farmland have already turned fallow. This industry had also
seriously contaminated water resources apart from other
adverse social problems like reduction in employment and
access to the beach etc.
The National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) in Kochi warned the
Central Government that if the Aquaculture Authority Bill is
passed in Parliament, the fish workers would be forced to
demolish the farms.
Bakel: the people had shown their wisdom
The people opposed the 'facility centre' under construction near
the Bakel fort. The shuggle ended with a partial victory for the
people in the presence of the Tourism Minister
E.Chandrasekharan Nair. The people compromised but had
shown tremendous self-control. Now it is left to the state and
tourism authorities to listen to the people's larger demands.
According to the understanding, there will not be any beer
parlor, liquor bars and accommodation facilities in the facility
centre. There will not be any tourism fairs or use of loud
speakers and amplified sound systems in the centre. A
compound wall will be built to demarcate the boundaries of the
mosque and the centre. Signboards will be put up warning
tourists not to venture into the areas of worship.
Meanwhile, the master plan for the project is being prepared at
New Delhi, according to media reports. The earlier study -
called the'Techno-Economic Feasibility, Tourism-Ied. Urban
Stntcture Plan' on tourism development in Bakel that has cost
the Bakel Resorts Development Corporation (BRDC)
Rs.5,500,000 has now been stalled. This was because most of
the planned major development activities, including resorts,
would violate the CRZ notification. The stiff opposition from
people's groups against CRZ violation has now forced the
BRDC to make a fresh plan. But that does not eliminate the
authorities from the criminal negligence of overlooking the
CRZ notification or rather assuming to bypass it resulting in the
huge financial loss. The earlier plan was prepared in 1995 with
full knowledge of the CRZ notification that came into force in
1991. We do not have information about the proposed new
study or its cost.
Highlights of the new proposed plans are: (Indian Express dt.10
luly,1997)
O Land requirements 270 ha.
O 24 ha f.or common facilities, 178 ha for resort sites, 75 ha for
housing sites.
O Project cost is reduced to 162 crore rupees.
O 3154 rooms in a span of ten years.
tl Golf course is part of the plan but no decision taken.
tr Water supply for the project planned from Karicheri River.
O Small sewage treatment plants with combined capacity of
15 mld.
O Solid waste manatement plants.
But this does not give any details about the infrastructure
development like roads, power generation and other facilities.
Perhaps we will have to wait for the new plan to be completed'
But the undemocratic practices continue. Even as the new plan
is to be drawn and the related consequences of the same to be
observed and critically studied, land acquisition and other
related works are still going on unhindered.
Airport spree
One of the smallest states in the Indian Union with a total land
area of just 38,853 sq. km, and a maximum length of less than
600 km, Keralam always thinks big. There exist already three
airports in Keralam - Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi (Ernakulam
District) and Kozhikode. AII these three are geographically
distributed in the south, centre and north of the state. All three
are considered having an international status. Kochi is to have
yet another international airport at Nedubrasserry where
preliminary work has already started. But the state is headed
for yet another airport at Kannur in the north. The Kozhikode
airport is just 93 km from Kannur and the Mangalore airport in
Karnataka is 132 km away. There are also plans to have an
airport for the Bakel tourist enclave that is 63 km away from
Kannur. It seems, in the near future, Keralam will have
runways running through the entire length of the state and
Keralites will have the unique experience of walking from
runway to runway! (This could also be another tourist
attraction in 'God's own countrY'!)
The ruling 'Left' ministry, especially the two Communist
parties, are popular for their uncompromising 'antiimperialist'
and 'capitalist' economic liberalisation policies. The Marxist
Chief Minister (also from Kannur) had discussions on the
Kannur airport with Thomson CSF Air Systems in Paris during
his June visit to the 'capitalist world'. Thomson Air System in
turn will have an agreement with the fapanese multi-national
Mitsui regarding financial suPPort for the airport. (There were
also talks about power sector, Industrial parks etc from the
French. A French industrial delegation is expected to visit the
state some time in October or November).
district adjacent to Kannur). The question is how many more
airports does Keralam require. The land requirement for
airports is huge. The state already has an acute shortage of land
for cultivation and settlements. The area under paddy
cultivation has declined by half since 1950.
And now, an Italian multinational is setting up a mineral water
bottling plant (one of the most complex technology, indeed!) in
the state. And thus goes the historic anti-imperialist struggle of
the'Left'.
Goshree project - Government under Pressure
The Government had submitted an alternative proposal to the
High Court cutting down the project cost to almost 10% from
Rs.505 crores to Rs.52 crores. The government claims this to be
in the interest of the people of the island and also to allay the
'anxiety' of the environmental groups. The case filed by
Ms.Maneka Gandhi against this disastrous project (see
ANletter, Volume V Issue 1&2) in the Supreme Court was
directed to the Kerala High Court and is before the full bench
for judgment along with other petitions filed by various
individuals and organisations. There seems to be another
reason too for the sudden change in the government's stand.
The original proposal for the project was mooted with the
Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) of |apan. The
Government of India had to obtain the finances in the form of
70"/o loan and 30 "/" grant. Clearly, the Government of Kerala
was not able to avail of this loan on the given terms.
(Incidentally, this is the same agency that is funding Eco and
Pilgrimage Tourism in the high-ranges of Kollam and
Pathanamthitta districts in Kerala. The state has no problem in
,ing for this project.)
LA\,' OUT OF GOSHREE PROJECT

Coming back to Kannur, the Central Civil Aviation Minister

said that the airport will cost Rs.2000 crores and this would be
100% in the private sector.

But the private industrial sector stole the show by announcing

the details and location of the airport prior to the minister's
official announcement, thus sabotaging the credit of the state
ministry and the central aviation minister that would have
boosted their popularity. There are two committees for the
promotion of the airport (very democratic indeed!). One is the
official Airport Committee with the state Power Minister
Pinarai Vijayan as Chairman and the other is the industrial
lobby's, the Kannur Airport Action Council. The Chairman of
the council is Captain Krishnan Nair of Leela International and
Kempinski Hotel groups. (Incidentally, all the players involved
in the airport are from Kannur district. The Chief Minister,
E.K.Nayanar, Minister, Pinarai Vijayan and Captain Krishnan
Nair belong to this region. The Civil Aviation Minister,
C.M.Ibrahim, is also from the northern region though he
represents Karnataka in Parliament while his spouse belongs to
Kannur. Apparently, he has now set his eyes on Kannur for his
next tenure for Parliament, keeping the airport as the bait. \
Krishnan Nair, in his turn, has said it is his 'dream' to build a .-_l
\
resort complex at Bekal tourism enclave in Kasaragod, (the
According to the new proposal, total land reclamation would be
reduced from 250 hectares to 25 hectares. Of the four bridges
planned in the original proposal, one bridge connecting
Thanthonni Island to the Ernakulam mainland has been
dropped since there are very few families who would commute
to the mainland. The total length of the bridges has also been
reduced to 1320 meters from the earlier 2375 meters. From four
line bridges, the new proposal will have only two lines thus
reducing the cost from Rs.35 crores Rs.17.5 crores' The quantity
of filling will also be reduced from 10.55 million cubic meters to
0.85 cubic meters, the length of the reclamation wall will reduce
from 11.55 km to 1.59 km and the cost of reclamation from
Rs.110 crores to Rs.10.1 crores. There will be no reclamation
from around the islands in the middle of backwaters, altering
the flow of the current. Instead, land would be reclaimed by
extending the marine drive reclamation where the water is
stagnant. This, the new ProPosal claims, will not violate the
CRZ regulations.
We are yet to get the response of the people's groups and the
environmental groups to this new ProPosal. But one thing is
clear, the intervention of people's grouPs and their ability to
effectively bring the debate into a larger audience has
influenced the change. To the government, it is clear that
vested interests of the trading and hotel lobby have been
exposed, making it impossible for any money swindling'
(Hari Babu is Programme Co-orilinator, EQUATIONS. It is baseil
on media reports.)
,rll\
N Among the more important visitors to the sanctuary are birds,
'f
f,
= Ya-
a-
F :-e-a-
ie
75
Tourism threat
to Kumarakom
(This is a letter from a group of concerned Persons who haae written
to EQUATIONS about the threat that tourism poses to the
Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary in Kerala.)
Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary is located some 15km West of
Kottayam town with the Vembanad lake on its Western front.
According to the tourist brochures, Kumarakom is a place right in
the hcart of lush tropical wnterurays with innumerable exotic birds
aisiting this picturesque little oillage. The sanctuary originally
was as large as 112acres but has now been reduced to a small
chunk of thick bushes and mangroves of l5-20acres. The
remaining area, including a bungalow that belongs to the
innovative architect, Laurie Baker, has been leased to the Taj
Group of Hotels, which has a resort there. An area of 100acres
including the sanctuary proper belongs to the Kerala Tourism
Development Corporation (KTDC).
Tourism in the Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary began way back in
the 1970s. Today, in addition to the Taj Group and the Coconut
Lagoon resort, a number of other smaller resorts and hotels
have come up within the area.
especially migratory water birds. These include the hundreds
of darters and night herons. The darters, also known
snakebirds, are shy birds and are a species that are special to
as
this sanctuary.
In April 7996, we as a staff team from the College of
Engineering, Chengannur, visited the sanctuary. Chengannur is
about 40km south of Kottayam. The sanctuary was a well-
protected area with barbed wire fencing around it. Visitors
could enter it only through a small path that had been cleared.
Thick bushes full of birds and animals flanked the path.
Kumarakom is famous for its marshes and the canals cut deep
into the land. It is a nature-watcher's delight. The place is
known tor karimeen, a fresh water fish and the number of
snakes that abound there. On the Western waterfront, a small
patch of land had been cleared for visitors to relax in. At that
time, the only jarring note was the "conventional beer parlor"
that belonged to the KTDC. On the Southern front, the Taj had
cleared a large area of bushes to accommodate foreign tourists
who visit the place in large numbers and who are ready to pay
for anything that would be different from their hectic routine
back home. We were shocked to see kettu valloms (country-
boats) decorated with all kinds of antique odds and ends and
one even had a lawn!
We woke up one day in October, to find in the newspaper some
news about massive cutting of the mangroves in the sanctuary
at Kumarakom. We rushed to Kumarakom only to find that a
large area near the waterfront had been already cut and burnt.
We photographed the damaged area and rushed letters to the
Minister and the Managing Director of the KTDC. We spoke to
the staff deployed there and were told that all they knew was
that some construction activity was being planned there. Some
of the staff members said they did not know that the forests
were mangroves.
Recently, in July 1997, we, a team of staff-members from the
College, visited the Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary and when we
saw what was happening there, we really wondered what Eco-
tourism meant! I remembered our Minister for Tourism
Chandrasekharan Nair claiming that no developmental n'ork at
Kumarakom would be done if it disturbed, even in the least the
ecology of the place. But this, I now feel, is what every
politician and bureaucrat is best at doing - simply misleading
the majority. Here is an account of what we saw and are bound
to see more of in Kumarakom:
tr Birds being continuously disturbed from their roosting
bushes and branches because of the disturbances caused by
the visitors on the lake waters. The birds fly up because of
the noise created and this, the visitors find entertaining.
tr People, especially from the locality and the nearby toddy/
arrack shops, in connivance with the authorities, indulge in
illegal fishing and fishing, cutting down twigs and vines
that is, what remains of it after the KTDC has cleared it!
tr Then, there is the omnipresent crowd of hooligans who
come in buses, vans and sometimes, on bikes, get drunk at
the beer-parlor (which is situated right at the entrance so
that no one misses the fun!) and rushes into the sanctuary
booing, singing and dancing.
So, Kumarakom is a complete tourist complex, after all! And to
top it all, the Department has cleared pathways that are, at
places, just like roads, all around the sanctuary. Earlier, only
the southern side had a pathway. Some playthings have also
been installed inside the sanctuary as part of a plan to create a
children's park. The small trekking path on the south eastern
side has been replaced by a road to allow trucks and lorries to
alnpai
pass by. We were shocked to hear that the waterfront on the
west of the Sanctuary will now house some 40 luxury cottages
ostensibly to bring in foreign exchange. Entry to visitors to this
area has been banned. On enquiry we came to know that work
has not been stopped as reported in the magazine. Obviously,
work was continuing, only the report was otherwise.
- All this construction and development work without
destroying the ecology of the place! How different all this
sounds if one really sees the place. We have forgotten that the
place is meant to be haven for birds and not for human beings
and last of all for tourists.
The opening of the sanctuary, by clearing the sanctuary, by
clearing the bushes all around it has exposed the hapless birds
whose very existence is at our mercy.
If something is not done soon, we will no longer have a
sanctuary in Kumarakom - there will only be a painted, cement
filth called a tourism complex.
(Sridhar R. is a member of the Pravaham Nature CIub of the
College of Engineering, Chengannur, Kernla.)
"We haae not inherited the earth from our ancestors.
We haae borrowed it from our children" - Ancient
prwerb. Act notn before it is toolate-EcoThjfor wrth's
sake. So reads a banner at Tai Garden Retreat,
Kumarakom, Kerala on June 5, 1997 - World
Environment Day. Behind the scenes, hectic
promotional activities of the hotel group are
destroying the ecology of the bird sanctuary.
PHOTO HARIBABU
77

