KP Sasi Chaired the function
KP Sasi: Lots of systems in our country are affected by tourism. Now fishing community lost their belt. Tourism development is indirectly/directly trying to break the privacy of the people and the country by intruding into the most crucial places like the coastal belt. Instead of boosting the tourism development, we should stand for community suffering from tourism development. So far, no such alternatives are created to bring up the problems of tourism.
Albertina: Everybody may think Goan people are like a commodity to sit, watch and enjoy, because we are getting enough money and so that we don’t need to work at all. But the thing is that, everywhere the community is being displaced due to tourism development.
The Government started promoting tourism saying the community will be benefited from this. But, now the question is that who is benefiting from tourism. Everywhere in the world, there is some kind of protest against tourism. In carnivals, people become a commodity to showcase and to dance and to sing for the music of those who are sponsoring the event.
By whatever names we call them, tourism is displacing people. Tourism is an old wine filled in a new bottle. Now the Goan people have an anti-outsider feeling. To attract the tourists you should promote Goa as a special place and for that you should keep some community, like tribes, untouched as some special category.
JP Raj: Similar to the Muthanga struggle, JP Raj and his tribal people in Karnataka (Mysore, Kotak) fought for their land, the only difference is that JP and his people finally won the fight. The struggle started twenty five years back and they formed an organization called The Budugatta Krishigaru Sanga. When the government implemented National Forest Bill, the tribal people had to raise some questions and they started a struggle. When the government allowed to build a “national park” in the forest, the tribals started agitation raising the question that if they cant live in the forest, where were they supposed to live .How come the government allowed Taj to build a hotel in the forest.
At the initial stage of the struggle, we got all the support from our tribes and other organizations also joined us and in the court also we won our fight. More than the victory in the court, support from the public is the most powerful effect of the struggle.
Sumesh: Current discourse about tourism development in Kerala is highly hegemonical. To develop tourism government and industry is using all terms like Responsible Tourism, Community Tourism, etc. Our tourism development is badly affecting our ecology. For example, more than 1500 house boats are polluting backwaters in Alappuzha, and our coastal areas are invaded by tourism lobbies. In Kovalam a recent study revealed that 7% of the children are being sexually abused.
In Kerala, tourism is developing in an unsustainable way. In the name of eco-tourism, the government is playing a double game. In one place, they are displacing tribal groups but they are allowing tourists to enter the forest. Introducing Responsible Tourism, the government said tourism should locally produce things like grains, vegetable, etc. But what do we produce from here. The profile of Kerala tourism is also changing. All the big players are coming and it becomes big-player-centric.
Jinu: Compared to Kerala tourism and Goan tourism, tourism in Tamil Nadu is in an infant stage. The common people in Tamil Nadu is highly terrified by tourism and the government trying to copy the Kerala model tourism development.
In Tamil Nadu domestic and international tourist arrivals witnessed a 25% growth in 2009. Eco tourism has been widely promoted as a viable alternative to ecologically and culturally degrading mass tourism -as a form of sustainable development. However today there is an absence of precise and unambiguous definitions for Eco Tourism. What we have today is a culture of taking tourists to ecologically sensitive areas rather than bringing ecologically sensitive tourism.
There are three different case studies showing how tourism is affecting the whole state.
Gulf of Mannar: The government is planning to build a Marine National Park without the involvement of common people.
Mahabalipuram: A famous spiritual tourism spot, where thousands of children are being sexually, physically and emotionally abused.
Kavikatakuppam: After Tsunami, the government and real estate mafia joined together and acquired lands from the common fisher folk in the pretext of safety.
Discussion: Simon Gondra: The speakers here are misguiding the audience. Tourism has helped much to increase the standard of living of common people and also helped to develop rural places and it’s offering more jobs also.
Albertina: Tourism is seemingly beneficiary to common people, but it is doing more harm to people. It makes more children school dropouts, sexually abused. More than that tourism lobby is controlling the society.
