India is a diverse country, a popular tourist destination and the land of wide indifferences, has always been vulnerable to terrorist activities for a long time. Not only does terrorism claim the lives of several hundred, more importantly, but it also hampers the smooth functioning of the country's economy for a larger period of time. This article studies the direct negative relationship of tourism associated with terrorism as an immediate aftermath of these gruesome activities.
Terrorism In India: Terrorist activities have taken place in almost all states of India till date. The Annex of Statistical Information, Country Reports on Terrorism 2017 places India as the third highest country in the World with instances of terrorist activities. As a grave matter of fact, 59% of all worldwide attacks took place in five countries (Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Pakistan and the Philippines).
The report further goes on to tell that: "the total number of people killed in terrorist attacks increased 10% in 2017. More than half of the terrorist attacks in India in 2017 took place in three states: Jammu and Kashmir (25%), Chhattisgarh (15%), and West Bengal (10%). This geographic pattern reflects several key changes, in comparison to 2016: Jammu and Kashmir saw a 24 per cent increase in attacks in 2017 and an 89 per cent increase in the number of people killed in terrorist attacks. West Bengal saw a 215 per cent increase in attacks, from six in 2016 to 76 in 2017. Many of these attacks were arson attacks aimed at causing property damage, or bombings that caused relatively few casualties."
Tourism in India (An Overview): Tourism is one of the most flourishing industries in India. Being a land of cultures and traditions, India offers thousands of tourist destinations for relaxation, adventures, outing, and spiritual visits. India holds a lot of potential as a beautiful nation to attract a lot more foreign tourists and generate much more GDP through the improvement of this industry.
However, despite all these factors, India's share in International Tourism Receipts (US $ terms) accounts for 2.05% of the total amount. The following are some statistical data and graphical representation of tourism in India from the annual report- “INDIA TOURISM STATISTICS AT A GLANCE 2018”.
The widely infamous 26/11 Mumbai Attacks were a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks carried out by 10 members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which lasted for 4 days. The attacks took place mostly in South Mumbai at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, The Oberoi Trident, The Taj Palace & Tower, Leopold Café, Cama Hospital, The Nariman House and the Metro Cinema. The attacks being aimed mostly at foreign tourists took place at popular hotels, café and hospital. It is reported that 166 people were killed and over 300 were wounded in this attack.
While there were a lot more casualties suffered by Indians, as can be seen from the data, quite a few foreign tourists too were affected by the attacks. Foreigners suffered lower than Indians both in terms of deaths and injuries. However, the incident weakened the tourism industry of India in one big blow.
After the attacks took place, there have had been some really saddening restrictions on tourist spots. For example, the much famous Elephanta festival was stopped for 9 years due to security concerns.
As can be seen from the table above, the states are ranked on the basis of the tourist inflow. Now we study the ranks of the states across a time series. The variance column helps us to identify the change in the ranks of the state in that year as compared to 2016. In other words, it points out if ranks have increased or decreased in relation to 2016.
What is important to note from this data is that the rank of Maharashtra was significantly low in 2011 signifying that tourism had not stabilized quite so much. However, after that period, it kept improving as there were no major terrorist activities notable to hamper tourism.
The Amarnath Yatra attacks & Insurgencies in J&K: The Amarnath cave is a Hindu shrine located in Jammu and Kashmir which attracts hundreds of devotees each year. This place has been a target of notorious terrorist activities quite a few times in the past. The pilgrimage was banned from 1991 to 1995 due to threats from terrorists. There followed the ‘2000 pilgrimage massacre' which claimed lives of 32 people who were on their way to Amarnath. Then there took place the 2001 and 2002 terrorist-attack massacres and the mishap of 2006 during which, fortunately, there were no casualties. It seemed as if the attacks had stopped for quite some time until the 2017 attacks hit again.
We take a time series data to analyze the trend of tourist inflow to Amarnath caves and try to relate it to the mishaps caused.
Directly from the data, it can be interpreted that tourist inflow has been quite irregular and has quite a lot of peaks and troughs. Stagnation in tourist visits was observed from 2001-2003. Also, there has been a considerable dip was noted after 2006 till 2008. Although beyond that, there was an absolute increase in the number of tourists, spikes were sharp and noteworthy. As can be easily linked, all the downfalls in tourist visits followed shortly after terrorist attacks and political unrest.
The following is the chart representing the fatalities in Jammu and Kashmir due to terrorist activities from 1990-2018.
Correlation coefficient: -0.944720163, i.e. there is a very strong negative correlation between the variables, which means that tourism in Jammu and Kashmir increases with a decrease in terrorist activities.
Conclusion: The empirical study shows that there is a direct negative relationship between tourism and terrorism. With this proven, it is really high time that India should focus on stabilizing political instabilities if it aims to generate more revenue from the flourishing tourism industry.
Malik, M.M., & Asima, N. (May 2014). A REVIEW OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA. Mysore.
A student of economics with an inclination towards analytical research on global and domestic socio-economic conditions.