The Ugly Indian

Before we talk about the Ugly Indian, a little background.

All the ugliness stuff started with Americans in the 1950s when they developed a reputation for arrogantly touring the world, throwing their money around and treating the people of the countries they visited like dirt.

 

I am not sure that within America they were aware of how their globe-strutting was regarded around the world but that changed in 1958 after Eugene Burdick and William J Lederer wrote a bestselling novel that was actually called The Ugly American. Though the book’s focus was primarily on how American diplomacy was failing in Asia it popularised the concept of the Ugly American and made Americans conscious of how unpopular they were around the world.

 

   Since then other nationalities have faced the same kind of opprobrium. If you travelled through Asia in the 1970s you came across the Ugly Australian: entitled and racist. (That changed after the White Australia policy was abandoned and country became more multi cultural and less racist.)

 

   In Europe other nationalities became well hated. For instance the behaviour of British football hooligans led other countries to dread hosting fixtures that involved Brits. In Asia there has been, for the last decade or so, a pronounced anti Chinese feeling caused by the behaviour of tourists from the mainland who are seen as being rude, pushy and unpleasant especially to other Chinese in such countries as Singapore.

 

   Not all of these caricatures are entirely accurate: there were always well-meaning and polite American visitors to foreign countries even in the days when the Ugly American was a bestseller. But there was enough substance in the characterisations for them to stick.

 

   Many countries took care to ensure that the caricatures did not stick. The counter culture of the Sixties and the Seventies led to the growth of a new kind of American traveller who respected local sensibilities. The Brits clamped down on football hooligans and the yobs in question were seen as a national disgrace.

 

   So caricatures can change. Or, at least we better hope that’s true because over the last few years the characterisation that has prevailed globally is the Ugly Indian.

 

   The Ugly Indian is quite different from the Ugly American. Indian visitors are not seen as rich and arrogant. They are seen as badly behaved cheapskates who flout every country’s norms of civic behaviour. They will book a hotel room for two and then seven people will occupy the room. They will get into fights over restaurant bills. They will raid hotel minibars and then refuse to pay for the drinks they have consumed.

 

"We have abused the goodwill of our hosts in the countries we travel to so much that they are glad to be rid of us."

   They will push their way to the front of queues. In quiet train carriages they will be the ones talking loudest on video calls. In aeroplanes they will watch videos at top volume ignoring the disturbance to other passengers. They will be the parents who let their noisy children run around making a nuisance of themselves. At restaurants they will bring their own samosas and theplas and try to eat them on the quiet. They will never bother to clean up any mess they have made. And if there is a discount or a concession they are not entitled to, they will aggressively demand it anyway.

 

   Over the last week or so our own social media has been filled with videos of Indians doing the garba on the tarmac at airports. There have been horror stories posted by other Indians who are mortified by the behaviour of people from our country.

 

   And now foreigners are also joining in. A couple of weeks ago Thailand stopped allowing Indians entry without visas. This was a huge reverse because the Thais had exempted Indians from requiring visas only relatively recently. As Thailand desperately needs tourists the decision seemed inexplicable.

 

   But the short explanation is this: they would rather do without our tourist dollars than allow us visa -free entry. On social media there were so many hate-filled posts from ordinary Thais of the stay-at-home-we-don’t-want-you variety that I was taken aback. I love Thailand and in my experience Thais love us back. What had we done to make them change their minds?

 

   But the more I thought about it the more inescapable the conclusion was: we have abused the goodwill of our hosts in the countries we travel to so much that they are glad to be rid of us.

 

   How did it come to this?

 

   Well, I have no answers but I have some theories. Over the last decade we have begun to believe our own bullshit. Many of us genuinely think that we are a global super power and so we can do whatever we want in other people’s countries. Of course the truth is that we are a country with an ailing economy and a currency whose value collapses more and more each week. So we really don’t have the financial capacity to enjoy foreign holidays in the way that we used to a few years ago. So we resort to jugaad. We try and get out of paying for the things we consume and demand discounts we are not entitled to.

 

   In the 1950s Americans were arrogant and inconsiderate and ignored the sensibilities of the people whose countries they visited. But they were also rich. So they tended to get away with their arrogance.

 

   We are just as arrogant. But we are far from rich. That’s why we have become the world’s least welcome visitors. People may tolerate a rich jerk. But nobody likes a jerk who doesn’t have much money.

 

   The good news, ironically enough, is that we will see less hatred of Indians in the months ahead because as our economy splutters we will find it cheaper to holiday in India and not go abroad. The Prime Minister has already asked Indians to cut down on foreign travel so in the years ahead we can all stay at home, watch movies and keep telling ourselves that we are citizens of a super power.

 

   The bad news is that too many Indians still don’t realise what we are doing wrong. One response to the shock over the garba dancers at a Vietnamese airport has been to accuse those of who are protesting of bowing before the white man. (In Vietnam? Are these people colour blind?)

 

   Others have accused those criticising the behaviour of Indians abroad of being anti-Gujarati. (Yes, really. Clearly I’m a self hating Gujarati in that case.) Or we fall back on that old Indian standby: everyone from every country behaves like that when they travel.

 

   First of all, that’s not true. And whenever people have disgraced their countries by behaving badly they have been told off by their own countrymen. The Ugly American was written by Americans and was a bestseller in America. The campaign against British football hooligans started in Britain.

 

   So isn’t it time we stopped making excuses for ourselves and looked in the mirror?