Visiting India? prepare for racism

This shameful story of racism is an outcome of the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI’s) policy to have dual pricing for entry tickets to the monuments. Under this the foreigners have to pay several times more than Indians. For instance, to enter the Taj Mahal, foreigners pay Rs750 ($12.5), as against the Rs20 ($0.33) Indians do. For visiting the Red Fort or the Humayun Tomb in Delhi, Indians pay Rs10 ($0.17) and foreigners Rs250 ($4.2).

The problem is that there isn’t a mechanism in place through which the citizenship of visitors can be determined. No proof of identity is asked for, and whether a tourist is foreigner is determined by the person at the ticket counter on the basis of his or her notion of who looks Indian in appearance. The colour of skin and facial features become the clinching factors in this egregiously flawed process of determining citizenship.

But judging the Indian citizenship of visitors from their appearance is demeaning for those who don’t have features or colour the ASI personnel consider Indian. My relative was asked to pay the foreigner’s rate at Delhi’s Humayun tomb because the person at the ticket counter thought she was from the Philippines. She had to speak in Hindi to avail of the Rs10 ticket. Some people from the northeast states experience this slight whenever they are asked, “You foreigner?”

At times, Indians are classified as foreigners because of their sartorial style. For instance, wear shorts, t-shirt and a cap, and you might be gruffly asked to pay the amount charged from the foreigner. To prove his Indian-ness, one journalist uttered the choicest abuses in the local language.

Charging higher fees from foreigners without granting them special rights to access monuments is both exploitative and discriminatory. Such policies are opposed because they spawn in a category of people a feeling of hurt and victimisation.

confuzzled dude wrote:

This shameful story of racism is an outcome of the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI’s) policy to have dual pricing for entry tickets to the monuments. Under this the foreigners have to pay several times more than Indians. For instance, to enter the Taj Mahal, foreigners pay Rs750 ($12.5), as against the Rs20 ($0.33) Indians do. For visiting the Red Fort or the Humayun Tomb in Delhi, Indians pay Rs10 ($0.17) and foreigners Rs250 ($4.2).

The problem is that there isn’t a mechanism in place through which the citizenship of visitors can be determined. No proof of identity is asked for, and whether a tourist is foreigner is determined by the person at the ticket counter on the basis of his or her notion of who looks Indian in appearance. The colour of skin and facial features become the clinching factors in this egregiously flawed process of determining citizenship.

But judging the Indian citizenship of visitors from their appearance is demeaning for those who don’t have features or colour the ASI personnel consider Indian. My relative was asked to pay the foreigner’s rate at Delhi’s Humayun tomb because the person at the ticket counter thought she was from the Philippines. She had to speak in Hindi to avail of the Rs10 ticket. Some people from the northeast states experience this slight whenever they are asked, “You foreigner?”

At times, Indians are classified as foreigners because of their sartorial style. For instance, wear shorts, t-shirt and a cap, and you might be gruffly asked to pay the amount charged from the foreigner. To prove his Indian-ness, one journalist uttered the choicest abuses in the local language.

Charging higher fees from foreigners without granting them special rights to access monuments is both exploitative and discriminatory. Such policies are opposed because they spawn in a category of people a feeling of hurt and victimisation.

http://qz.com/392883/visiting-indias-ancient-monuments-prepare-for-racism/

Seva Lamberdar wrote:Rather than the racism this probably is just the result of wrong tool / method used by authorities to judge visitors as foreigners or domestics while charging them for the tickets according to their looks / features instead of IDs, just like the Govt. helps people in education and jobs on the basis of caste instead of their economic condition.