Diptosh Majumdar, the national political editor of CNN-IBN, on the rape and murder of British tourist Scarlett Keeling in Goa:
“Keeling’s death nails a great lie that we try to perpetuate. Indians may flatter themselves into believing they are generous hosts but they actually aren’t. The much-touted principle of Athithi devo bhava applies only to domestic tourists, not to eccentric foreigners. Otherwise, Japanese tourists would not have complained of being harassed by a guide at the Sun Temple in Konark. Otherwise non-resident Indians would not have felt like running away from the clutches of greedy pujaris at Kalighat in Kolkata.
“Tourism is about opening up your own culture with due tolerance and utmost respect for the culture of the visitors. Indians are too immersed in their medieval ethos to understand the worldwide cultural crosscurrents of the 21st century. There’s an old Chinese adage that says a closed mind is like a closed book, just a block of wood. We are indeed the wooden people.”
Read the full article here: Where athithis fear to tread
churumuri 
While agree that “Athithi devo bhava” does apply to everyone, a tourist need to respect the culture of the visiting country. “Athithi devo bhava” doesn’t mean one has to embrace the culture of the tourists to treat them like God. There are criminal elements everywhere, and I fail to understand what do you mean by – “Indians are too immersed in their medieval ethos”. Com’on…
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Hi,
Can anyone walk the subway in Newyork alone? i am not talking about women but men.
We treat the white skinned tourists the best in the whole world. May be SriLanka and thailand little better.
Every police has criminal elements and that should not be made as the whole country’s example.It took time for Shivni bhatnagar,jessica lal to get justice and scarlett will also take its own time.
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agree with praveen,
see what tourism has done to hampi, parts of gokarna-karwar.
drug trade and what not, tourism in india has to be better regulated keeping in mind the law of the land.
some people in begalooru want bars to be open till 1 .00 p m ,reason tourists want to booze till night , have these people thought about law and order problems this will cause to citizens.
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Diptosh Majumdar words are not the gospel truth nor is CNN IBN the embodiment of Indian culture and Tradtions.So it is about time we start ignoring the sermons ,discources and conclusions of these Television Journalists who have nothing better to do rather than pick up some stray incident and blow it out of propotion.If they have the guts let them try to get the commies to their studios and grill them on their stand on Tibet , Arunachal etc,.
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What a nonsensical article. Pure garbage.
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Why this generalization into Indians and ‘Athithi devo bhava’ for something that happened in Goa which is more of a Christian state?
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What crap.
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We should focus and concentrate on Tourists who can bring in money to our country. We need to have stringent economic criteria and proper social profiling as to who we let inside India. Vagabonds like Scarlett and her mother are useless for our country. They are misfits in their own society and they just add to the mess in India. Will a country like say england let a misfit from India even for tourism, no.
With a rich history like ours we need to build a strong tourism brand and also make foreigners pay for it. There are many foregners in places like Ajmer, Hampi, Goa, gokarna, pondicherry and Tiruvannamalai who are from the poor strata of the rich western nations. They work in odd jobs in US, Europe and Australia as sweepers or pizza salesmen, earn enough money so that they can stay in a cheap place like India for months. These are the people we don’t need. We need to get in the rich and elite class from not just the west but from all over the world.
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This Majumdar fella can’t think beyond Kolkota, I always find him making a reference to Kolkota/West Bengal in every damn issue. :D
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I agree that we are way behind in time and our culture is anything but modern or open minded!
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I love watching us indians at tourist spots interacting with the monkeys.
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Why would Taslima come to live in a country steeped in communal misunderstanding and misuse of censorship?
Fiona is winning. We don’t like it. We dredge up her past and say she has led a sordid life.
We are objective, kind, tolerant, understanding, generous . . .. Especially when there are coins jingling.
If nobody praises us, we had better glorify ourselves.
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as indians we will take credit for the tatas and ambanis but we won’t share the blame of scarlett’s murder.why’s it so hard for people to understand?
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Excellent question, Aniche. As a people we had even an ounce of courage to examine our ideas, really lack of them, we would not be in this pitiable situation talking about pitiful issues.
We speak of Ambani, Godrej, Tata, N. Murthy and the rest affectionately as our uncles because they make money at our expense. Look at what reliance is doing to our vegetable sellers.
When the inquiry into Scarlett’s death is completed, it will be blamed on intoxicated beach bums and not the people Fiona has named. And then Fiona will never get a visa to visit to India again. Such a neat conclusion.
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not much hope for india to change to a better state.i have witnessed islamic law and justice in action…eye for an eye tooth for an tooth,,this is just what law india needs…in order to stop corruption..and talk about its sex starved men..they are the most aweful nasty morbid natured people on this earth..those who murdered her are more than two or three not just one I can immagin…she was made a victim they tool all the advantage they could while they could ..and any ass hole man there would ..they will all take the liberty and use the opportunity to prey on her body…in many cases even while dead…they need to be publically shot ..with no mercy..
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