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Satis Shroff's CATMANDU CHRONICLES
Satis Shroff's CATMANDU CHRONICLES
Preserving Our Rich Ethnic, Cultural and Religious Heritage (Satis Shroff)
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Preserving Our Rich Ethnic, Cultural and Religious Heritage (Satis Shroff)

What can we do to combat go-go-girls and prostitution a la Bangkok in Kathmandu and elsewhere which are closely related to tourism?

Write a petition to the Ministry of Tourism because tourism is becoming more organised and institutionalised. In the long run, the patriarchal and chauvinistic values that promote suppression and exploitation of women in Nepal, India and South Asia have to be fought against, and the entire system has to be changed for the better. We’re experiencing a period of transition in which women and gendering have to be promoted. The Maoist fighters in Nepal are not only men but also women, the British Gurkhas in the Emirates now have women, and not only men, in its services. And more and more women should be encouraged to work in educational and other sectors and institutions that were thought to be made only for men, after the principle: where there’s a will, there’s a way.

The Darjeelingforum.com members have already taken a step in the right direction by taking notice notice of sexist advertisements that appear in Nepal’s newspapers and magazines. Now what we need to do is to protest against these. We have to demand that such ‘sexist’ ads and posters be removed from public places, mags and e-mags.

Please bring such ads to the notice of the concerned officers of the Ministry of Tourism in Nepal and India. Speak about the disadvantages brought to the females in the country by spreading such negative images of women and the country’s ‘cheli-beti.’

Use the media in your region to explain the nefarious connection between prostitution and tourism by sending letters of protest to the publishers of such newspapers and magazines, and by writing essays, letter to the editor or publisher, and articles on these themes.

Get the concerned government, local or central, to pass laws against the exploitation and discrimination of women in your area or elsewhere. Help to create a lobby to enable discussions to be carried out in the respective parliaments. Report every violation of women’s rights in India, Nepal and South Asia.

When the culture of a country is packed to make it seductive for the dollar, euro or yen-toting guests from abroad, then the folk-dances and the folk-songs become distorted, and the movements become mechanical, and the dancers sing and dance for the pleasure and neurotic and bizzare tastes of the tourists, which is not what cultural and religious events should be. This leads to the loss of depth, authenticity and meaning of our ethnic and religious heritage which have managed to preserve throughout the decades and centuries against all form of invasions and excursions. Even festivals are commercialised and lose their original meanings in this way.

I find it beautiful when the ethnic groups of Darjeeling Hill Council perform their dances and sing their songs: Rai, Limbu, Lepcha, Tamang dances without the Bollywood accent and connotations. Culture has to be preserved, and not brought to the market and changed for the ‘foreign’ delights of the tourists, whereby females are treated merely as merchandising objects and not as valued persons with character, respect, moral and integrity.

March 27, 2008 | 11:47 AM Comments  0 comments

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