t
f Foreign Investments
t
I A package aimed at inviting foreign investment for taking up
mGt
A Glimpse into Future Tourism
Development Plans in Tamilnadu
(The increase in the number of tourists and a greater share in tourist
earnings has legitimized Tamilnadu's claims for further infrastructure
deaelopment. New hotel projects in star categories are being planned
throughout the state though immediate investments will be in
conaentionnl sites like airports, hill and coastal regions. But one
factor that is clearly evident is the state's policy to increasingly
ilepenil upon foreign inaestments and international hotel chains for
these deoelopments. With the proposed subsidies anil tax holidays,
both by the Central and State Goaernments, for new hotel and
touism projects acting as an additional incentiae, whatetter little this
inilustry earns will flow out of the country).
TN's tourist status
According to Tamilnadu's Commissioner of Tourism,
Tamilnadu's share in the country's earnings in tourism was
35%. The average tourist spent about 10 days in Tamil Nadu
compared to three or four days in the other states.
During the Eighth Five-year Plan period, an outlay of Rs.5.25
crores had been allotted for tourism and the expenditure
incurred during this period was Rs.13.74 crores. The following
indicates the number of tourists who visited Tamil Nadu during
the last three years.
78
Years
Type of Tourists Tolncrease in the year1996
7994 1995 7996
(Number in Lakhs)
Domestic 160.00 772.00 182.00 6%
Foreign 4.89 5.86 6.14 57"
In a bid to boost this figure and to develop tourism in the state,
several measures have been taken by the Government.
projects in the joint venture sector in Tamil Nadu and also to
lure both the foreign and domestic tourists has been planned.
The Government was to come out with the package that was
designed keeping in view the foreign nations that have evinced
interest in funding tourism development projects and assisting
the State Government in maintaining historical monuments.
The State Tourism Minister has said that multinational
companies would be invited to enter into joint ventures with
the Indian entrepreneurs to develop tourism in the State
provided they are given land and other infrastructural facilities.
There are plans to seek foreign assistance to develop areas
which are along the coast. E.g; Muttom and Thengapatnam in
Kanyakumari district.
Legislation
The Tamil Nadu Government is to enact suitable legislation, on
the lines of ]ammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Goa, to
develop and regulate private sector tourism in the State.
According to the Tourism Minister, the law would enable
tourism projects to be taken up by local entrepreneurs in
association with multinational firms. The legislation would
also help protect the interest of the tourists and prevent tour
operators from committing acts detrimental to tourism.
Tourist-Friendly Guides
The Government claims that they would recruit guides as a first
step towards making the State tourist-friendly and they would
be given a month's training to converse fluently in English and
Hindi and also to conduct themselves in a pleasant and orderly
manner!
Participation of Private Sector
The tourism policy of Tamil Nadu has among others, been to
encourage private sector participation and help them in
establishing their projects in the state. Under the private sector
participation the Tamil Nadu government have taken measures
under the current tourism policy to provide for capital subsidy,
sales tax rebate,50% concessions etc. for new tourism projects.
The state government considers it essential to provide adequate
land for the establishment of tourism projects. The government
has also been encouraging the setting up of hotels in the private
sector by recommending "deserving proposals" to financial
institutions for obtaining loan assistance. This, they believe,
will serve as a great impetus to the development for Tourism in
the State.
Since the declaration of Tourism as an industry in Tamil Nadu,
this Department has been providing capital subsidy for the
purchase of generators in cities excluding Chennai, Madurai
alnpai
and Coimbatore Corporations. New hotels have come up as a
result of this and in 1996-97 , a sum of I(s. 29.87 lakhs have been
distributed to six hotels by way of capital and generator
subsidy. Also to provide tourists with adequate
accommodation, the Government encourages the private sector
to start hotels by recommending loan applications of deserving
entrepreneurs.

New Hotel Projects

Most of the hotels in the five-star category will go on-stream by
1998, involving an estimated average investment of Rs 30 lakh
per room. In the three-star category, the investment will be
about Rs 11 lakh per room. Many of the proposed hotels are
coming up near the airport.
The MAC Group is to make a fony into the hotel business with
its venture with US Based Radisson Hotels, Balaji is a franchisee
for the Oberoi hotels and the EMPEE Group has signed a and for improving parking facilities, a tourist pleasure ride
Memorandum of Understanding with the Holiday Inn chain for
a five-star hotel to be located in Eekkaduthangal, near Chennai.
The project cost is estimated to be in the region of Rs 60 crores.
St James Court, London, of the Taj Group, has reportedly taken
a property adjacent to the Chettinad Palace.
Single-window Clearance
The Tamil Nadu Government proposes to establish an agency
to take care of the administration of the industrial areas and
also provide single-window clearance. A single-window
clearance for tourism proposals is also intended.
For the year 1997-98, several schemes costing Rs.80 lakhs have
been approved for the Nilgiris region. Some of them are,
construction of a Youth Hostel-cum-Restaurant as wayside
facilities in Gudalur, children's amusement facilities at
Theppakadu Youth Hostel in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary
ropeway between children's Lake Garden and Boat House at
Udhagamandalam.
Schemes for the coastal region
Under the decentralised district plan, during the year 1996-97,
tourism projects f.or 24.05 lakhs have been earmarked for
tourism facilities in Gangaikonda Chozhapuram in Perambalur
Thiruvalluvar District, Erwadi in Ramanathapuram District,
Sivanmalai in Periyar District, Hogenakkal, Dharmapuri
District, Poompuhar Tourist Complex in Nagai Quaid-E-Milleth
District.

Schemes in the Hill regions of Tamil Nadu

The allocation for Tourism Development urrder Hill Area

wa
Development Programme is Rs 61.75 lakhs that was sanctioned
for schemes including construction of a hanging bridge across
the Ootv Lake.

vq \1i

L9
 Kodaikanal: Hotel in a declared green belt area
The Kodaikanal Master Plan declared the watershed area of
the lake as a green belt. In 1993, the previous government in
violation of the Master Plan made an exception converting a
single plot to "Commercial use". This has been challenged at
the State level. A proposal, however, has been sent to the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by Ferani Hotels
Ltd., asking for permission to ctnstruct a72-room facility on
the above plot. The Raheja Group of Companies is the brain
behind these developments. The area is surrounded by a
Shola forest, which drains into the marsh of the lake. The
MoEF is poised to approve the project and it is feared that this
will lead to the destruction of this crucial watershed. Apart
from this, the over-crowding in Kodaikanal is already
reaching breaking point while the quality of life of citizens
and their water supply has already fallen dramatically.
(This is written by Shirley Susan, Programme Associate, Tamil
N ailu P rogramme EQU AT I ON S.)
EQUATIONS in collaboration with Max
Mueller Bhavan is organising a Workshop on
Eco-tourism on November 4 - 5, t997 at the
Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore.
Eco-tourism, referred to as "a natural history
oriented tourism", is a new trend that is based
on resources like rivers, forests and wildlife. It
claims to conserve these natural resources and
benefit local communities. The economic.
social and ecological impact of Eco-tourism,
both positive and negative varies considerably.
In India, Eco-tourism has led to the
encroachment of commercial interests into
natural resources. The time is ripe for a
discussion on the subject.

This workshop aims at bringing about a debate

on Eco-tourism in the states of Karnataka.
Kerala, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. It
aims to examine the different approaches of the
government, the hotel lobby and the affected
communities towards treating Eco-tourism as a
product for tourism.

By invitation only.

September 27, 1997, Woid

Tourism Duy - Justice
J. Kanakaraj releasing the
EQUATIONS poster at the
Workshop on Tourism and
Environment, Chennai.

PHOTO DHANARAJKEEZ{ARA

20

T"uPism onJ Envi'onment
Tamil Nadu Environmental Council, Dindigul & EQUATIONS (Equitable Tourism Options), Bangalore
n the occasion of the World Tourism Dav declared bv
the World Tourism Organisation (WTO-OMT) the
above mentioned organisations organised the
Workshop on Tourism and Environment in Tamil
Nadu. The emphasis on the Environment in relation to tourism
emerges from the World Tourism Organisation's theme for the
year, which is ]ob Creation and Environmental Protection.
While the WTO-OMT, has been spear-heading the promotion of
tourism in all its member countries in the world uncritically,
this year after 17 years of celebrating World Tourism Day as a
self-glorification exercise, it has admitted that " it is bad at
carrying out its duties to bring integration and social
commitment. Whole regions and large social groups either
remain sidelined or even suffer harmful effects: very insecure
conditions for wage earners, exploitation
pros ti t u ti on, s eri o u s wea k en i ng of tra di ti on a I co m m un i ti es,
impovefishment of cultural traditions, standarisation of ctaft
output deterioration of the environs at scenic tourist spots,
natural open spaces and major monuments. It is only right
therefore that we stick to Agenda 21 applied to the countries
opening up, to look for a restoration of balance in other
words achieving a more sustainable development which has
greater respect for the people and the naturuI environment
and is culturally and socially richer."
While the WTO-OMT is beginning to recognise this reality at its
level, its members including the Department of Tourism,
Government of India continue to believe rather naively that
o Tourism promotes National Integration
o Encourages preservation of monuments and heritage
properties
o Helps the survival of the traditional art forms, crafts and
culture
o Promotesinternationalunderstanding
o Protects wildlife and Environment
It was to critically reflect on these myths that are still being
propagated in our country despite international opinion against
it that TNEC and EQUATIONS organised this one-day meeting
on tourism development and its impacts with special reference
to Thmil Nadu. The Chief Guest at this occasion was Hon
Justice J Kanakaraj. The |ustice cautioned against blindly
allowing any development and in the context of tourism
referred to his own judgment on the Pleasant Stay Home case of
Kodaikanal. The Hon fustice received the first copy of Dossier
on Tourism produced by EQUATIONS (authored by Shri Hari
Babu) and a poster on the occasion by Dhanaraj Keezhara, from
Shri C K Sreedharan. Shri C K Sreedharan, I.F.S, Chief
A ll"pool on !/oolrrhop on
ln TornilnoJ,
Organised by:
Conservator of Forests also cautioned about the indiscriminate
use of finite natural resources. In the context of Tamil Nadu he
referred to the increasing pressures on the forests and the
coastal areas inspite of conservational measures that his
department had taken. He exhorted the gathering of concerned
groups and environmentalists and tourism experts to put their
heads together to arrive at sustainable models of tourism. In an
impassioned speech, the famous literary figure Ms
Shivashankari asked the gathering to guard the reputation of
Tamil Nadu from acquiring the notoriety for being a den for
child abuse. In this context she referred to the recent reports
from Mamallapuram on children being caught-up with
prostitution related to tourist demands.
of children, In the following sessions, Dr Muthu (Trust Help) made a broad
overview of the state of the environment in Tamil Nadu in
relation to the new developments of rapid industrialisation.
Hari Babu (EQUATIONS) also the author of the Dossier on
Tourism released earlier in the Workshop, led the gathering
through the detailed information on tourism development of
the state. He strongly disagreed with the point of view that the
Government would like the general public to believe that
tourism in Tamil Nadu is a gross revenue earner. He demanded
a serious scrutiny of the various claims that the various
governmental agencies were making of the benefits of tourism.
In the subsequent sessions Shri R R Shivalingam (ex-Chairman
ISLAND Trust) Shri Navroz Mody (Palani Hills Conservation
Council), Ms P Dhavamani recounted their experiences (as
residents of Nilgiris, Kodaikanal and Yercaud respectively) of
being 'travelled upon'. Their refrain was that the
Government's infrastuctural priorities were skewed in favour
of the floating population of the tourists rather that the resident
population. Their plea was to release the hills from the
clutches of the real estate and hotel lobby and to bring a
moratorium on all new hotel construction in these hill regions
so that it can continue to play the important role in being the
watershed for Tamil Nadu.
In the subsequent session, Ms ]esurathinam - SNEHA,
Nagapattinam, Adv T Mohan and Shri Maria James spoke
about the problem that afflicted the coastal area due to the
increasing pressure of tourism development in the beaches.
They demanded that a careful analysis be done of the impact of
the development of scores of new hotels that are cropping up in
complete violations of the Coastal Zone Notifications and the
Coastal Management plan of Tamil Nadu. In this context the
case of the East Coast Road was referred to as a harbinger of
intensified tirbanization of the coastal areas.
2L
Ossie Fernades - Human Rights Foundation, Madras and L
Antonysamy - Tamil Nadu Environmental Council led the
discussion, which led the workshop to adopt the following
resolutions.
These resolutions were adopted in the background of the
understanding that Tourism in Tamil Nadu is tmder transformation
into a tourism that employs and sells nnture. Inuestments in tourism
have changed - inuestments are increasingly coming from the large
itrdustrial houses both national and trans-national. Most of the new
proiects are in collaboratiotr with trans-national hotel chains.
Accordingly the tourism policy of Tamil Nadu has prioritized areas as
infrastructure danelopment, product deaelopment and deoelopment of
mega tourism resorts including capital subsidy, sales tax rebate,
electricity concession and concession ofluxury tax, identifying and
acquiring land at cheap rates. In context of growing poaerty and
unemployment this tourism is leading to incrmsing actiaities that are
detrimental to us.
1. The present tourism policy and programmes pronounced
by the Government of Tamil Nadu is detrimental to the
ecology of these regions and destructive of people's
livelihoods, traditional system of living, knowledge and
cultures.
2. When this exploitation of these natural resources is used
for tourism, we must also understand the severe pressure
on these ecological systems.
3. Tourism is a people intensive and people based industry as
it consumes the plurality of culture of peoples. Therefore
there is a need to understand its impact on communities
that have not been mediated and dictated by the market
economic process.
4. Tourism is a seasonal industry based on fashion - when
Tamil Nadu becomes not so fashionable, then the same
Government, which is promoting TN, will not have any
schemes for those who have invested their life's savings in
this unfashionable site.
5. Eco tourism / budget tourism is another version of the
same commercial, destructive tourism.
6. Tourism as a major foreign exchange earner is myth. Since
many of the important service providers in the tourism
trade are multi-national or trans-national entities they are
obviously siphoning off the profits that they make.
Therefore the gross profit figures that are being bandied
about by the Department need to be accepted with more
than a pinch of salt.
7. In Tamil Nadu, in the context of concentrated effort at
promotion of tourism, increasing class of traditional
Iiving communities are being alienated from this type of
economic activities that are rooted in commercial
relations.
8. Tourism projects are always secret. What is the purpose
behind this secrecy - there should be a larger public process
before locating a tourism project in a particular zone.
People have the right to information and demand that
preceding the development of a tourism project there
should be a public debate on the specific benefits of the
project.
22
9. Today facilities like electricity, drinking water and
traditional watersheds are not available for the local
resident population while the floating tourist population
has them. Tourism infrastructure development should not
be for itself. Infrastructure facilities for the local
community are the first basis for any development in the
region.
10. Existing measures like CRZ and Forest policy define land
use for Hotel lobby - Tourism lobby. These measures are
being watered down. Even the recent forest management
policy being discussed in Tamil Nadu need to have a
formal process of a wider public debate prior to the
declaration of such changes in forest use.
11. Tourism in coastal areas must be halted; no traditional
coastal area should be privatised in the name of tourism
and industrial development.
12. Tourism in Tamil Nadu is leading to increasing evidence of
the kind of effects we have heard and read about in
Thailand, Philippines in terms of sexual exploitation
especially of women and children. Tourism in Tamil Nadu
has led to increasing violence on women especially sexual
violations. Tourism also is leading to increasing child
Iabour.
13. Specifically the government should halt any further
promotional packages of Tourism in Ooty, Kodaikanal,
Yercaud, and Mahabalipuram. The permission given to
hotels of Raheja Group of Companies in the Green Belt of
Kodaikanal and the Taj Hotel with MAM Group in the
Adyar Creek, Madras, should be stopped forthwith.
14. The East Coast Road phase between Cuddalore and
Kanyakumari should be halted, as it will further boost
commercial tourism activities along the coast.
15. Tourism in Tamil Nadu had led to extreme land alienation
and loss of agriculture. All new hotels construction should
be banned in Hill areas and Coastal areas until the
Carrying Capacity of these areas is assessed. Exemption to
Iand ceiling for agriculture, farm resorts, time-shares and
tourism resorts must be withdrawn.
15. Tourism in Thmil Nadu is increasingly leading to consumer
culture of use-and-throw destroying our identity and
culture,
1.7. Commercial tourism is opposed to our inherent inalienable
right to a natural habitat. Tourism must be understood in
the context of growing power of global capital and
liberalizing of economics to MNCs. IMF and World Bank
play an active role in promoting this form of commercial
tourism increasing the use of imported goods and
technological inputs which destroy local goods and
technologies.
18. We condemn the advertisements that promote a culture
that is alien especially by Five Star entertainment firms in
colleges.

