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The
Unseen Host (Shirley Susan and Anand Bala, Eq-NF, Volume V Issue
I March 1999)
The eyes
of the women of Goa never see the sun, sea and sand; they are too busy
looking out for that pot of fresh water. The women, who once inhabited
India's National Parks can never live life as one with nature, they
have given up that right for some of us to enjoy. Tourism has never
been what it claims to be. It has for the sake of a privileged few alienated
the people whose very space and resources that it seeks to package and
sell. It takes a lot of searching and the attitude of a committed optimist
to find an example of tourism that has benefited women in particular
and the hosts in general.
The Tourism Policy of India, to the credit of the Government, talks
about the environment, employment and opportunities for women. The ground
realities in places like Mammallapuram, Kovalam, and Goa unfortunately
do not reflect the intent of the policy but are diametrically opposite
to it. Analysis of the role of women in the Tourism Sector is most often,
very limited, to the sex trade, and how women are made into objects
and commodities to be traded. This issue is just the tip of the iceberg
and probably one of the few ugly sides of Tourism that are readily visible.
The few debates that are taking place in the realm of Tourism Development
override the struggle that women in tourism centres face on a daily
basis.
The era of deregulation, liberalisation and globalisation has strengthened
the presence of the tourism sector in areas such as the coasts and the
national parks. The ability of the industry to lobby for policy changes
in a deregulated environment, and the pressure to adopt tourism as an
'engine' for economic growth has meant that women have been alienated
from policy making, and the policy at the end of the day lacks a gender
perspective. The policy fails to recognise and take note of the impacts
of tourism on women.
Tourism in its present modern form threatens to eat away its own resource
base, the environment and the space of the community. Take for example
fresh water resources. Community wells are bled dry to maintain the
greens of a golf c(o)urse and to keep the swimming pools filled with
water. The women of the village, that plays host to such a hotel, then
walk miles to get access to the water that the tourist takes for granted
and uses as his/her own. The sheer physical effort and the time spent
to fetch water goes without notice.
Where tourism goes… inflation follows. Basic products such as vegetables
become scarce and where available, are at a premium. The first person
to be stung by this inflationary trend is the women of the house. She
has to compromise on being able to feed the family because only the
tourists can afford the premiums that they have induced. The women of
the house end up having to starve themselves to feed the family. The
sheer density and volume of tourists in most centres thus do not allow
for an equitable distribution of resources.
Whether it is the coast, hills or a national park the tourism sector
needs land and space to grow. Hotels very quickly swallow up space and
'develop' precious land. Land ownership very quickly goes out of the
local community and they (the community) become aliens in their own
backyard. Every square inch of land is used to develop accommodation
and infrastructure to suit the needs of the visitor. What happens to
the locals who depend on the land and access to it for their livelihood?
What about the women who no more have access to traditional occupations
that revolve around the land? For example beach resorts deny access
to the coast for fishing communities. Taking away a basic common property
resource such as land results in displacing the hosts. Traditional occupations
which women were involved in are no longer available. How does one expect
the women who sell fish to 'man' the front desk in a resort?
The balance in employment in the tourism sector needs to be qualitative
and quantitative. The present trend in Tourism is that women have employment
opportunities only at the bottom end of the ladder (dishwashers, sweepers,
chambermaids etc). They are in no position to control the growth of
the sector and be a part of the larger decision making process. The
worldwide trend suggests that employment for women in the tourism sector
does not appear healthy.
The Government has decided once again to look towards the tourism sector
to help turn the Indian Economy around. The fact that this has never
worked in the past does not seem to have made any difference. Visit
India Year 1999 along with a host of subsidies and incentives for the
Tourism sector are, according to the Government, moves that will generate
a lot of dollar bills. There is an inability in the powers that be to
understand the kind of impact that tourism has on the lives of the women
of a host community. There is a need to introduce a gender perspective
in the tourism policy. Issues like these have no quick fix solutions
and need to be tackled at the policy level in a proactive rather than
a reactionary manner. Communities will end up slipping into oblivion
if the monoculture of the tourism sector is allowed to impose itself
on areas which are as yet untouched by tourism. Community needs, (read
women's needs) must be given priority over the need to rake in the big
green dollar. The beneficiaries of development have to be women and
marginalised communities. Tourism reverses the process by inducing displacement,
consuming resources and cornering investment.
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