I have always believed, as a kind of truism, that foreign holidays-especially outside Europe and North America-are good for us, that they broaden our minds. Following a recent visit to India I have been having second thoughts. Travelling in the third world as a tourist from the west may have the opposite effect. Far from developing our understanding, it can highlight unwelcome truths about our character and reinforce our prejudices. More seriously, the role of the tourist in these parts of the world is inescapably patronising.
It was not my first visit to India. I had been there four or five times before, including six months in the RAF at the time of independence. I love Indian culture and food. I admire India's success in persevering with democracy when so many of its neighbours have long since lost their free press and the right to protest. I appreciate the ubiquitous good humour among the destitute. On a three-week holiday in Kerala and Rajasthan, I had many experiences to savour. But I have to admit that I was delighted to be home again-and won't mind if I don't return to India, at least for another ten years.
The first home truth I was forced to acknowledge was that I have no taste for Hinduism. I appreciate some of the outward manifestations of the religion- magnificent temples, fine carving and so on. But over the years I have suffered from the compelling need to try to understand the rudiments of Hindu mythology, and if possible, empathise with the Hindu faith. No longer. Dervla Murphy's book on her Keralan travels, On a Shoestring to Coorg, tells how her five-year-old daughter suddenly announced: "I think I'm too young to understand Hinduism. Will you explain it again when I'm eight?" I am still too young, and suspect that I will still be too young when I am 80. Is it a sign of maturity or philistinism that I have given up the struggle?
I deplore in myself a growing intolerance of beggars. Goodness knows, they have plenty to beg about-especially when you recall that many are in servitude to mafia-like gangs who require them to bring in a daily quota of rupees in return for the barest bed and board. All visitors from the west complain about that harassment. It must harm the tourist trade, but the Indian government have far more urgent matters to deal with: the continued rise in population; the widespread and growing corruption; the racial tension; the polarisation between the new rich and the growing masses who live below the poverty line. I sympathise with the enormity of these problems, but confess-with shame-to a hardening of the arteries of compassion when in India. I find myself losing my temper and shouting when beggars persist in their petty harassment.
The obligation to drive a hard bargain is another way in which Indian travel forces me into behaviour that I would rather avoid, especially on holiday. For the past 30 years I have earned my living as a literary agent, and I enjoy negotiating as good a deal as I can for my authors. But in India it is a different matter. All the guidebooks stress that you must bargain, that you would lose the respect of the vendor if you failed to challenge his outrageous demands. So I do. I flex my muscles, already in good trim from my occupational exercise, and I haggle like the rest, driving down the price for a pocket handkerchief, a postcard, a ride in a rickshaw, by a few rupees-a pittance by my standards, and a subsistence for him. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Then there's the tipping. In Europe I hate the demeaning practice of tipping in restaurants. I regard it as absurd that you should pay extra for service in a service industry and recall Bernard Levin's dictum that you never tip your equal. But in India you know that you are expected to tip on every possible occasion, so you do your best to equip yourself with plenty of small change and fumble to deliver what you hope is the right amount to every outstretched palm. And you feel demeaned again.
Travelling in India may not be doing much for my moral well-being but, apart from producing much-needed hard currency, what is my tourism doing for India? It would be different if I were in the country for professional, academic or business reasons, or visiting friends. But there is something intrinsically uncomfortable, even offensive, in the relation between rich visitors and poor hosts. If I am invited into a poor person's hovel, I become a voyeur-I cannot help it.
The tiny kingdom of Bhutan, north-east of Bengal, may have got the balance right. It charges $200 for a tourist visa, but then guides the tourists around the kingdom, thus reducing the unwanted fallout from visitors.
All mass tourism pollutes and benefits the host nation. But mass tourism in the poorer parts of the world tends to pollute much more. Worst of all, it is a double curse-to host and visitor alike.