Tfte EQUATIONS team has been involved in a number of actioities
oaer the last seaen months from March to September. There haae been
workshops, campaigns and training proglammes connected to
different prograflmes that EQUATIONS is inaolveil itr Karnataka,
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, nationally and internationally. Here are the
details:
WORKSHOPS
o Tourism Watch and EQUATIONS jointly held a Press
Conference at the International Tourism Bourse (ITB), 9
March, 7997 in Berlin. At this meeting the Executive
Summary of the Study on Tourism at the Crossroads:
Challenges to Developing Countries by the New World
Trade Order was released to the international press. The
presentation of this study was done by the authors, ]org
Seifert-Granzin (Werkstatt Okonomie, Heidelberg) and
D.Samuel |esupatham (Indian Social Institute, Bangalore).
Henryk Handszuh (Chief of Quality Services, World Tourism
Organisation, Madrid), Ms.Halo Saibold (Member of
Parliament and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee
on Tourism of the Deutschen Bundestag), Martin Staebler
(Tourism Watch, Stuttgart) and K.T.Suresh (EQUATIONS)
intervened in the discussions that ensued.
. EQUATIONS was invited to participate in the Conference on
Traile in Seroices, on 25 March , 1997 , at New Delhi organised
by ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce
and Industry of India). Nina Rao and K.T.Suresh
represented EQUATIONS and introduced the Paper Tourism
at the Crossroads: Challenges to Developing Countries by
the New World Tiade Order.
o EQUATIONS led the Workshop on Responsible Tourism at the
IV Biennial Conference of the International Federation for
Alternative Trade, 10-13 April 1997. The theme of this
Conference was The Changing Face of Fair Tiade: The
Challenges A/l ead. Ranjith Henry (KOLAM Respottsible Tour s
ISoft Traoels) and K.T.Suresh led the 150 odd delegates from
Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North
America through the discussions on the problems and
prospects of tourism as a fairly traded product.
o EQUATIONS was invited to lead the discussion on tourism
for activists at the Course on Social Analysis and Social
Moaements organised by Indian Social Institute at Bangalore
on 25 April 1997. This is a three-week course covering
discussions/inputs on Poaerty Phenomenon, Analysis towards a
Paradigm, Tryst with Destiny, Global Changes anil its Impacts and
Social Mouemerts. K.T.Suresh led the one-day interaction on
Environment Mooements in lndia with special reference to Eco-
tourism, Coastal Regulation Zones anil the Impacts of Tourism
Deuelopment.
o Dhanaraj Keezhara participated in a meeting on People's
Declaration on Bio-Divercity and Food Securityat Kannur,
Kerala, organised by Navadhanya and Pattuvam Grama
Vedi in Aprill997. Vandana Shiva, Claude Alvares and John
C.]acob led the discussions at the meeting.
23
o University of North London's International Tourism policv
Unlf, Voluntary Services Overseas and Tourism Concerri,
U.K has joined hands to mount a major research programme
into Fair Trade in Tourism. EQUATIONS was invited to
participate in the meeting of the Focus Group which was to
facilitate the shaping of the fair trade proposals. K T Suresh
attended this meeting between 28-29 April 1997.
o Nagarika Seva Trust organised a meeting on Barge Mounted
Pou,ter Projecfs at Mangalore in Mayl997. EeUATIONS
having accessed such information on Barge Mounted
Projects, provided the meeting with the technical and
financial details of barge mounted projects. Hari Babu led
the discussion on the need to understand the technical
features of this new form of power generation.
o A Workshop on Judiciary and Public Interest Litigation was
organised by Environment Support Group and the National
Alliance of People's Movement (Karnataka Chapter).
M.G.Ramesh and M.G.Shreekala participated in the
discussions at this Workshop. Justice V.S.Krishna Iyer, )ustice
]eevan Reddy, Adv. M.C.Mehta and Shri Yellappa Reddy led
the discussion on the role of the judiciary and the role of
Public Interest Litigation in the development debate.
r East Coast Fisherfolk Forum organized a one-day meeting
on Fisheries Resource Management at Madras in June 1992.
Hari Babu contributed EQUATIONS' understanding of the
pressures that the East Coast was under and the possible
ways of engaging with the problem at this meeting.
o A meeting was called by the Coastal Action Network (CAN),
Tamil Nadu in June 1997 to discuss the Aquaculture
Authority BilI, 1997. Hari Babu represented EQUATIONS,
point of view at this meeting.
o Hari Babu was the resource person for the session on Coastal
Tourism in Kerala and CRZ Violations on the Kerala Coasf at the
training programme on Ecological and Economic
Management of Coastal Zones from 19-24 June, 1997 in
Thiruvananthapuram organised by the Institute of.
Management in Government, dr autonomous body
constituted by the Government of Kerala. Hari Babu's
presentation included the visual documentation made by
EQUATIONS of the Kerala Coast. Dhanaraj Keezhara
participated in the Training Programme.
o The People's Union for Civil Liberties commissioned a fact-
finding mission to investigate the status and impact of the
shrimp aquaculture industry and violations by shrimp
industries of Supreme Court orders. The fact-finding Study
was conducted in four coastal states of Andhra pradesh,
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala and the Union Territory
of Pondicherry between 21st and 29th ]une 1.992. This report
was presented on 10-11 luly 1997 at a workshop in New
Delhi, titled Save the Coasts, Save the CRZ, Save the
Nation. Shirley Susan presented the studies that
EQUATIONS conducted on behalf of PUCL in Karnataka and
Kerala. K.G.Kannabiran, National President, PUCL presented
the findings of the Study to the media on 19 August1,997 in
Chennai.
. EQUATIONS was invited to participate in the International
Scientific Symposium on The Ecological Costs of Industrial
Aquaculture in New Delhi on 11 fuly 1992. Shirley Susan
 participated in the discussion at this workshop, which was
led by S.M.Mohd.Idris, Coordinator, International Network
against Unsustainable Aquaculture and the President of
Consumers' Association of Penang, Malaysia.
o The Institute for Management in Government (IMG)
organised a Women and Tourism Workshop at its Kochi
Regional Centre during 2l-23 July 1997. EQUATIONS
was invited to help in designing this Workshop which
was a first for IMG and one of the first in Kerala involving
women members of the Panchayats and other local
institutions. Nina Rao made the Keynote presentation
(see elsewhere. in this issue of the ANletter for details of
her presentation). Hari Babu and K.T.Suresh were
resource persons for the Workshop. T.T.Sreekumar and
Ms.M.fazeela (IMG), Dr Vijayakumar (Dept, of Economics,
University College, Thiruvananthapuram), Ms.K. Ajitha
(Activist of ANWESHI, a feminist organisation) Ms.Leela
Menon (Senior Correspondent, INDIAN EXPRESS),
Ms.Darley lose (Centre for Development Studies,
Thiruvananthapuram) and Shri P.Rajan contributed to the
discussions at this Workshop.
o EQUATIONS was invited to the Meeting on the
Amendments in the CRZ Plans for Karnatal<a by the
Department of Forest, Environment and Ecology,
Government of Karnataka. The EQUATIONS team
consisting of Hari Babu and M.G. Ramesh has made a
strong representation against the dilution of the
conservational provisions of the Coastal Regulations Zones
Notification 1,991 . (A detailed note on our Statement at
this meeting is available from us on request).
o A Workshop on Public fnterest Litigation and Emerging
Strategies on Child Labourwas organised on 30 August
1997 at the National Law School of India University,
(NLSIU) Bangalore. The students of the Law School made
a presentation of the legal framework and recent
judgments on child labour. This was on Child Labour
(R&P) Act, 1986, Factories Act, 1948, and other
Constitutional Provisions. Dr.N.L.Mitra, Director, NLSIU,
Mr.Ravi Verma Kumar, Advocate, High Court of
Karnataka, Mr.|ayakar ]erome, Commissioner of Labour,
Government of Karnataka, Prof. Babu Mathew of the
NLSIU, Mr.Solomon of MAYA, a NGO working in the area
of child labour were the speakers who led the discussion.
Renuka Phadnis participated in this discussion.
o EQUATIONS was invited by the Department of Tourism,
Government of Karnataka, to present our vievr's on the
New Tourism Policy on the occasion of the World
Tourism Day Celebrations. M.G.Ramesh and Renuka
Phadnis represented EQUATIONS' strong disagreement
with the on-going intensive promotion and development
of tourism without participation of the local community
in the discussions on the changes in their livelihood and
life-style.
o Tamil Nadu Environmental Council, Dindigul and
EQUATIONS conducted a Workshop on Tourism and
Environmenf on the occasion of the World Tourism Day in
Chennai. Justice J.Kanakaraj, Madras High Court released
The Dossier on Tourism: fssues in Thmil Nadu and a poster
designed by Dhanaraj lGezhara Shri C.K. Shreedharan IFS,
Chief Conservator of Forest and noted literary figure,
24
Ms.Shivashankari were the luminaries who initiated the
heated discussion that followed during the rest of the
Workshop. For details, see A Report on the Workshop on
Tburism and Environment in Tamil.Aladz elsewhere in this
ANLetten
CAMPAIGNS
o Dhanaraj Keezhara participated in a state level meeting organiseil
by the Kerala Patana l(endra on 20 April 7997 at Thrissu4
Kerala, that had been called for protesting against the celebrations
to commemorate the 500"' year of Vasco da Gama's entry into India.
For a detailed understanding of the ilebate, read the article on
Selling 1498 in this ANletter.
RESEARCH
o EQUATIONS and Tburism Watch, Germany, initiated a study
project depicting the consequences of challenges of the New World
Oriler uniler the World Trade Organisation (WTO-OMO. The
study Tourism at the Crogsroads: Challenges to Developing
Countries by the New World Trade Order sheds light on the
Iegal bases of the New World trade order, documents the progress of
Iiberalisatiotr in this sector, names its risks and makes proposals for
reform. It takes account of sectoral problems of developing
countries in general and the lndian experience in particular.
D.Samuel lesupatham (Indian Social Institute) and lorg Seifert-
Granzin (Werkstatt Okonomid were the researchers inaolued in the
Study. The final text of this Study wiII be aaailable by December
1997.
t Hari Babu of EQUATIONS, with Amruth.M and Unnikrishnan of
the Society for Environmental Education in Kerala (SEEK),
Payyanur, Kerala carrieil out a Fact-finding Studyfrom 27-29
lune, L997 on fnvestigating Shrimp Industry in Keralamfor
consolidation o/a National PUCL Report to be submitted to the
Supreme Court.
o Shirley Susan of EQUATIONS and Susan Matthews, Public
Interest Litigation for Social Action and Research
(PIISARC) conducted the study on shrimp culture in the
Kumta Thluk of the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, on
28 lune,1997.
DOCUMENTATION
o EQUATIONS - CED Documentation Programme is in
progress to make the transition from the earlier system of
documentation. In a response to the demands on the
Documentation cell the Classification Code has been
expanded to include 18 sectoral heads and about 200 areas of
documentation on tourism. Along with this process
EQUATIONS is also computerising its lists of information in
the Documentation Cell and the Library. The new
Classification Code can be requested from us.
a Panos Radio, a private radio channel based in London,
through Tourism Concern, requested EQUATIONS to
contribute to their prograrnme Greening of Industries.
EQUATIONS took up the issue of the Taj Resort Project in
Nagarahole National Park. EQUATIONS and Michael Isaaq
a photojournalist, visited Nagarahole and also interviewed
Taj group officials for the radio programme.
Visual Documentation PUBLICATIONS

o Dhanaraj Keezhara and Shirley Susan along with Mr EQ News Features:

