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Tourism
& Its Impact In Ladakh
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Tiksey
Monastery, Ladakh
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In Durbuk in Changthang region, amidst
graceful mud houses of beautiful traditional architecture, stands
a recently built ghastly green coloured box like concrete tourist
guest-house. It must have cost twice as much as a local house built
in local style with locally available material. The owner failed
to realise that it is a poor copy of cheap, tasteless buildings
used by poor people in the countries where the tourists come from.
It is most painful to those who are sensitive to Ladakh's unique
culture and its fragile ecosystems.
Another aspect is the influence of tourists
on the local population. Different people have different perceptions.
Some are concerned about the visible negative impacts while those
in trade and commerce are seduced by the prospects of immediate
profits. But there are two totally contradictory effects, one of
consolidating and strengthening Ladakhi culture and the other of
proliferation of consumption and exploitation syndrome. Through
it may appear strange to some, I have always believed that tourism
has had a most unusual impact in Ladakh. During the Seventies and
Eighties it had an intangible but positive and strengthening effect
on Ladakh's culture and its spirit . It was the time when development
agencies and military officials from outside had almost overwhelmed
us with the idea that Ladakhis are uncultured and backward people
and should be 'civilised and developed' to be like the 'proper humans'.
Ladakhis were made to feel inferior to their very core. Many so-called
educated Ladakhis would spurn their mother tongue and encourage
their children to speak in Hindi or Urdu at home. That was the time
when the Government of the newly independent India, with its good
intentions but with a strong colonial hangover, wanted to see all
parts of India 'developed', which actually meant that they should
become copies of their former masters in the West. Anything that
was different from this stereotype was considered inferior and primitive
instead of being different and unique. Once a people's self-confidence
and pride is destroyed, then an external enemy (like China in Tibet)
is not needed to destroy the cultural heritage like language, dress
and social values. The people who feel inferior work hard to destroy
their culture themselves.
It was amidst such feelings of inferiority
and despondency that Ladakh was opened to tourism in 1974. It was
actually Ladakh's opening to international exposure and started
the process of understanding of the global situation beyond the
boundaries of India. Two aspects about tourism of that time proved
fortunate for Ladakh. Firstly, Ladakh being a difficult and inaccessible
place, only those with a genuine and deep interest in Ladakh, its
people, culture and religion visited it. There is a Tibetan proverb
that says, "If a valley is reached by high passes, only the
best of friends and the worst of enemies are its visitors."
The second factor was the timing of
Ladakh's opening. In the Seventies, the West was re-evaluating the
models and processes of growth and development. It felt disillusioned
with the price for its model of growth and development. Environmental
spectres, like poisoned waters, polluted air, acid rain, birth defects
and species extinction, were closing in on them. When sensitive
people from this era came to Ladakh, they were overwhelmed by its
pristine, natural and pollution free purity, and the Ladakhi people's
sustainable lifestyle. |
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