"I am one of those who
would rather sink with faith than swim without it."
—Stanley Baldwin (English,
1867-1947)
Word for the day
Chevelure (n)
A head of hair.
Malice towards none
Will NRC (National Register
of Citizens) also meet the fate of NPR (National Population Register)?
First random thought this morning
RBI governor has reportedly said, "The fundamental mission of
economists is not to forecast crises but to explain how the mankind behaves in the
ordinary business of life and in doing so they do warn of crisis formations,
suggest pre-emptive strategies and formulate mitigating policies that address
those crises that slip through macroeconomic surveillance."
If we ignore the subtle distinction between "forecasting
crisis" and "warning of crisis", this is one of the best
defenses put forward to absolve the economist community from allegation of
failure to "forecast" and/or "warn" about the 2008 crisis.
Build character, develop method and enhance engagement
Anyone who has visited Greece
would appreciate how much leverage they derive from their history and
mythology. Tourism has indubitably been the mainstay of Greek economy,
especially in past two decades. Sun, food, shopping and mythology are mostly
what they offer to the tourists from across the world.
Like India, Greece also has a long
history, rich culture, inspiring mythology. It had also been under the foreign
rules (Ottoman Empire and Nazis). It remained under attack from Persians for
long and paid heavily for the long and expensive war campaign of the Alexander.
But similarities almost end there.
97% of the Greece is now Orthodox
Christian. Only 3000 odd people now worship mythological Greek gods; unlike in
India, where people are still steadfastly following their traditions, culture
and mythology in their day to day life.
A common man in India identifies
Greece with Alexander the great. We, in fact, have one of the most popular ongoing
TV serial based on Alexander's invasion of India. But, in Greece you would
seldom find people talking or discussing about Alexander. He is mostly a
subject of academic discussions in schools, to tell the youth what and how not
to do things.
The paradox is that Greek
mythology and history provides employment to an overwhelming majority of
people, who feel naturally proud of it. Whereas, in India we use history,
religion (associated mythology) and cultures to fight amongst ourselves and a
significant part of the population feel ashamed about it.
The point is that to make tourism
one of the primary sources of employment and revenue in the country, we may
need to change a whole lot of basic things.
First of all we urgently need to
begin the exercise of building character of our youth. The primary and
secondary education must place an overwhelming focus on character building
rather than cramming totally useless stuff to pass ill designed examination
with unbelievable scores of more than 90%.
The Jugaad mindset (cutting
corners for short term benefits without bothering about quality,
sustainability, and propriety) needs to be completely eliminated from all walks
of life. Education, business, and life need to be driven by thoughtfully
designed processes, and governed by a strong sense of ethics and respect for
others' life, dignity, safety, rights, preferences, views, opinions, and
styles.
Secondly, the State needs to work
closely with the people to reorient our legacy (religion, culture, traditions,
arts, food etc.) to make it marketable to the global audience as well as the
youth of our own country.
This would require shedding the
"secular" tag by the State. The State machinery would need to assign
religious heads, the responsibility of ushering an Indian renaissance,
entitling them with adequate powers, empower them to interpret the religion in
the modern context, and engaging them in the task of nation building.
Third, the State should mobilize
and motivate people to build or rebuild the tourist attractions of global
standards. For example consider the following:
Vrindavan,
the place associated with numerous legends relating to Lord Krishna, is one of
the most popular pilgrimages in the country.
Unless
you are a deeply religious person, a trip to the holy town on a weekend is more
likely to feel like a journey to the hell. You would most likely have to deal
with:
thousands of visitors and hundreds of raucously
honking vehicles jostling through the narrow & inadequate lanes and slender
by lanes of the town;
thousands of rogue monkeys always looking to
attack your spectacles and handbags;
hundreds of unscrupulous touts in the garb of
tourist guides or temple agents persistently trying to fleece you on different
pretext;
hundreds of stray cows, dogs, pigs etc. jostling
for space with human;
filthy and stinking open drains overflowing with
human waste;
thousands of baggers chasing you ominously
closely;
numerous shops serving food in totally
unhygienic conditions;
Despite thousands
of people visiting every weekend and spending tons of money, there are no clean
urinals, no place where young kids could be nursed, no decent hospital that
could be used for emergencies, and virtually no arrangement for disaster
management.
The story
is not much different in other holy towns like Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi,
Gaya, etc.
This does
not inspire any confidence. The State need to engage with the local populace,
motivate them to agree to a modernization plan for the holy town. The State
also needs to engage with the various temple managements (mostly families of
priests) and urge them to confine themselves only to performance of rituals.
The management of infrastructure and facilities should be delinked with rituals
and undertaken by an autonomous board led by the District Magistrate rank
officer.
The popular tourist places like
Shimla, Mussoorie, Nainital also feel like hell during the summer season.
I guess I have made my point.
I would now like to reiterate the
following suggestions, for building/improving the tourism infrastructure in the
country:
(a) Indians spend more than $25bn annually on education and related
overseas travel. Creating 5 Special Education Zones (SEZ) with liberal VISA,
forex, taxation and real estate ownership rules, and allowing foreign
institutions to freely set up campuses in these zones, could potentially
reverse this flow. Students from India, far-east, middle-east and Africa who
find it difficult to get VISA for US/UK etc., or find that unaffordable, could
also benefit from this. Our politicians have spoken about recreating Nalanda
and Takshila. This in my view is the easiest way to do that.
(b Lack
of proper infrastructure has traditionally constricted the growth of tourism
sector in India. Indian outbound tourists flow is also rising fast. Developing
some world class self-contained international tourism centers, e.g., on lines
of Macau, Disney, Las Vegas, etc. with liberal VISA, Forex, taxation and real
estate ownership rules could potentially reverse these flows.
(c) Vindavan, Tirupati, Varanasi, Gaya, etc. all have potential to be
as desirable, venerable and popular destinations as Mecca, Vatican and
Jerusalem. Converting these centers of Indian religion and culture into self
contained special zones with international airport, adequate lodging facilities
and annual event calendar could get substantial forex revenue.
(d) Develop at least 1000 tourist places on a variety of themes like
adventure, spirituality, yoga, Indian food, traditional arts, history, religion,
language learning etc. These should be world class destination with adequate
sustainability considerations. Corporate sector could be engaged in this
through lucrative tax incentives and mandatory CSR spending.
(e) Subsidize domestic tourists' transportation cost for visiting far
off place in north, north east and south, besides creating decent accommodation
to be managed by local youth specially trained for this.
(f) Establish at least one specialized tourism skill & training
institute in every state that will train youth to work in the sector. This
should include Indian ethos, language skills, history lessons, food
preparation, and driving skills etc.