Balasubramaniam of ISLAND Trust, Kotagiri, covered the
Nilgiris in April for a survey. Dhanaraj Keezhara photo-
documented the socio-economic and environmental impact
of tourism in the region. EQUATIONS has donated all the
photographs taken during this Study to ISLAND Trust so that
they may be used in the Nilgiris region.
r Hari
Babu and Shirley Susan conducted a survey of the
Tamil Nadu Coast between 18-23 AugusI 1997. This
survey took stock of, among other things, tourism
development along the southern coast of Tamil ir,ladu.
This team covered Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli-
Kattabomman, Ramanathapuram and Nagapattinam
Quaid-e-Milleth districts of Tamil Nadu.. This Study
was possible because of the tremendous efforts of Peter
Dhas, Tamil Nadu Fishworker's Union and Sr'Alphy
(Tirumalai Ashram), Sr.Cleva Mary, Mr' Muniandp
Tamil Nadu Rural Rehabilitation Movement, Fr Stanley
Colachel and Ms ]esurathinam SNEHA Nagapattinam'
The Survey also included a photo-documentation of the
sites visited by the team. This information was fed
into the Workshop on Tourism and Environment held
on 27 September at Chennai.
o An EQ News Feature, written by Shirley Susan was
published for Aptil 4, World No Child Prostitution Day.
o Golf: Hasiru Masanadalli Chendina Aata (Volume 3Issue 3
1997) and
r Declarations: Are they Hope Givers? (Volume 3 Issue 5),
were the EQ News Features from EQUATIONS for June 5,
World Environment Dav.
EXHIBITION
EQUATIONS and ISLAND Trust, Kotagiri, from L3-17 May,
1997 organized an Alternative Exhibition on Tourism and
Environment in Ooty. Dr Jeevanantham, President, Tamil
Nadu Green Movement, inaugurated the exhibition, Mr.
R.R.Sivalingam, Chairman, ISLAND Trust, Kotagiri gave the
presidential address and K.T.Suresh delivered the keynote
address. This exhibition was aimed at highlighting and
bringing awareness of the socio-economic and environmental
impacts of tourism in the Nilgiris among the people. Shirley
Susan and Dhanaraj Keezhara of EQUATIONS conducted a
Poster Workshop between 24-25 April,7997 among students
and youth, for the material for the above mentioned Exhibition.

Sye sc.nO
TOURISM \MATCH AND

DGCUTTVE SUMMARY OF
TOURISM AT TIIE CROSSRO..IDS
CI:IAIf,E.NGffi TO DEI.EINPING COAMIRIE
BYTTIE ]UEW WORID TRADE ORDER

AUTTIORS
JORG SEI FERT,GRANZIN, WERKSTATT OKONOMI E, HEI DELBERG
D.SAMUEL JESUPATHAM, INDIAN SOCIAL INSTITUTE ffiWW
Atubtu
tu5dtuw,

The new world trade order under the World Trade Organisation (WTO-OMC) is a special challenge to tourism-critical
groups and organizations. For the first time, trade in services - and so particularly tourism - and the protection of
intellectual property rights have been subjected to the free trade doctrine, alongside internationally traded gods. Tourism
Watch ana ieUefiot{S have therefore initiated a study project depicting the consequences of this change for tourism in
developing countries. Options for a world trade order are to be identified and a course charted for a sustainable and self-
determined development in tourism too.

The present study sheds light on the legal bases of the new world trade order, documents the progress of liberalization in
this iector, n"^"1 its risksind makes proposals for reform. It takes account of sectoral problems in developing countries
in general and the Indian experience with tourism in particular

Three problems play a prominent role here. On the one hand, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
intervenes deeply inio areas of national and confederal autonomy; on the other, structures enabling the participation of all
concerned at"ilso lacking. Secondly, human rights violations in the field of tourism pose a fundamental question to the
new world trade order. tt itaty, the agreement has serious gaps regarding the process of implementation of the WTO-
OMC's commitment to sustainable development and a sparing use of natural resources. Reform proposals have been
drawn up for all three areas. According to this study, their implementation is an important precondition for the
development of an acceptable form of tourism.
Copies available at:
EQUATIONS
198 2nd cross, Church Road, New Thippasandra, Bangalore - 560 075
Email : ADMIN@equation.ilban'ernet.in

25
BOOKS ARTICLES

X Tourism and the Economy; Virender Kaul - 80452 Struggle of Adivasis against Total Colonisation of
Nagarahole - 407423
The economic aspects of tourism remain a particulaily neglected
area of study. Reference material and information often lie Mountain Women - A01423
scattered in project-reports or specialised iournals about
tourism and the traael trade. This book is a response to the Bank and Taj) and Response of the Adivasis of Nagarahole;
needs of students and is a step towards reducing the paucity of Special Focus on the Issue of the Proposed Taj Resort in
study material for tourism enthusiasts. Murkal - 401426

X Preserve or Destroy, Tourism and the Environment;

. Jonathan Croall - 80454

This book proviiles an account of the damage that tourism has

inflicted on our environment, as places are 'loaed to death'. 7997 as passed by Rajya Sabha - 401447
Tourism has turned beauty spots into 'honeypots', ruined
Ianilscapes, polluted coast anil countryside and d.'::ttoyed t997 - 401448
communities and cultures. A growing number of people are
realising the urgent need for tourism to be made more the Heritage of Indigenous People - 401451
sustainable and enaironmentally friendly. Focttssing on Britain
anil lreland, but also drawing on experiences around the worlil, A01453
the author looks at an impressiae aariety of pioneeting
initiatioes, in which local people ate increasingly playing a key REPORTS
role in tourism ileaelopment.

X The Coastal Regulation Zone Notification in India; Goa Karnataka to Goa: EQUATIONS - R0432
Foundation - 80455
WWF-UK-R0435
The booklet lays down the CRZ Notification dated 19.02.91 as
amenileil on 75.08.94 and 78.04.96, the Supreme Court Kingdom Perspective; Tourism Concern - R0436
judgment dated 18.04.96 and the Approoed Goa State Coastal
Zone Management Plan dated 27.09.96.
- R0438
X A Search for justice: a Citizens Report on the Adivasi
Experience in South India; Anita Cheria, K.Narayanan,
Bijoy and Edwin. - 80468 Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar - R0447

This is the process report of the adivasi search for iustice in

South India, mainly the Nilgiri Biosphere in the 1990s, setting
it off in the national and international perspectioe, tracing their Coastal Zone;T T Sreekumar, IMG Workshop - R0451
history from pre-independence, together with important
documents of contemporary releaance to the adioasi. Though R0453
meant mainly for the ailioasis themsehtes, it will be of use to
human rights groups, NGOs, actioists, government officials,
acailemics, rcsearchers and students as well as the general (This list was compiled by Padmaja 5., Documentation Assistant,
reader. EQUATTONS.)

25

(Kerala Government has been
-SELLING
forced to ilrop its plans to celebrate the
500th annioersary of Vasco ila Gama's landing in Kozhikode,
following a series of protests launched by militant Hindu, Muslim
and N axalite actiaists.)
Thanks to the efforts of vociferous and militant Hindu, Muslim
and Naxalite activists, the Portuguese mariner and mercantilist-
colonialist Vasco da Gama had been denied a triumphant
second coming to the God's Own Country, Kerala.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had wanted to
celebrate the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's landing in
Kozhikode by turning the historical event into a tourism fete.
Ironically enough, the Marxist-led government was hoping to
reap commercial profits from Kerala's colonial past.
Little did the government expect a reaction. When it came, the
government was quick to backtrack on the da Gama project,
much to the embarrassment of foreign tour operators who had
arranged tie-ups with Indian tour companies and had begun
their preparations to take the tourists on a carnival tour of a
colonial drama enacted in Kerala.
27
l49B-
The LDF government's ambition of turning da Gama and his
exploits into a saleable commodity for foreign tourists was first
mentioned in the Governor's address to the Kerala Assembly.
The plans were first discussed at the 1995-96 ITB Tourism Fair
in Germany, a former tourism director disclosed.
Enthusiastic start
Other companies from France, Spain and Portugal soon showed
interest, as did Indian operators involved in bringing in tourists
trs 6ar r
44C
-a;aller'lJ4
by ship. Travel writers had marketed the theme in foreign
magazines. Tour operators began working on the blueprints for
tour packages built around the theme in tandem with the
Kerala Tourism Development Corporation.
The government's intention was to have year-long celebrations
built around the da Gama theme beginning May 16, the day on
which the Portuguese colonialist is believed to have stepped
ashore at Kappad, Kozhikode, in 1948.
Tourism Minister E.Chandrasekharan Nair apologetically stated
that there would be no efforts made to commemorate the
arrival of da Gama. LDF Convener M.M.Lawrence made the
Front's stance clear when he said that it is wrong to celebrate
the arrival of. a colonialisf. Mr Nair said the idea had been to
recreate da Gama's arrival and many of the historical incidents
related to the Portuguese advent in Kerala for the benefit of
tourists.
Reversal of stance
"The flaw was that the political issues the fete might raise were
not considered when we had the ministerial-level discussions",
said a government source.
The LDF government's reversal of stance came when a group of
social activists joined hands in Kozhikode to oppose the
celebrations. These included Dr.A.Achyuthan, the Congress (S)
leader, N.Peethambaran Master and others who organised
protest marches to spread awareness about the problems such
celebrations would bring about. They also released the book
"500 years of Colonisation" by Claude Alvares to raise
awareness about the era of Portuguese colonisation.
On May 16, the group of activists who had banded themselves
under the banner of Committee Against Imperialist Aggressioo
marched to Kappad beach to hoist a black flag at the spot the
Portuguese adventurer is thought to have set foot when he
arrived 499 years ago. The flag was raised at the Vasco da
Gama pillar at Kappad. Among those at the forefront of the
protest were environmental activists Thayat Balan and
P.J.Sebastian, former Naxalite leader A.Vasu and local BJP
leaders.
Yearlong protests
The organisers said they are prepared for protests for an entire
year if the government tries to go ahead with its yearlong
celebrations. The protesters have a point. Vasco da Gama was
a hated person in the kingdom of Kozhikode which was ruled
in the 15th century by the Zamorin. His landing in Kozhikode
paved the way for nearly 150 years of Portuguese manipulation
of Kerala's kings.
commercial pact and warehousing rights to store spices. He left
for Lisbon to return in 1502.
Meanwhile, relations between the Portuguese and the Zamorin
had worsened. An emissary of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the next
adventurer in the Indian Ocean, won rights from the Zamorin
to build godowns in Kozhikode. But the Portuguese captured
ships belonging to the Arab traders in Kozhikode port. The
locals destroyed the godowns and slaughtered the Portuguese.
Cabral sped away to Kochi.
The Kolathiri Raja of Kannur, Kochi Raja and the Kollam Raja
were happy to play up to the Portuguese and the first two
became Portuguese vassals, thanks to their envy of the
Zamorin. The latter became the rallying point for anti-
imperialist forces of the day.
When da Gama returned the second time, he came as a "wrath
of God" to the Muslims. He used Kannur and Kochi to capture
Arab ships and kill the sailors. He sacked the pilgrim ship
"Miri" headed for Mecca, killing 300 men and burning women
and children alive. Da Gama asked the Zamorin to inform all
Muslims to leave Kizhikode, but the Zamorin declined. The
Portuguese attacked the city with cannons and da Gama
unleashed a brutal campaign against the Muslims.
There were naval confrontations between da Gama's shins and
the Zamorin's and among the heroes of these g"ge*erri, -",
the legendary Kunhali Marakkar who used"tfireballs against
Portuguese warships.
Marakkar's house lies dilapidated with nobody to build a
memorial for him and the rocks, which protected his men, have
now been blasted apart for granite. It is therefore of some
to the activists that the government plans to
consolation
commemorate the landing of Vasco da Gama have been blasted
apart.
(This article written by A V Varghese appeared in the Deccan
Iferald, 8 lune 97.)

