Tourism as Colonialism

The commodification of tribal lives in India / Communities

- / AKASH POYAM

On 19 January 2020, a group of tribal leaders and villagers in Kotha Balluguda, a village in Araku, were accused by the civil engineer of VSK Resorts—then under construction—of damaging property, setting fires, stealing and issuing threats. The villagers, however, argued that the resort was being built illegally on tribal land. Araku, a popular tourist destination in Andhra Pradesh, falls under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and is governed by the Land Transfer Regulation Act 1 of 1970, which mandates tribal consent for any land-related activity in the region. The police filed an FIR against more than 30 tribal individuals, including schoolteachers. Meanwhile, the non-tribal owner of the campsite resumed business operations on the same land. VSK Resorts continues to appear on Google Maps.

Araku is now flooded with expensive hotels and resorts, most of them built on tribal land through benami transactions, in which the true ownership of property is disguised by adding someone else’s name on the record. When I visited the area in late 2020, we met tribal workers—sweepers, helpers, housekeepers or security guards—at hotels, resorts and tourist sites such as the Borra caves. Most of them were in contractual positions, some for more than two or three decades. In Bhalluguda, a village where tourism has driven land alienation, residents told me about tourists revving up their cars, blasting music and tossing alcohol bottles onto roads. Women described how a stream once used for bathing had become crowded and unsafe.