The tourism ministry has done very well in 2017. We just crossed the 10-million mark in foreign tourist arrivals, which is 15.2% more than in 2016. Our revenue through international tourist visits has touched $27 billion. It (tourism) contributes 6.88% to the GDP of the country and 12.36% to the overall employment. The industry provides jobs to people from all segments of society — illiterate people, semi-literates, school dropouts, graduates, postgraduates, etc.
LIZ MATHEW: You are the BJP’s Meghalaya in-charge. What do you make of the politics in the Northeast?
I am very happy to be made the election in-charge for Meghalaya. It’s so incredible and beautiful. The entire Northeast,
especially from a tourism point of view, has been so badly undersold. Hardly any Indians go there. Not many foreigners visit the region either. The region has immense tourism potential. We need to develop basic infrastructure such as roads, airports… in the region. The Shillong airport runway is being expanded for larger planes to land. The Nathu La airport is going to be commissioned pretty soon. But the healthcare system is in bad shape, so is education. A lot has to be done for the people.
LIZ MATHEW: What is your role in Meghalaya and Nagaland?
For the past four-five months, I have been travelling extensively in Meghalaya. I tell people, ‘Look at yourself. You don’t have health facilities, your roads are non-existent, your children have to go to distant places to study… which is alright for national integration, but the problem is that there are no opportunities.’ There are absolutely no employment opportunities for people in the state. It’s pathetic. The government is hugely corrupt; all the money given to the state by the government of India is stolen. This is what is happening in Meghalaya. So, I will urge the people of the state to share honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream. What is his dream? Very simple. We need food on every table, we need every child to go to school. Not just that, he should complete school and then of course, go to college, get skilled, get a job. Everybody should have a house and a toilet and, eventually, we must have good educational institutions, healthcare institutions, basic infrastructure and everybody should have a job so
that they can lead a dignified life. This dream should be shared by the people of Meghalaya, and that can happen only if we have a government which is committed to the people.
LIZ MATHEW: There have been concerns about the party’s stand on beef and even on triple talaq. How do you convince the minorities that there is space for them in the BJP?
The Prime Minister has said very clearly in the past that ‘I will protect you’. Which prime minister has ever had the guts to say that? Before Modi came to power in 2014, there was a huge propaganda claiming that if he won, churches would be burnt, Christians would be beaten up. Has any church, anywhere, been burnt in the past three-and-a-half years? Not one. Have Christians been beaten up? The answer is no. Judge the BJP government and the Prime Minister by their performance. On the beef issue, the BJP has maintained that you can eat what you want to. The people of Meghalaya will decide what they want to eat, what they want to wear; the BJP will not dictate these things. I think we have overcome that apprehension.
On the issue of triple talaq, I don’t think there is any other practice in the country that discriminates against women so much. The whole country realises this. In which Muslim country do they have triple talaq? They don’t have it. I don’t think any community can blame the BJP government for its efforts to liberate women and give them a dignified life. I don’t think there will be any problem in Meghalaya or anywhere else regarding triple talaq.
RAVISH TIWARI: But the BJP has strong ties with the RSS, which has been emphasising on a Hindu Rashtra. How then will you assuage the feelings of Christians in Meghalaya and Nagaland?
The RSS is not in power, the BJP is. Let’s be clear on that. There is a huge distinction between the RSS and the government. The RSS is a social service organisation. They can express their views. Look at what Narendra Modi did in Gujarat as chief minister. It was a government for the people. It was not a government for the RSS or for the Hindus; it was a government for everybody. For the past three-and-a-half years, I don’t think he has ever once said this is a Hindu Rashtra. In Parliament and outside, his actions prove that the nation belongs to everyone.
RAVISH TIWARI: While you say that people are free to eat what they want to, on the ground, even those who transport cattle are being assaulted. What message do attacks of this kind send out?
We are a country of 1.25 billion people or may be a little more. In such a massive population, there will always be some crazy people. There are crazy people in every community. Can you really blame the Prime Minister or the government when some crazy guy out there does things which are absolutely reprehensible? You can’t. Isn’t that a problem everywhere in the world? I am not saying that such things are justified, absolutely not. But I think the global media is very often unfair to us. I think it’s a racial bias. There is a shootout happening in the US almost every day. Things happen in Paris… When people transporting cattle get beaten up, there’s a three-page write-up in The New York Times, in The Washington Post. I see it as a huge racial bias. I don’t think the world media is fair to us.
RAHUL TRIPATHI: While there has been a sharp decline in the number of visas granted to Pakistani nationals, the number of visas given to Indians by Pakistan has gone up.
I think that’s a question you need to put to the external affairs minister. As tourism minister, I can’t respond to that.
SUNNY VERMA: By when can we expect the data protection law to be in place?
Based on the recommendations of the Srikrishna Committee, we have published a white paper on the data protection framework in India, asking for stakeholders’ feedback. (The Justice BN Srikrishna Committee, set up by the ministry of electronics & information technology on July 31 last year, has been tasked with writing a draft data protection law.) So, hopefully, based on the response to the white paper, we will be finalising a data protection law pretty soon. There are several things that need to be ensured. Our data has to be protected, our privacy has to be protected, individual computers need to be protected, the network must be protected. We need to ensure that hackers don’t access our system. It’s an extremely complicated system.