Sunni leader Kanthapuram Aboobacker Musaliar warned of a

Muslim reaction if da Gama, who butchered Muslims out of
religious hatred, was lauded. On the political front, the BfP
served the strongest warning to the government when
O.Rajagopal stated that patriotic sections would oppose any
move to commemorate da Gama's arrival.

Activists organised a seminar in Kozhikode in which academics

wanted the pages referring to Portuguese dominion in Kerala
be torn out of textbooks.

Former pro-vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Pro

K.M.Bahauddin, said it was shameful that the Left government
planned to commemorate the arrival of da Gama whose
countrymen had looted temples in South India, killed Haj
pilgrims and destroyed the sacred books of Syrian Christians.

When da Gama arrived in Kozhikode, he couldn't impress the

Zamorin who made him wait for an audience, rejected his gifts
and denied him a commercial base or a treaty. In August 1498,
he left Kozhikode as an angry man. But da Gama r /ent to
Kannur, a neigbouring port in a kingdom belonging to the
Kolathiri Raja, an enemy of the Zamorin. There he won his
 A Fight agaLnst
the Self Proclaimed Restorer of
Patal Bhuvaneshwar
(A retired Major Genernl claims to have discovered the Patal Bhuwaneshwar caaes in Uttar Pradesh. Initially, he said he would
inoolue himself in social work. Now, he runs a package tour in the area, has turned into a tourist guide and has threatened local
shopkeepers. Protests against his activities haae been unsuccessful because of his clout with the local government anil the goons he has
employed against the villagers.)
otivated by prospects in tourism development in the
Uttarakhand region and after having seized most of
its land areas, bureaucrats and high-ranking officials
are now conspiring to take over places of worship as well. The
renowned cave temple of Patal Bhuvaneshwar in Pithoragarh
District in Uttar Pradesh has become the first victim of one such
conspiracy. Here a retired army Major General, after
constituting a trust, has started commercially exploiting the
caves by means of tourism. In the process, the villagers who
have since centuries depended on the caves for their livelihood
are now deprived of their traditional rights. Not only has the
retired official twisted and misinterpreted the ancient writings
about the caves, proclaiming himself its discoverer and restorer,
but the temple committee further alleges that the foreign
tourists who accompany him engage in polluting activities that
destroy the temple's sanctity.
The way this retired army official has used the establishment's
weak and vulnerable position to his advantage makes an
interesting story. The temple committee's president Dan Singh
Bhandari says that during his tenure in the army, Major General
Taylor made five visits to the caves and also helped in their
electrification. He had the respect of the local people, and
when he expressed his wish to live there after retirement, they
readily agreed. He led them to believe that he would be
involved in some social work.
Soon after, Taylor pointed out that Patal Bhuvaneshwar had no
hotel or dharamshala (rest house) for devotees and visitors and
offered to build one if the committee allotted some land. The
committee in good faith gave him land in the village. Much to
their surprise, after constructing the dharamshala, he Put uP a
board with Patal Bhttoaneshwar Charitable Trust, Satya Sai Baba
Ashrnm written on it.
Since then, his company Rishikesh Package Tours has started
bringing tourists with himself guiding them to the caves.
Accommodating tourists in the Dharamshala and charging
them for it, he has turned it into a hotel. Mr.Bhandari alleges
that since then, tea-stall owners, pujat item sellers and priests
offering prayers in the caves have had difficulty surviving. He
says Taylor charges Rs. 9000 for every tourist who takes his tour
package. Not only does Taylor Prevent the tourists from
buying anything from the local shops, he also does not allow
them to go to Berinag, Gangolihat and other nearby places.
Mr.Bhandari says that he has asked Mr.Taylor not to engage in
such activities many times. The General has instead hired some
local goons who not only terrorise the locals, but also on
occasion threatened to blow up the caves. Once, one of his men
29
assaulted Mr.Bhandari and although the incident was reported
to the police, no action was taken. The temple committee
members had even approached the District Collector and Police
Commissioner with requests to protect the traditional rights of
the village people over the maintenance of the caves.
According to one of the members, Mr.Taylor commands
.
substantial influence over the local government officials, hence,
their demand has gone unheard.
Mr.Taylor has brought out a leaflet on the caves where he has
called himself the caves' restorer. It is said that this leaflet in
English has been distributed in foreign countries and travel
agencies so that more tourists come to Bhuvaneshwar and
profit Mr.Taylor. The leaflet says that in 1989, in his dream
Taylor was asked by Lord Satya Sai Baba to develop and
establish the caves and to bring them to the attention of the rest
of humanity. To prove this entitlement, Mr.Taylor has twisted a
couplet from Manas Khand section of the ancient Hindu
scriptures called Skanda Purana. The literal meaning of the
couplet is - a person named Vatkal would bring God's grace to this
unilerworlil and until then man wouldn't progress here. Further,
after Vatkal has propitiated the Lord, entry of humankind to the
caztes would commence.
However, the leaflet says that in the Satyug period, King
Sheshnag narrated the story of Patal Bhuvaneshwar and said
lhat a brahman2 in military garb would come to this cave and
restore it. Also, the leaflet says that after this explanation by
Sheshnag, the periods of Satyug, Dwapnr, Treta3 have passed
away. No man of this kind has come to these caves. Due to
Satya Sai Baba's blessings, Mr.Taylor is the person who reached
these caves in 1989. Mr.Taylor now claims in this leaflet, to be
the person mentioned in Manaskhand who would bring to light
this cave.
In the leaflet, Mr. Taylor has connected this centuries old cave to
the 50-year old Satya Sai Ashram in South India. Also, the
leaflet quotes weird and sensational experiences of tourists who
accompanied Mr.Taylor. One tourist is quoted as having seen
Major General in the form of Lord Ganesha, while he was
praying in the caves. Other similar things are mentioned in the
leaflet.
It is important to note here that Patal Bhuvaneshwar was an
important centre for the Himalayan Nag rulers whose reign
lasted from 4000 BC to 3200 BC. The caves find mention in
various Hindu religious texts, especially the Skanda Purana,
which offers a vivid description of the caves. Though there is
controversy regarding when the Skanda Purana was written,
the text is at least five hundred years old. Also, Atkinson's
Gazetteer, more than a century old, has a description of the
caves. Historian Badrinath Pandey in The History of Kumaon,
1937, gives a detailed account of the caves.
But no one has called himself its discoverer or restorer the way
Mr.Taylor has. He is combining two different faiths i.e. that of
Patal Bhuvaneshwar and the Sai Baba cult in order to make it a
viable tourist attraction. Sai Baba is renowned for his so-called
miracles, while Patal Bhuvaneshwar is a pilgrim center for
devotees of Lord Shiva. This venture has put strain on the
existing religious faith of Patal Bhuvaneshwar.
Taylor distributes offerings of Satya Sai Baba and publicises
him. Last year, he advertised that through his trust a health 3
camp would be set up in Gangolihat where doctors from
England using modern equipment would treat patients. On
hearing this, people in large numbers reached Gangolihat, but
instead of medical treatment, all they received was Sai Baba's (I(amaan Singh Dhami has translateil this article written by
offerings. Pooran Bishtin Hindifrom Nainital Samachar,May 1997).
vofcrNq
CONCERNS
FOR
DEPLETINq
OCEANS
(Eduardo Faleiro, one of the Vice-Chairmen of the Independent
World Commission on Oceans. says that while importing hi-
technology for' deoelopment' into lnilia's oceans, due consiileration
must be shown.for social concerns and to the fishermen who
constitute 40% oJ the Indian population. He cautions that there must
be a "partnership in technolory", with the dateloped countries, that is
in line with the specific need and financial constraints of deaeloping
countries. Further, he adds, no economy should be entirely deperulent
on tourism, as in Goa. It is a mistake to think that the problems of
deaelopment can be sokted through tourism.)
n alluring Indian legend is on the stirring up of the
oceans by the gods and demons to extract ambrosia,
the elixir of immortality. From this churning, came
forth a tree, animals, a gem, even a goddess, and finally the
magic potion. One wonders with trepidation, what would
happen if this exercise were to be repeated today. What
'treasures' would the gods unearth? Oil spills, inert fish,
dissipated coral, sewage and garbage? The deep respect for the
life principle made ancient man one of the knots of a very
complex web. He realized that he needed to harmonize his
behavior to the eternal law of the universe. Oceans, being
regarded as sacred, meant they had to be preserved and
sustainably utilized, as had to be done with all nature's
elements.
The Independent World Commission on Oceans, established at
the initiative of the UN, UNESCO and the International
30
Frustrated with official apathy for the last two years, the temple
committee, to get rid of General Thylor's acquisition, has taken
a decision to protest publicly. Some active youths from
Gangolihat and Bhuvaneshwar have decided to participate in
the protest. In the first phase of the protest, they plan to lock
the Dharamshala built by Mr. Taylor, and stop his tourists from
entering the caves. But, alongside, the temple committee is
hesitant about the protest being aware of the contacts Mr.Thylor
has among high officials.
L Puja - worship
2 brahman - caste associated with priestly duties forming the apex of
traditional Hindu society
Satyug, Dwapar, Treta and Kaliyug - Periods forming the Hindu
time cycle in which all life is reborn in the beginning of the cycle
and destroved at the end of it.
Institute of Malta, is aiming for just that. With 1998 declared as
the Year of the Oceans, the final report of the Commission is
expected to address issues on resources, sustainable
development and protection of oceans. Eduardo Faleiro, one of
the Vice Chairmen of the Commission, explains that
objective is to seek ways to implement Agenda 21 at Rio which
the
deals with oceans and also to encourage the implementation of
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, with attention to the
problems and needs of developing countries. Projecting a sense
of urgency to fulfill his obligations in a short time, Faleiro, as a
representative of the UN, India's minister of chemicals and
fertilizers in 1993, is now attempting to report on the wastes
being dumped by the polluting industries and other problems
that face Indian coastal management. While the main
objectives of the World Commission are broad-based, primarily
to develop world consciousness on the management of ocean
space and implementing the Law of the Sea, Faleiro is candid
enough to note that India's problems are not going to disappear
so easily. He explains, "The lack of coordination amongst the
multiple authorities, creates problems for implementation of
ocean management. The home ministries, environment
ministry, defense, state governments and so many more
authorities are working at cross-purposes with each other. So
how can things get moving? He is presently recommending a
coordinating authority for ocean management chaired by the
Prime Minister at the helm. That the needs of the developing
and the developed countries are far from similar, Faleiro is
clear.
"We cannot forget the social concerns in developing nations, a
primary need. While we look at hi-technology f.or
'development'as the developed nations are doing, we will first
need to see whether that would help our traditional fishermen
who constitute 40 per cent of India's population," he said.
Already, efforts to upgrade skills of fishermen facing
competition from trawlers, are underway in India. Land to
shore communication equipment to prevent accidents at sea
and boxes to preserve fish have been provided. This may seem
back to the middle ages for the North, but remains a priority to
traditional fishermen dependent on their living from the seas.
Global warming has created problems for neighboring islands
such as the Maldives and Bangladesh, with increase in floods
and water levels rising.
With the launch of an association of Indian Ocean Rim
Countries for regional cooperation, Faleiro explains, there is an
urgent need to consolidate the approach of Indian Ocean rim
countries, distinct from other nations.
India's regional seminar being held in New Delhi in September
will focus on partnership in ocean governance and the
challenges science and technology pose for the region. It is not
as though the twain shall never meet. Faleiro stresses that the
days of transfer of technology are gone, and he will soon be
attending a seminar on "partnership in creating technology "
with his North counterparts. "Technology will now have to be
in line with specific needs and financial restraints of developing
countries." What does he recognize as issues of national
concern? Pat comes the answer, "The management of living
marine resources is extremely complex and involves many
biological, economic, social, and political factors. The
unfortunate reality is that we are not in a position to exercise
the high standard of pollution controls. Nor can we afford to
shut down polluting industries like chemicals and fertilizers, as
these would need high investments. Poverty in India, is
therefore the biggest polluter."
The impact of megacities on coasts, maritime hazards, shrimp
aquaculture and management of living resources, he says are
(The following is an extract from the keynote address by Ms.Nina
Rao for the Workshop on Women and Tourism organised by
In s ti t u te o f Man ag em en t i n G o ve rn m en t, T hirua an an thap ur am
held from 21-23 luly 7997 at Kochi, Kerala. The workshop was aimed
at the women panchayat members of Kerala. It sought to focus on
the links between ?oomen and tourism in Kerala.)
The Government of Kerala has taken a policy decision to
develop tourism. The tourism Programme has grown very
rapidly, as the figures for tourist arrivals in the state indicate.
The growth has covered both inbound and outbound
international tourism as well as the arrival of domestic tourists
to Kerala. The Department of Tourism at the State level has
also taken up Central Government projects and following from
the National Action Plan, Kerala was the first state to identify a
special tourism area, Bekal, to be developed with foreign
investment into a big mass tourism project, to help India
achieve its 5 million arrivals and access higher returns in
foreign exchange. None of these developments have involved
discussion and debate at the state or local level. These have
been administrative decisions, and when the secretary, tourism
was questioned on the undemocratic manner in which tourism
decisions were taken, he saw the issue of tourism as beyond the
comprehension of local people. On the other hand, foreign
experts were invited to suggest how and what kind of tourism
should be developed in Kerala, which had had very little
37
central issues. A keen individualist, underneath Faleiro's
serious demeanor lies a purity of purpose. On the growth of
tourist facilities in Goa and other beach states, he says, " No
economy should be entirely depbndent on tourism. A place
ceases to be exotic once exposed. The result usually is a spoilt
habitat. It is a mistake to expect tourism to solve our problems
of developmen!."
Faleiro, shares a deep affection for the oceans as a professional
diver. Diving, to him, is "like being in a very large aquarium."
Having dived in the best of places like the Philippines,
Seychelles, Thailand, he regrets that India's vast coastline has
no coral as it has all been plundered and destroyed. Though he
claims to have less time on his hands now, he adds that
Andaman and Lakshadweep islands still have beautiful clean
water with good opportunities for diving.
"Let's hope we can keep them that way." What of the future of
the oceans in 2010?" "There is a lot of work to be done in terms
of coastal management in India." Does he conjure impossible
dreams? With crisp, analytical capability, he adds, "No, only
practical ones."
This article by Neelam Mathews appeared in the Earth Times,
April L997.
exposure since the Kovalam Beach Resort never realised the
potential of international arrivals, being overshadowed by Goa.
Today, the tourism policy of the government visualises many
new products and new players in the sphere of tourism. These
include new beach resorts, hill and wildlife as the basis for
adventure tourism, special tourism areas for intensive
development, backwater cruising and festivals that package the
culture and craft of Kerala for the benefit of the tourist. Every
district now has a privately sponsored tourism festival, which
often contravenes the Coastal Zone Regulation as it promotes
tourism awareness. The second aspect of the tourism policy is
the dependence on the private sector to develop the
infrastructure and the superstructure for tourism and its related
activity. Today, the Kerala Government, Tatas and the Casino
Group are the major players in tourism development and they
have an understanding of tourism that does not look beyond
the commercial aspect of tourism development. There is also
the desire to invite foreign investment for large-scale
development to increase the number of arrivals from abroad to
enhance foreign exchange earnings.
An intervention in policy making by office bearers of local self-
government bodies who can function in the interest of local
people is essential. This can be effective only when they have
an enlightened awareness on the developmental options that
the government offers to the people of the state. When
EQUATIONS began to acquaint itself with the Bekal
development plan, it was surprising for us to learn that not a
single panchayat opposed tourism development because the
thrust of the government's propaganda was that tourism
generated income and employment'
Several studies relating to tourism development in Kerala
indicate that the socio-cultural impacts of tourism have been
very negative, partitularly, relating to the issue of drugs and
prostitution. Tourism projects have also displaced local people
and affected their traditional occupations. The environmental
impacts of tourism have also been negative particularly in the
coastal zone and in the hills. Tourism needs regulation rather
than promotion. Not only regulation, but the issue of tourism
needs to be debated so that there are people-centred objectives
rather than growth-centered objectives. Unless the people of
Kerala arrive at some consensus on the kind of tourism they
want to develop to achieve economic objectives, the control of
outsiders, multinationals, international agencies and the
monopoly houses in India will not end.
One area that needs to be focussed on is the issue of gender and
tourism. Women panchayat members, being leaders of their
communities, have the added task of familiarising themselves
with the gender issues that emerge in the developmental
debate, since most planners are male and most models are male
dominated.
India is a gendered society, which means that human relations
in economic, social and cultural life, as well as in the political
framework are determined and mediated by gendered
perceptions. To clarify further, geniler does not mean only-the
differlnce between men and women biologically but on their
human relations being based on the status of women in'iciety
and therefore the perceptions of their social role and function.
Tourism and the industry that supports it, as well as the
administration that encourages its development, growth and
expansion, is an interpersonal activity which is influenced by
and in turn influences local and global gender perceptions.
There is a list of global perceptions that have been researched,
to develop a gender framework, for analysing developmental
activity particularly tburism.
1. Tourism as a part of modern consumerism: Consumerism
embodies social practices as well as signifies social change.
As leisure time and wealth increase, tourism consumption
also increases. As expansion reaches the remotest corners of
the world, the marketing and consumption models between
guests and hosts have indicated several possibilities for
gender analysis. Power, control and equality in tourism are,
irticulated through race, class and gender in the practice of
tourism. Men and women through interconnected economic,
political, cultural, social and environmental dimensions are
involved in different ways in the construction and
consumption of tourism. It is the recognition of these
differing realities that shape tourism marketing, tourist
motivation, and resident action. This process may be called
the creation of stereotypes. For example, in all Asian
societies where traditional society is intersecting with global
economic systems, we have seen that the major public role
of women in the tourism industry is in sex tourisrn. The
faster the process of liberalisation and globalisation, the
greater the spread of sex tourism.
32
2. Tourism as an aid to development: Women activists have
always seen the statistical approach to tourism as apolitical.
If tourism is seen as an activity that depends on leisure time
and disposable income, then the enabling conditions are
hierarchical and influenced by class and global economic
strengths. In tourism advertising women are seen as
passive, available and dependent. Women are thus sexual
and exotic markers in the tourism brochure. Destinations
reinforce this stereotype not only of the resident community
as a whole (poor and ready to serve) but also of the women
as inferior or as objects of gratification or as playthings.
3. Tourism and Division of Labour: Tourism, like other
activities, perpetuates the international and domestic
division of labour. This means that there are gendered
employment activities (cooking, cleaning, serving,
handicraft etc.) as well as control of waged work. There is
also no computation of unpaid labour by women. The
question that tourism raises is that women do not have
leisure from certain types of work, and this compulsory,
unpaid labour is extended to their working life as well as
economic opportunity. Tourism encourages classifications
like women's work.
4. Tourism development and its influence on changing value
systems: Tourism is an essentially modern activity that
promotes 'tradition' as a unique and authentic product. In
this process of commodification, not only is it important to
define the other, but to define the gendered other. These
changes are reflected in identification with tourist
behaviour, changes in family systems, age and sex
hierarchies in the struggle for economic power as well as
changes in the social and political status of different sexes in
different classes and different production systems'
5. Tourism and environmenft What is our relationship to the
environment, how do we use these resources, how can we
regulate the consumption driven nature of tourism and how
can traditional practices be documented and compared with
the approach of providers of tourism services, is now being
looked at. For example, it is suggested that as agriculture
becomes less productive, tourism (rural, farm, beach or
resort) becomes a valuable alternative because it allows a
combination of domestic responsibilities of women (which
are nurturing as well as reproductive), lyith tourism work,
which is seen as an income source that can support small
scale farming and thus conserve the countryside' Such an
approach suggests that there is a need to change (through an
external intervention) women's relationship with nature, the
environment and their place in the ecological system.
Our perspective must include certain issues. For instance, the
division between one who enters the business and earns an
income from it and one who is displaced. The latter has to
move away, adapt to a new location and find new survival
strategies on how to access new resources, For example,
tobacco, coconut harvesting, fish sorting and processing are
women-dominated activities in Bekal. Tourism is a loss of
income for them and does not use their traditional expertise.
Neither does it provide them compensation or retraining or re-
employment.
Then there is the time element in tourism benefits trickling
down. The deterioration of traditional communities and their
activities is faster and the upward mobility slower. This is
because tourism is established for the high spenders and in the
organised sector, rather than in the informal sector. Similarly, in
the handicrafts production industry, market forces demand
mechanisation, which results in the retrenchment of women
workers, who are then shifted to finishing, which is lower paid.
Soon this process is also mechanised and women have to look
elsewhere for jobs.
At the social level, tourism has forced middle class families to
send their girls (aged 9-12 years) away from Kovalam, so that
they are known as the Kovalam girls whom no one wishes to
marry since the reputation of the beach resort for prostitution
brings dishonour to the whole community. Honour of the
family and the community in gendered societies rests in the
chastity of the women of the household, the village or the
township. Domestic tourism is also predominantly single male
tourism, which encourages prostitution. Indian women are not
encouraged to travel on their own. Tourist behaviour is seen to
be unsafe for women who are the repositories of the family's
honour and the tourism Process may bring dishonour. This
need for safety and security is not met for women in Indian
,,W,
It is upon these questions that we need to focus on, bring in
support for women's organisations and see that the tourism
issue is put on their agenda and that we adopt their
understanding on women's issues in our agenda. There is need,
therefore, to build a data base and alliances with different'
sections of the government, the industry and social activists and
concerned citizen groups to study the issue of tourism and debate
the model being implemented in Kerala. Information and
awareness is not only to be based on the motivations of the
tourists and their need for services and products. It is to be based
on the needs of the people and their perceptions of how tourism
is to be developed and what benefits are to be derived. We must
also be made aware of the negative consequences of tourism.
Finally, there is the issue of income generation as the only
measure of development. Income, particularly in the case of
tourism, is not stable, not under the control of the hosts, but
manipulated by the trade. Secondly, income alone need not
33
society although it is seen as the duty of the men in the family.
The changes that tourism introduces benefit those sections that
are a part of the new land use pattern. This is generally the
educated, urban middle class. Since the middle class owns
land, it recognises and promotes money as an indicator of
status, aspiration etc. However, the landless, the poor and the
small peasants are also looking for an opportunity, therefore
they look at the panchayat plan and the government policy for
such openings. Rural women, though educated do not find the
time or the money to attend courses or find employment in the
travel trade. They have to await the establishment of the
services in the organised sector and then find employment at
the lowest level. The policy and the People's Plan look at basic
needs like roads, drinking water and have now included
tourism, but there is no support in the policy for the informal
sector in tourism. Similarly, when a district, like Wynad, is
declared a tourism district by doing an audit of its resources for
tourism, does the developer and the planner focus on the needs
of the tribal, the migrant, the agriculturist, the plantation owner
or the women who need an income supplement? Or is the focus
on the tourist and the industry? What happens to the demands
and needs of women and their role in development?
indicate growth or mobility because income is only one relation
in the production-consumption process, and its impact on
interconnected social issues need not be productive or liberating.
As far as the issue of foreign exchange eamings is concerired, one
must examine how global economy and lifestyle affects the
individual and the community. In what way does it to bring
women more power, influence and prosperity? In what way
does it bring freedom to them? Does income or foreign exchange
change the gendered perceptions of society to transform the
social position of women? Attempting to answer these questions
and issues will be the first step in the direction of empowering
panchayat women as they plan not only for today but also for the
future because once the engines of tourism have been set in
motion, it will be difficult to stop them.
Nina Rao teaches tourism at the College of Vocational Studies,
University of Delhi, New Delhi. She is also a member of the
P rogramme Sub-Commit tee ol EQUAT ION S.

