quadrifoliate
9 hours ago
As someone born and brought up in India, I'm a little conflicted about this.
Of course it is true that a lot of Indians have no civic sense, and will spit, litter, and generally make a noisy nuisance of themselves in this quiet village. On the surface it seems to be a great story about that nuisance being kicked out one day of the week.
At the same time, this is part of...India. It seems questionable legally, and also morally, to just kick out people from the rest of the country and even the state on a a specific day. Your village benefits to some degree from their taxes. How would it be if the villagers were locked into their village for that day and not allowed to travel outside?
Is the solution to a lack of civic sense really just to make more and more of these clean enclaves? Will they finally end up expanding and covering more of the country? I would honestly feel better about this if the entire state of Meghalaya had some kind of cleanliness drive and a tourist tax.
I don't have any easy solutions. If I did, they would have occurred to someone in India and it would be a lot cleaner by now.
thewhitetulip
9 hours ago
> Visitors who book guesthouse rooms in Mawlynnong through Saturday and Sunday are exempt from the Sunday ban
Did you read the article?
quadrifoliate
6 hours ago
I did, a requirement to book a guesthouse room through the weekend does not make the moral/legal issues any better.
Imagine that some town in the US did this; and shut down otherwise public roads to anyone who is not a resident or a guest of a hotel in the town for the weekend, citing visitor nuisance as the reason.
Would you feel better about it because "well you can just book a hotel for the weekend"?
thewhitetulip
5 hours ago
There is a difference between "trippers" and renters. Had your read the article you'd know that they are ok with people living in cottages on Sunday just not "trippers"
They want to reduce people who visit without staying. For Sunday is their day for mass etc
Also most businesses are still closed on the Sunday because the town is Christian
quadrifoliate
4 hours ago
> There is a difference between "trippers" and renters. Had your read the article you'd know that they are ok with people living in cottages on Sunday just not "trippers"
Again, none of this makes it right. It's medieval-style thinking to just put up a gate on Sundays to keep all the "trippers" out as you put it. What if every city and town in India started doing this?
thewhitetulip
2 hours ago
I'm not in US and have never set foot there ever.
But I've lived my entire life in India so far.
Most cities and towns won't do this because this affects only a handful of extremely small tourist places which are cool like have snow so they attract 80% of our 1 billion population who choose to be tourists.
I get your overall point though. But major cities just don't suffer from the same problems! Say Chennai or Mumbai or Trivendrum or Kochi or anybody else - this is simply not a problem. They don't have over tourism.
And such decisions will not be taken anywhere else in India
alephnerd
6 hours ago
Article 13 allows customary law to be applied following judicial review.
It's the same precedent most Himachalis use to keep tourists contained to a handful of tourist traps while keeping the rest of the state clean. Other border states and Northeastern states do the same thing.
Semi-urban areas like Mawlynnong are governed by Panchayats - not municipal councils - and overtourism can become a kiss of death.
quadrifoliate
4 hours ago
I doubt this has been given judicial review at the High Court/Supreme Court level.
As for Himachal, you seem to be the expert but I thought that Himachal disallows non-locals from buying land (which I also think is wrong), not staying anywhere? Or does Himachal also have laws like this?
thewhitetulip
2 hours ago
You have to note that Himachal or other mountain states with snow need protections. Otherwise they ll quickly lose their local traditions because the mountain snow states have extremely pleasant temperatures even in summer so rich folks from all over the country would simply buy out all the land and houses gentrification overloaded
alephnerd
3 hours ago
> not staying anywhere? Or does Himachal also have laws like this?
Non-locals are allowed to stay anywhere in HP, but zoning is strictly enforced so you aren't going to find some hotel or B&B in the middle of nowhere without it being zoned as non-agricultural land.
This helps limit tourism to a handful of urban hubs, which helps limit overtourism to a handful of areas that have essentially been written off.
That said, significant swathes of Himachal fall within the Protexted Area Permit and outsiders need permission from the Home Ministry for extended stays, and often get stopped by police or ITBP for checkings (unsurprising given that we neighbor Tibet and plenty of communities have ethnic ties with residents of Ngari).
> I doubt this has been given judicial review at the High Court/Supreme Court level
Tribal Councils and Panchayats in Meghalaya are allowed to use customary law to limit outsiders, and this has been adjudicated by the Meghalaya HC as well.
Meghalaya also falls under the Sixth Schedule which was explicitly made to ensure that tribal areas aren't inundated by more numerous outside ethnic groups.
thewhitetulip
4 hours ago
Overtl tourism is a major issue in Bali, Japan and Bhutan as well. It's a global thing. I remember reading that Greece or some European country had banned cruise ship docking because they didn't want the crowd who runs around the city for half a day
alephnerd
4 hours ago
My personal opinion is less about the crowding (though that is a pain) and moreso how overtourism creates a form of Dutch disease and prevents more inclusive economic from being created.
The state in India I mentioned (Himachal Pradesh) has a large tourism industry, but because of strict zoning laws was able to reduce the overall impact of tourism and zone SEZs and industrial parks which helped MSMEs climb up the value chain in industries such as generic pharma manufacturing and food processing.
If hotel and homestay zoning was lax, there would have been less of an incentive for local capital to invest in capex heavy but ultimately higher value economic output. And it was that economic output that helped HP subsidize it's welfare system that was able to bring the state's HDI to middle of the pack Chinese province levels despite not having a single metro with population greater than 200k.
thewhitetulip
2 hours ago
I know HP lol I live in India
I hadn't thought of it from your PoV but it makes sense.
And I had just been to the Sar pass trek from Kasol, and let me tell you. It's insanely over crowded right now. Despite the regulations.
On our trek we easily had 300+ people at 13k feet!
So I fully support such decisions because small towns can't handle such crowd