Boorish and uncouth Indians

1. According to recent study conducted by French travel website on employees in 4000 hotels in major countries on obnoxious world travelers, India is at the lowly 20th position amongst the 21 nations surveyed. Japanese were No.1, considered most polite, quite and tidy. The ranking was done on the basis on attitude, politeness, tendency to complain, willingness to speak local languages, interest in sampling local cuisine, readiness to spend money, generosity, cleanliness, discretion and elegance.
2. We Indians have some consolation in the fact that China was behind us in No. 21 and the snobbish French were barely ahead of us at 19th position.
3. According to Indian travel agencies:
· The new Indian travelers are not keen to sample local cuisine or culture
· A lot of affluent families who travel overseas are terribly finicky about food.
· Guests in five star hotels were found cooking Maggi in their rooms
· Indians are noisy and stringent tippers
· Indian travelers make a mess of the bathrooms
· Affluence has made Indians arrogant in their behaviour both in India and abroad
· Ugly show of money and picking fights at expensive nightclubs.
· Indians are pathetic tippers
· Doing things which are not done in good hotels abroad.
4. I have no way of verifying how far this sample survey really reflects the reality. But I would like to attempt the reasons on why Indians behave in the way mentioned above, atleast on a few counts.
· The number of nouveau riche in India has increased by leaps and bounds in the recent times. They flaunt their position and behave boorishly within the country. When they go abroad, the same behaviour is repeated.
· With easing of restrictions on foreign travel and the amount of money that can be spent outside India, the above mentioned behaviour becomes rampant.
· In this country not now but from time immemorial, persons of wealth and position had treated everybody beneath them as vassals/servants. The rich believed and behaved as if they owned those who are serving them. Be it a General Manager or a Receptionist or a driver or cook – all were treated as servants or at best assistants. The same was the position in respect of those serving outside the home or office, i.e., cabbies, orderlies in hotel, etc., While traveling abroad, the same behaviour manifests.
· While abroad, we tend to mentally calculate the price / cost in Indian rupees on everything bought and services received. Hence giving a tip of $10 would mean Rs. 400. Even a tip of Rs. 40 we would consider too generous. Hence either we don’t tip or show miserliness in tipping, in relation to tipping level in the country concerned.
· Those who could afford to go abroad seldom do cleaning of their homes, which are done by menials engaged. So we expect that the hotel boys who clean the room would clean the bathroom also.
· In India while in public, we tend to be noisy. We repeat the behaviour while abroad.
· We eat by hand. Suddenly when we have to use fork and spoon, while eating in other countries, we are perceived to be clumsy.
· We consider our tradition and culture to be superior to that of others and this tends to get reflected in our interface with citizens of other countries.
· Tourist groups from this country to other countries generally compose of middle class people most of whom would not have traveled abroad earlier. They are chary of spending much money. They are hardly aware of the customs and behaviour of host countries. And the group feeling gives them courage / confidence to behave in ways which the hosts may find somewhat offensive.
4.While on the subject, I want to dwell on a related subject of behavioural pattern of Indians.
5. We are a country of various religions and a number of languages. The behaviour pattern of different religions vary to some extent. Even within the religions there are sub castes. The colloquial style differs from religion to religion, from caste to caste and region to region.
6. People of a colloquial style make fun of the colloquial style of others. So also we make disparaging remarks about the language, way of living and behaviour of others. How often we have heard remarks with a smirk of others. South Indians look askance at Punjabi behaviour terming it as boorishness, who in turn makes fun of Bengalis for their high brow attitude, who in turn snigger at Oriyas as being clumsy and naive and so on and so forth. Our societal behaviours also differ.
7. The point is in respect of these maters, India is a continent and not a country. In short if we all of Indians can make fun of other Indians for their behaviour and customs, then why be surprised at citizens of other countries looking at askance at our behaviour.