Tourism and
the Imperial Gaze
By ROSE De NEVE
(The
following article appeared in Seminar, Issue 45i
of May 1997. Seminar is a journal that seeks to reflect
throughfree iliscussion, eaery shade of lndian thought
anil aspiration. Each issue deals with a single problem
that is debated by writers belonging to dffirent persuasions. Both
lt
political and non-political specinlists voice their views. helps
thinking people arrioe at a certain degree of cohesion and clarity in
facing problems of economics, politics and culture.)
When I first traveled to India in 1979,I was, like many first-
time visitors, full of ideas about how India was to be seen and
experienced. I had read many novels and travelogues written
by Westerners as well as by Indians. But, however much my
head may have been filled with romantic, orientalist fantasies
about India, most of these expectations had been constructed
fromoisual texts - images built in my mind from descriptions of
things seen and more importantly, images directly infused from
lavish picturebooks, travel-guide photography and tourist
brochures produced by the Government of India.
As might be expected, that first trip to India produced the
exotic experiences I was determined to see. In fact, it was only
after many more years and many more visits to India that I
began to understand tourism imagery as part of a much larger
visual discourse about India dating to colonial times.
As windows on an acfual world, visual representations seem to
communicate reality. While literary texts use a series of verbal
images to create what Roland Barthes has called a 'reality
effect', visual images such as paintings, photographs and
cinematic frames communicate their information at a glance.
Although it may be said that modernist and post modernist art
comprises of less rationalized representations of an artist's view
of the worltl, more naturalistic images - those created through a
unified Renaissance perspective - provide a seeming continuum
of space and depth. Such images collapse time and distance re-
presenting another place, another time, in the here-and-now.
Such 'painted text', as Dunning calls works of this nature,
'presupposes, perhaps even "constructs", a specific kind of
viewer... who stands in one specific location and visually
extends a sense of self through a window-like transparent
picture plane into illusionistic pictorial space...'
However much a psychological manipulation, the ability of
paintings, photographs, and other naturalistic representations
to transport the viewer into an illusory world is neither a classical Orientialists were antiquities, scriptures, languages
harmless excrcise in fantasy nor an innocuous venture into
captured reality. A viewer's serial yet disjointed encounters
with individual drawings, paintings, or photographs (which,
along with film, are the most convincing visual reality bites to
date) tend to disguise the fact that, despite being products of
individual points of view, visual representations are like written
texts: They are always conceived within larger, culturally
embedded systems of knowledge and meaning. Within such
systems, visual imagery works to continually reaffirm a British artists brought with them when they first arrived in
34
culturally accepted way of interpreting the world. As Salman
Rushdie has observed, '(w)orks of art... do not come into being
in a social and political vacuum;... the way they operate in a
society cannot be separated from politics, from history.'
The photographs of India that today adorn gallery walls,
illuminate lavishly produced art books and illustrate countless
tourism promotions and travel guides are embedded in a
narrative of travel and otherness that dates at least from the
time of the 5th century Greek traveller Herodotus, whose
Histories described and compared dozens of different cultures
and built the model for centuries of future travelogues.
Whatever the European point of origin for such wayfarers, the
bases of comparison was an assumed common European
culture that was central and superior; other cultures were
marked by varying degrees of aberration, or difference.
While Herodotus is reputed to have been more or less realistic
in his presentations, later travellers were not always so reliable.
Until the 15th century, few raconteurs were concerned with the
accuracy of their accounts; stories were both 'factual' and
allegorical, and it didn't matter if the line between the two
became blurred. Accuracy was a matter of concern for scholars;
for the general public, it was enough to hear and know about
the marvelous - and terrible - places beyond the European pale.
As travellers'stories were compiled, accounts became more and
more fabulous. Writers borrowed freely from one another,
choosing from a shared vocabulary and understanding of the
world, filling in from others' accounts what they themselves
had not seen. A few of these travelogues were translated into
several European languages and assumed significant textual
authority.
One such volume is particularly germane to a discussion of
visual representations of India. If Europe was the center of
civilization (a word used in the singular the 18th century), then
Marvels of the East was aveitable compendium of fable and lore
about life at the margins of civilization; it served as a resource
and reference for anyone undertaking a narrative about the
easternmost edges of the world. The notion of 'East' itself was
somewhat vague: it was less important as a particular place
than as a place 'not here', an'Elsewhere'where the grotesque
could and did exist. According to Maraels,India was a land
rich in gold, which was mined from anthills. Its people were
diverse - some dot-headed, others with huge feet which also
served as umbrella, in southern India, they were cannibals.
Accompanying the text - which described lndia as the farthest
East and most Elsewhere - were copious and fantastic illustra-
tions that offered visual proof of the otherness that was India.
By the early 18th century, European study and description of
the Oriental as ' other' was beginning to be defined as the
scholarly discipline of Orientalism. Within this discipline,
individual fields such as Egyptology and Indology studied
particular places and peoples. Of particular interest to such
and literatures. For in these, Orientalists believed, were
contained the secrets of a true Oriental essence. Often, as in
the case of India, such study revealed much to be admired by
European scholars. In any event, the formalized knowledge
produced by such scholars in India ultimately became the basis
of British rule of the Indian subcontinent.
It was this centuries-old Orientalist legacy that the professional
India toward the close of the 18th century. As they travelled
and sketched their way around the subcontinent, the Orientalist
construction of India as a land lost in antiquitp with people
who were both backward and exotic, was well-matched with
the artistic predilections of the picturesque genre, which
favored vast vistas, light-struck skies, crumbling ruins and
quaint people. Moreover, there was in both their viewpoint and
their paintings, a sense of loss, of a longing for a simpler, more
naturalistic life. As Nochlin observes, the appeal and romance
of all paintings of the Picturesque genre were in fact predicated
on incipient destruction of a people and a way of life that
belonged to earlier times. Accounting to earlier British
painting, India was a place where incredibly luminescent
landscapes were littered with the ruins of architectural
monuments to a romantic past. Indians were a colourful and
exotic people stuck in time, in a mould that was about to be
altered forever by the very people who were painting them.
But professional artists were not the only ones to observe
India's land and people through the eyes of European artistic
tastes and conventions; they merely joined the ranks of various
amateur artists already in the British East India. Company
officials and army officers had received training in watercolour
painting as part of their official education before going to India
or at the company's college in Hileybury' The more sensitive
and intellectual of these often spent their leisure hours making
drawings and paintings, including oils of the Indian country
side wherever they were posted. As Britain's commercial
empire expanded across the subcontinent, more surveyors and
artists made their way into the interior' Indeed, for efficient
rule and expansions of both commerce and Empire, there was
nothing like information gleaned by direct contact, observation
and quantification, and professional artists were certainly part
of that empiricist effort, making 'the Indian world' visible and
usable for British capitalism.
British paintings and drawings of India from the Picturesque
period fall into two broad categories - landscapes and portraits'
Both received an enthusiastic reception among Britons in India.
They also found wide appreciation in Britain, where a growing
middle-class was becoming enamoured with the idea of an
Indian Empire. British artists usually came to India for a few
years, travelled widely, and sketched and painted along the
way. Work that were not sold in India were taken back to
England, where they were transcribed into engravings for mass
distribution and publication in travel books' It was these
reproductions that defined how India looked for the mass of the
British population and brought the picturesque interpretation
of India into the realms of public culture and popular travel
imagery.
The first artist of renown to paint India was William Hodges
(1744-97), who confessed to a fascination with the quality of
Indian light and whose landscapes often used exaggerated
proportions to enhance the emotional appeal of monuments
and ruins. Following Hodges were the uncle and nephew team
of Thomas and William Daniell 17769-1'8371who spent eight
years in India using a cAmera obscura to accurately outline
picturesque Indian moments. They travelled with a large
retinue, making many drawings to be completed or turned into
paintings later, at leisure. The duo not only produced many
oils during their stay, but also built up a massive collection of
drawings, which permitted them to continue 'painting India'
for the rest of their lives. Once back in England, 144 of their
views were published in a renowned collection of aquatints
entitled Oriental Scenery whose popularity as collector's items
continues today.
The influence of the Daniells and the Picturesque artists who
followed (among them Charles D'Oyly, James Baillie Fraser,
Lt.Colonel Charles Forrest, Ezekial Barton, and |ames Manson)
on the popular understanding of India should not be
under,estimated. Their method of working and their completed
artworks suggest that while architectural detail may have been
more or less faithfully rendered, much that was atmospheric of
a place called India was added later, from memory or
imagination. This Picturesque atmosphere - achieved through
the selection of romantic subject matter, a formal composition,
the painterly play of light and shadow, and the inclusion of
culturally recognized icons of India such as caparisoned
elephants or turbaned peasants - soon came to define India in
the larger European imagination.
It is important to note that Indians Present in these early
pictorials were generally rendered small, naturalized as if part
of the landscape. Actual portraits of Indians produced during
this same period were most often of nauabs, rujahs, or other
members of Indian royalty including courtiers. These paintings
were popular among Britons for two reasons: their subject
matter appealed to the European/Orientalist taste for colourful
costumes and exotic raiment and the princes themselves often
paid the artist a handsome fee. Since portraying Indian women
of good families was problematic (most kept purdah and most
British painters were men), the Indian dancing girl came to
stand for Indian womanhood, now essentialized into something
both exotic and available.
However, paintings were also made of more common Indian
folk. Indeed, following a concurrent trend in England in which
artists travelled the countryside documenting various England
'types', artists like Arthur William Devis (1762-1822) scoured
India and visually described a range of indigenous occupations,
portraying weavers/ braziers potters, and other natives in
scrupulous detail. Such visual evidence of Indian life added
weight to the drawing made by countless travellers, civil
administrators and military officials, whose view and accounts
of Indian village life in particular served as a basis of rule
throughout the British period.
Through the first half of the 19th century the East India
company pushed further up the Ganges down the Deccan. By
. 1825 also idea of India was beginning to lose some of its
fascination for Britons back home. More people were coming
out to India and more people were already familiar with what
India looked like. In addition due to reforms in Company rule
and the influx of more British women, British attitudes toward
India were becoming less sympathetic. Finally, British policy
toward Indians themselves was beginning to change.
But changes in the economic, social and political circumstances
of British rule did not significantly affect the way the British -
and the rest of the Western world saw and pictured India, for a
visual reality called India had already been well defined.
Moreover, its mechanical dissemination continued unabated. tn
Britain there grew a fascination with travel books whose
narratives told tales of journeys through far away places.
Drawings and paintings made in India between 1770 and 1825
now found publication as engravings and aquatints illustrating
these works as well as ir,r various loose-leaf editions that were
sold as series subscriptions. Through such works, armchair
35
 travellers stepped into the shoes, as it were, of the artist
traveller, sharing with him (for these artists were by and large
males) the Orientalist's imperial gaze. And through such works,
the larger population acguired 'knowledge' of what India and
Indians looked like.
With the invmtion of the camera around 1840, photography became
the medium of preference for official and amateur documentation
of the world. Not insignificantly, ib very mechanism incorporated
the convmtions of the Renaissance perspective alrcady favoured by
the naturalistic artists of the Picturesque. For India watchers, the
camera's unquestioned realism nnd the ready acceptance of what
it 'saw' as truth, put forth a particularly convincing view of an
Indian reality. As concurrrent trends in painting took artistic works
into more abstract and impressionistic directions, the Picturesque
convention visually representing India crystallized in this new
medium.
Since that time photographers have continued to produce
picturesque images of India. British and other Western
travellers have continued to portray and document Indian
people, places and historical events. Indians themselves have
been part of this process, both as travelling photographers and
as (presumably) willing subjects. What is most striking,
perhaps, is how so many of those views - colonial and
postcolonial, painterly and photographic, European and tndian
- use the same Picturesque notions of light and composition,
romance and timelessness, to depict much the same Indian
subject matter.
Given the circumstances of their production and use, it should
perhaps come as no surprise that official views of India and its
people produced by the Govemment of India today incorporate
'much the same orientalizing strategies as did earlier British
views. British subjugation of India included tb.e colonizing of
minds as well as territories and upper class Indians, into whose
hands the departing colonizers delivered a newly independent
India, had been schooled in British ways. Their collaboration
with the British rulers and their selective adoption of British
customs and mores may have been aimed at securing their own
positions in the ruling class of the emergent Indian state, and
the subsequent promulgation of European values by the post-
colonial state, have served to both perpetuate and
recontextualise what were once colonialist practices.
Along one thread of this multi-stranded modern discourse,
Indian officials (who are in large part still English-medium
educated members of the upper-classes) produce photographs
of their own traditional Others - tribals, ethnics, outcastes, and
religious minorities - and the lands on which they live. Some
of these views are made for purposes of information or
surveillance, as in the collection of photographs of tribals and
their villages. by Indian sociologists and government workers;
many more images are made to visually record and project
lndia's ethnic diversity for the piurposes of tourism.
Another strand of visual representation links the 'discovery',
excavation, identification and categorization of Indian
buildings and monuments by the British with the expansion of
the British empire and with public works projects, the
establishment of the Archaeological Survey of tndia (ASI), and
the incorporation of any numbcr of disparate, multi-historied
structures into a single, unified history of India. Today, such
structures are primary tourist sites,/sights, embodying for both
international and domestic travellers a kind of eternal essence
35
that is generally recognized as India. More significantly,
drawings and photographs of these buildings figure pro-
minently in the historical development of popular tourguides,
as well as in government marketing of travel to India.
But the images of tourism advertising are not just reiterations of
Britain's pretty, if imperializing, pictures. Because of their wide
dissemination in tourism literature and other forms of
mechanical reproduction, touristic images also serve a larger,
more nationalistic purpose. Many of the Indian tourism
officials indicated that for them, such images call forth the real
strength and integrity of the Indian state. Not just an
orientalist's nostalgia for a distant, glorious past, their sense of
who they are as individuals and as a nation - their sense of
Indianness, as one informant put it - dwells in the very stones
of India's landscapes, in its historical buildings and monuments
and in the customs of its traditional people. For them, the type
of visual irnagery commonly associated with tourism - whether
or not it evolved from a more imperialistic time- most clearly
communicates not only what tourists expect to see, but what
India and Indians are all about, for Indians as well as for
international travellers.
Clearly then, tourism and tourism imagery contribute to the
larger proiect of Indian national integration. For a nation-state
with dozens of languages and dialects and a highly stratified
econom, the idea of India as a historically integrated unit has
great emotional appeal. From dancing Orissi women to the
massive desert forts of Rajasthan, from processions of
caparisoned.elephants to temples crowded along the Ganges,
touristic imagery for many Indians seems to answer their
government's call for unity in diversity. More important,
because visual imagery is so widespread and crosses
boundaries raised by geography, class, and illiteracy, it serves to
both capture and reflect something of the essence of the
imagined community that is modern India.
Such visual representations, of course, are not unproblematic.
Like the paintings produced by British artists during the colonial
period, contemporary views of India are likely to be produced by
members of privileged classes and predicated on incipient
destruction: exotic, traditionalized peoples who so neatly oppose
Westernized upper class Indians are often the very targets of
mainstreaming development schemes devised by the state. [n
addition, touristic images tend to hide the presence of the
modernity that already exists in modern India. As early
paintings often did not include a British presence, contemporary
touristic images seldom include Westemized Indians, much less
the factories, roads, power plants or other evidence of the modem
India they have built. fust as early British paintings masked the
violence perpetrated against India and her peoples in the name of
the empire, so too these newer images hide the oppression and
poverty experienced by those Others who have been consigned to
the margins of Indian society.
Despite the fact that roads, radios, satellite television,
education, political campaigns and emigration link rural India
with urban centers and with the rest of the world, touristic
imagery continues to represent all Indians as time-bpund and
untouched by modern civilization. Finally, whatever their
stated purpose, touristic images too easily lead viewers toward
a romanticized Pichrresque understanding of India, away from
the larger intersections of global capitalism, international
tourism and a bureaucratic state that also constitute their
frames. B