But we have been extremely fortunate. Every day we read in the newspapers that data of 500 million people has been leaked in the US, Europe, etc. We have been very lucky. We have run an extremely competent IT and electronics department. We are putting in place several safeguards to ensure that our data is protected, and that our Internet is protected. We are also working with the corporate sector to ensure this.
The biggest digital revolution is taking place in the country under the leadership of the Prime Minister, and the objective is very simple — it’s not only about growth, but we need to take the fruits of development to the last man out there. The best platform to avoid corruption and delays is the digital platform.
SUNNY VERMA: There have been admissions of Aadhaar data breach in response to questions in Parliament. You have also listed cases where FIRs have been filed by the UIDAI for frauds in accounts linked to Aadhaar. Are these isolated incidents or is the system prone to big data theft and breach?
No, I think these are just apprehensions. The core of Aadhaar is the biometric system. Has it ever been breached? The answer is no. The fundamental biometric information has never been breached.
COOMI KAPOOR: You said that it has been a good year for tourism but, considering our size, we have one of the poorest records in tourism in the world. Countries such as Singapore get more tourists than us. Also, a lot of people that we count as tourists are actually NRIs.
Am I happy with the numbers? Obviously not. We are a 5,000-year-old civilisation. I agree that they (smaller countries) have managed to do so much better. I would like to double our numbers and income in three years. This nation is capable of doing much better, but the problem is, who is going to spend the money? Should the government spend all the money? Do we have the basic infrastructure in place? One of the potential tourism areas is the Buddha circuits in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We have an airport in Bodh Gaya, but the other infrastructure is in very poor shape. We have no roads, no hotels, there are no convention centres. We are now planning to set up all the infrastructure in consultation with the state government; they are putting in money. I am also consulting the Japanese government, the World Bank… We need to put big money in these Buddhist circuits.
We also have a lot of scope in adventure tourism in states such as Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and even in the hilly districts of Kerala. We haven’t really worked on these things in the past but we are doing it now.
ARUN PRASHANTH SUBRAMANIAN: There is also a huge domestic tourism market in the country. More and more young families with disposable incomes want to visit their homes and villages. Take, for instance, the Harappan site at Dholavira in Gujarat. If there was a site like this anywhere in the world, there would be a line of school buses every half an hour, there would be a beautiful museum with video and audio tours. But there is nothing there. These are things that the government might not be able to do; it may need big public-private partnerships. Are you thinking in that direction, considering this is such a big sector?
There is big money in domestic tourism and Indians are good spenders. 60% of domestic tourists visit religious sites. So we are spending a lot of money to improve facilities there. We have approved schemes worth `5,648 crore for improving infrastructure and other facilities around religious places. However, there are fundamental problems like who will fund the toilets. The Swachh Bharat campaign has done an amazing job — people have become more and more conscious about cleanliness. But yes, much more needs to be done. The archaeological sites need to be protected. We need to create infrastructure around these sites. For example, at several sites in Agra, there are no parking spaces and these need to be created. We also need to ensure the availability of clean toilets. It is not just about who builds these facilities, maintenance is also crucial. The other day I was reading that Paris has a night mayor. But here, people only think of night clubs when they think of night life. Night clubs are a very small component of night life. A tourist spends a big amount of money at night. Unfortunately, in India, we have no forms of entertainment to offer to our tourists after sunset. Apart from the occasional drink, there is nothing to do. We are losing out on big money and we will have to come up with ideas to change that. Why should Qutub Minar not be open for 24 hours? Similarly, why should the Taj Mahal not be open for 24 hours? Ticket price for a visit to the Taj in the night can be higher. Why can we not have live performances, songs and music around the Taj and keep the whole place alive even after sundown? We need to change our mindset towards night life around monuments. This will encourage millions and millions of people to visit these places and generate more money.
LIZ MATHEW: When you talk about night life and organising activities around monuments, there is bound to be a section of people who say that this is not our culture. How do you intend to tackle the problem?
We can bring in millions of tourists from across the world and also protect our culture. But yes, there is a problem. For example, a lot of Indians react differently when they see a white woman. They tend to get too close to them, take selfies and at times even create mischief. This obsession with white women is a mindset problem in the country. The country as a whole needs to understand that we are one world and we need to let others be the way they are. Else, we will have problems like the one in Fatehpur Sikri (where a Swiss couple was assaulted in October last year).
We say tourists are like god, at least treat them like humans. We must let them be. It also gives a bad name to the country. We have our limitations but we also have such an incredible culture and civilisation.
LIZ MATHEW: As an MLA you have worked with the Left parties and now you are with the BJP. What is the difference?
The Left speaks more about distribution. It’s about dividing the cake, it’s not about creation of work. The Modi government talks about creating jobs. We want to increase the size of the pie. We also want to ensure that a big portion of the cake reaches the people. That is the biggest difference between the Left and the Modi government. I won’t call us ‘Right’. We are Right in the sense that we are not wrong.
RAVISH TIWARI: You have been an administrator. Can you make an impartial assessment of the violence between the RSS and the CPI(M) in your home state?
It has been happening for the past 50 years. Kerala is a peaceful state and it shocks me when I see politics over murders. By and large, there are no non-political murders there. People walk around at night, women can move freely. Every time the Marxists come to power, the number of killings go up. Since the CPM came to power, 186 people have been killed. I am on good terms with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. I told him that we should work together to address this problem. It tarnishes the image of the state, which is otherwise peaceful and tourist-friendly. Even he agreed to work together. This has to stop.