A Letter to DQUATIONS
(Thefollowing is a letter from Guido who writes about his
impressions of Koaalam, which he oisited more than once
and found different each time.)
Dear EQUATIONS Team,
henI left you the last time you asked me to
write down a brief opinion about Kovalam,
while I'm there. This is hardly possible for me.
Or saying it in another way, it wouldn't be fair
to tell you my opinion without telling you how I built my
opinion.
This is the fourth time I am coming to Kovalam. Each time I
have had a different opinion about this place. This is not due to
radical changes in the place, but because I have myself
changed. The first time I came was in 1989 and I liked the place
very much. This was possible because of the time I had before.
I was coming down from Bombay in three weeks. What
probably happens to every Western man or women travelling in
a Third World country the first time happened to me also: the
culture shock. Without any knowledge about Indians I couldn't
describe many of the things I saw. I also couldn't understand
most of the people good enough. And after some "Rip-offs" I
saw a gangster in every person the first few days. And still for
some days, I was always accompanied by a feeling of not
knowing how to behave. When I left my hotel room, I always
had these feelings - a mixture of fear, excitement and the
impression that every step of mine is watched, which made me
feel even more unsafe. I think that feeling was stronger because
I was travelling with a girl, a young feminist woman, who
described all men looking at her as sexist. In Kovalam, it was
different. For the first time we could relax in public because the
presence of hundreds of Westerners made us feel more secure.
Even the Kovalam people behaved in a way more familiar to
us. (But then, Kovalam is not India).
My girlfriend calmed down a lot and we had a good time.
After leaving Kovalam, we felt more confident about how we
were expected to behave or understand things. Every
Westerner takes some time to feel comfortable.
The next time I came to India, I felt more familiar as soon as we
left the airport. But I saw now that my friend needed six weeks
to enjoy travelling. When I came to Kovalam this time, I didn't
like it any more. Since my last journey in 1989 I had started
studying about India and so I felt like an experienced traveller.
I was prepared to face situations like how to behave as a tourist
in different situations. In many places in Europe, I felt ashamed
by the behaviour of other (German) tourists. This time, I was in
Kovalam for four days, looking for places with less tourism. I
made the decision not to go to Kovalam again. In 1995, we had
this big excursion from the university. We planned to go to
Srilanka. I studied about tourism for a year and a half. Our
group of four people planned a survey on a (WTO) masterplan
37
project. Four months before leaving we decided to go to South
India because of the political situation in Sri Lanka. Our group
decided to go to Kovalam. Within ten days, (a short time to
plan) we made a map and tried to find out more. We also tried
to study ourselves as a tourist by writing diaries and talking
about our feelings as tourists.
With my further studies about India and also about tourism I
felt differently about everything. That time, I didn't feel
ashamed by the behavior of the other tourists because I had the
privilege of not feeling like a tourist because of my scientific
purpose. For the same reason, I wasn't disappointed by the
rapid changes that took place here (Paradise Losf). On the other
hand, we found enough things to criticise, (many due to the
uncontrolled development of the place which seemed to have
got worse in the new liberalised India.) And this time I also
became friendly with one local who was also very helpful with
our studies (and was a good reason to go back to Kovalam.)
At home again I had a lot of things to think of while writing our
report and my dissertation. Now it is a little different again.
I'm sitting in one of these beach restaurants now. Today a new
group from England has arrived. Next to me, two old English
couples just bought three lungis for Rs.500. On the beach, a
group of five young male tourists are shouting at lungisellers
and some children in a very unfriendly way. Both produce
negative feelings in me. But the worst this time is to see all
these children on the beach after reading a lot about child
prostitution and child labour. I didn't expect the ecology
degradation by tourism in Kovalam to be solved. There is still
a lot of waste and waste-burning and the water and sewage is
still a problem.
Last year while I was looking at all the rooms, I was shocked to
see so many water-wasting Western toilets. I think 95% of the
700 tourists are staying in such rooms. The possibility of
resting rooms in local houses has became very scarce because
these local house-holders are forced out of business and are no
longer land-owners. Tourists who prefer such establishments,
perhaps for saving resources or saving money or just because
they like the simple lifestyle, have become even more rare.
There are no alternatives in Kovalam.
The water is bad, the scenery has degenerated because of too
many buildings (and too many people). There is no escape
from business. (What a holiday saying 350 times a day "no,
thank you, sir"!)
I expect quite a big deal of state capital is produced in Kovalam
and it is a pity that the Government hasn't improved the
facilities here. It is getting worse every year. The losers in the
tourist business are the locals (or the majority of them).
Hopefully the "big money" leaves the informal sector for a
while. What will happen in the future I cannot imagine. May
be it is possible to go on with charter tourism for a while rather
than with discos and bars. Sooner or later it becomes a resort
for Indian-middle class tourists. I will be still interested in
what is going on here.
Yours sincerely,
Guido
(Guido Frenzel is a tourist from Germany who uisited Koaalam
several times and noticed changes over this period there.)
oHE FoLLOWTNG rS rlrE EprTOBrAr FROM BrTS. llrFoRI rDil
The WTO
nrud
rhe Socinl Divrrrusior,r of Tounisvr
By Francesco Frangialli, Secretary General of WTO
s social tourism a concept that has had its day? Does it
represent yesterday's idea at the time when, in many areas,
and especially that of access to leisure, it was appropriate to
correct the inequalities of economic growth?
I do not believe so. And for two reasons. Firstly, because in
post-industrial societies, the number of holiday departures
does, certainly continue to rise, but less rapidly than previously.
Holidays, though they are increasing in number, are becoming
shorter. Less costly forms of tourism, in
accommodation and leisure activities in rural surrounding are
becoming befter established. The additional expenses, over and
above the costs of accommodation and travel, go down. But
above all, the percentage of holiday departures has reached a
plateau, and is even falling sometimes, indicating the
limitations of the social and cultural model of the 'glorious
thirty days'.
Some social groups - poor urban populations, workers affected
by or threatened by unemployment, immigrant populations,
inhabitants of declining rural areas are left by the wayside.
Apart from the unlikely return of strong economic growth and
a perceptible drop in under-employment, they have no hope of
gaining access themselves to holidays and leisure activities.
But above all, the function of the development and
integration of tourism has taken on a new dimension; this
function no longer applies to the industrialized world
alone; it is transposed to the scale of human society in its
entirety; it affects a growing number of countries at
different economic stages.
In the new.destinations in which it is establishing itself today,
tourism is amply discharging its function as development.
Where tourism moves forward, poverty is in retreat. On the
other hand, it is very bad at carrying out its duties to bring
integration and social commitment. Whole regions and large
social groups either remain sidelined or even suffer harmful
effects: very insecure conditions for
exploitation of children, prostitution, serious weakening of
traditional communities, impoverishment of. cultural
traditions, standardization of craft output, deterioration of the
environment at scenic tourist spots, natural open spaces and
the maior monuments. It is only right, therefore, in the spirit
of Agenda 21, applied to the new countries opening up to
tourism, to look for a restoration of the balance - in other
words, achieving a more sustainable development, which has
greater respect for people and the natural environment, and is
culturally and socially richer.
ilO.29 APRIL-JUNE 1904.
Within this dual perspective, the World Tourism Organization
wishes to cooperate with its affiliated member, the International
Bureau for Social Tourism. I propose that this strengthened
collaboration should take on three aspects.
Firstly, in continuing to assert, loud and strong, the social and
cultural dimension of touristic development. The WTO,
together with the Philippine government, has just done this in a
formal manner, by orginizing, on22May lSS7, in Manila, a
particular, major conference on the social impact of tourism, which
brought together 250 participants, 25 of them government
ministers, from 64 countries.
The Declaration which was adopted there constitutes the first
step in the process of drawing up a new major benchmark
document which we are setting ourselves the task of drawing
up over the coming two years, and submitting to our 1999
AGM. This new code of practice will replace the code
published by the WTO in 1985. Its aim will be to trace the
outlines of a socially and culturally balanced tourist
development for the 21st century. My keen wish is that BITS
will involve itself alongside the WTO in this ambitious move.
The second line of cooperation would be take a better measure
for today of the benefits and limitations of the democratization of
holidays. It would be helpful, for instance, if one day the 'Report
on Human Development' of the UN Programme for
Development could incorporate, alongside the economic,
demographic and socioculfural elements that it already contains,
an aspect on leisure activities. A table of this kind would have to
be drawn up for regions of the world and country by country.
Indeed, it is from a better assessment of the current situation with
its inequalities and inadequacies that it will be possible to make a
clear statement of the conditions for making new advances in
access to free time and holidays for all. Lastly, in the spirit of the
BITS Montreal Declaration of September L996, we should work
on the modemization and the adaptation of the concept of social
tourism properly so called. The issues involved are huge,
wage-earners, whether we are talking about adapting the existing stock of
accommodation, or again the modemization and propagation of
mechanisms for direct aid for taking holidays. A recent seminar,
jointly organized by the WTO and BITS in St Petersburg, touched
on these crucial matters. My wish is that its conclusions should
serve as a leverage-point for giving a new impetus for
cooperation between our two organizations.
Through these various approaches, the social dimension of
tourism will continue to be at the heart of the WTO's concerns
and activities. tr
38
 MANILA DECLAIIATION
CN
THE SOCIAL IMDACT OF TCUI]ISM

We, the representatives of governments and private groups from77 countries and territories, gathered for the
World Tourism Leaders' Meeting on the Social Impact of Tourism, under the auspices of the World Tourism
Organization (WTO) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,

* HAVING DISCUSSED the social impact of tourism and considered how to maximize their positive aspects
and minimize their negative effects,

* BELIEVING that tourism will continue to generate substantial economic and social problems attributed to or
associated with it,

* BEING DETERMINED to remove the social abuses and exploitation arising from, associated with or
occasioned by tourism and its related activities,

HEREBY COMMIT OURSELVES TO:

1. Support greater involvement of communities in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of processes of tourism policies, programs and projects within the context of national objectives and
priorities, and for this purpose introduce community awareness campaigns to inform people of the benefits
to be gained from tourism development;

2. Improve people's standard of living through tourism by providing economic and social opportunities for
wider participation and, wherever possible and acceptable, dispersal of tourism activities and destinations
to outlying areas to increase rural incomes;

3. Ensure that tourism development planning the legacy, heritage and integrity of tourism destinations
worldwide and respect the social and cultural norms of society, particularly among the indigenous
communities and to this end, control the rate of growth of the tourism sector where it may jeopardize local
communities and social values;
4. Cooperate with and encourage the business community engaged in tourism and the travel trade to create
the right image and develop appropriate marketing tools for the destination countries, and to undertake
education, information and communication services to sensitize visitors to the culture and behavioral
expectations of host communities;

5. Recognize the role of human resources development in tourism and establish long-term programs that
support greater employment of the local labor force in tourism and provide appropriate measures as well
as opportunities for a greater and more positive participation of women and youth;

6. Enhance and strengthen international coordination and monitoring systems through liaison and
networking among governments, private sector and concerned parties with a view to promoting the
positive aspects and eradicating the negative impacts of tourism;
7. Further mobilize local and international support to prevent and control tourism-related abuse and
exploitation of people, particularly women and children and other disadvantaged groups;
8. Encourage governments to promulgate and enforce legal regimes, both in the domestic and multilateral
arenas, in order to eliminate undesirable social consequences of tourism through, among others,
agreements that deprive malefactors of any safe haven anywhere;

9. Take into account the importance of tourism in the context of Agenda 21, for tourism is a major source of
development but like other sectors, it uses resources and generates wastes and in the process creates not
only social and cultural but also environmental costs and benefits, of which the effects on biodiversity and
fragile eco-systems like coral reefs, archaeological sites, mountains, coastal areas and wetlands constitute
a particular concern and pose the imperative of having the world celebrate and, more importantly, observe
the tenets of eco-tourism; and

10. Work towards the formulation and eventual adoption of a Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.

ADOPTED in Manila, Philippines on 22 May 7997.

39
 The EQUATIONS poster
designed by Dhanaraj
Keezhara for September 27,
World Tourism Day. The text
is an extract from a speech by
Francesco Frangialli,
Secretary-General, WTO on
The WTO and the Social
Dimension of Tourism.
(S€e page 3E)

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A senlence in thq artjcle Tourism Threat to Kumarakom Sanctulry by Sridhar R reads The remaining area,
including a bungapw lial belongs lo the innovalive archilecl Laude Baker, has been leased to the Tal Group of
Hotelg rvhicft has a resorl lhere. 'We would like to clarify lhat Ure burgalow menlioned here has.no conneclions lo
the well.known arghilect Laurie Baker. According lo the author, lhe hungalow belonged [o one Rev.Henry Baker
way back In the 1050s. Four generations ol Bakerg slayed therp until In tlre 1970s, lhe last of lhe Bakers,
Alexander Baker, oold it to the Kerala Tourism Dovelopment Corporltion (KTDC). TaJ loased it out only lrom lho

Slll;,*'.s to [re aulhor, to LaurieBaker and anyone else'lor any prisunderstandings lhat rnay have arisen lrom
Ure enor in Uris article.
- The Editor