Mawlynnong, India, transformed by tourism, bans visitors on Sundays

ggmays about 5 hours ago 71 commentsRead Article on bbc.com

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quadrifoliate•about 2 hours ago

As someone born and brought up in India, I'm a little conflicted about this.

Of course it is true that a lot of Indians have no civic sense, and will spit, litter, and generally make a noisy nuisance of themselves in this quiet village. On the surface it seems to be a great story about that nuisance being kicked out one day of the week.

At the same time, this is part of...India. It seems questionable legally, and also morally, to just kick out people from the rest of the country and even the state on a a specific day. Your village benefits to some degree from their taxes. How would it be if the villagers were locked into their village for that day and not allowed to travel outside?

Is the solution to a lack of civic sense really just to make more and more of these clean enclaves? Will they finally end up expanding and covering more of the country? I would honestly feel better about this if the entire state of Meghalaya had some kind of cleanliness drive and a tourist tax.

I don't have any easy solutions. If I did, they would have occurred to someone in India and it would be a lot cleaner by now.

thewhitetulip•about 2 hours ago

> Visitors who book guesthouse rooms in Mawlynnong through Saturday and Sunday are exempt from the Sunday ban

Did you read the article?

atourgates•about 4 hours ago

More accurately, "bans day trippers on Sundays."

> Visitors who book guesthouse rooms in Mawlynnong through Saturday and Sunday are exempt from the Sunday ban.

rayiner•about 5 hours ago

> In a country known for its lack of sanitation, this is no small feat. But in Mawlynnong, children are taught to tidy up from a young age, with many taking to the streets each morning before school to sweep the town of dead leaves and empty rubbish bins. Villagers see to the disposal of biodegradables and take pride in public landscaping.

Culture is real.

hn_throwaway_99•about 4 hours ago

This is kind of fascinating to me because the few times I visited India I was completely gobsmacked by the insane levels of trash and pollution such that I never wanted to return. Like Gurugram reminded me of some type of ecological disaster dystopia out of Blade Runner. So I was particularly glad to see this story was about an Indian village and not one of the usual "amazingly clean Asian city" suspects, e.g. Singapore or somewhere in Japan.

geodel•about 4 hours ago

Yes, on one hand its fascinating, on other its about impossible before end of universe that it would be possible to apply India wide. Right on with Gurugram observation. The latest government way to fix all issue is to change name of the place to something from "glorious Indian past".

In terms of actually responding to eco-disaster I don't think people are there yet to see error and mend their ways. I do not expect this to change at least for next couple of decades.

skeledrew•about 4 hours ago

> But in Mawlynnong, children are taught to tidy up from a young age

This needs to be a thing everywhere. Education works to resolve most - if not all - social issues.

angry_octet•about 4 hours ago

It should be clear that this is about the stress that visiting Indians bring. And their trash.

But it also highlights how you need to restrict access to move up the value chain. Hordes of bus tourists who eat elsewhere or bring take away contribute little economically, you can sell some trinkets. People with a hotel booking are also likely to eat locally.

Venice faces a similar situation with cruise ships and Airbnbs raising the price of housing. They should be capping cruise ship numbers, and a weekend break would be good too.

nsvd2•about 3 hours ago

Surely a tax would be a better incentive mechanism than a hard cap.

nelox•about 5 hours ago

Ah the age old story of something being loved to death.

kristopolous•about 4 hours ago

Cleaner than Japan? That's something...

fhdkweig•about 4 hours ago

cleaner than Singapore or Thailand would really be something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_sales_ban_in_Singa...

doublerabbit•about 4 hours ago

> Do not spit" signs

> Some tourists have complained about the ban, saying it should have been implemented on a weekday instead

These should not be a thing. What is it that makes folk feel so entitled?

"Lack of litter bins"; isn't an excuse. I've seen folk stand next to a litter bin, light up and then throw the cigarettes end to the ground.

You're literally standing next to a litter bin!

It should be common sense not to spit nor to litter. Spitting is the worse and I see it all the time here in the UK.

fhdkweig•about 4 hours ago

It really bothers me when they spit on days where it is below freezing. It becomes a slip hazard on sidewalks.

rayiner•about 4 hours ago

Its rooted in culture and how people are socialized to relate to public spaces and the people around them. Here’s Lee Kuan Yew talking about the same problem he faced in Singapore at first: https://medium.com/@barronqasem/the-moral-behind-lee-kuan-ye... (“The difficult part was getting the people to change their habits so that they behaved more like first world citizens, not like third world citizens spitting and littering all over the place.”).

I only really have experience with Americans and Bangladeshis, but in my experience Americans are Nazis about littering and recycling. I was talking with a law school professor once after class and dropped a diet coke bottle into the trash in front of her. Without missing a beat she reached into the trash bin to take it out and threw it into the recycling bin.

triceratops•about 4 hours ago

> in my experience Americans are Nazis about littering and recycling

I don't know about that. I've seen many a poorly sorted recycle bin in my life. Americans are definitely in the upper quartile, maybe even the upper decile, of the world as a whole. Among the developed world the country may be just about average.

I believe glass recycling is segregated by color in some countries in Europe. And they take that really seriously.

boc•about 3 hours ago

American recycling in a lot of major cities is single-stream - aka you put all recycling together and a central plant sorts it for you. More efficient, more accurate, and it encourages more people to recycle since it's extremely easy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stream_recycling

arijun•about 4 hours ago

> stand next to a litter bin, light up and then throw the cigarettes end to the ground.

If the litter bin doesn’t have an ashtray (like most in the US), maybe they were worried about starting a trash fire?

mc32•about 4 hours ago

What in hell? I haven’t seen or heard people spit on sidewalks other than some homeless people in ages.

In parts of Asia where people chew betel nut, of course that’s a different story -they put the old west custom of spitting tobacco chew to shame.

tekla•about 4 hours ago

Its so mindboggling. Littering wssnt even an option in my head as a child. Always carry your trash until you can properly dispose.

What the hell is wrong with people?

sysworld•about 4 hours ago

Same here. I find it hard to understand people who litter.

foxglacier•about 4 hours ago

How do you reconcile you complaint about complaining about the tourist ban with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says people have the right to freedom of movement within the borders of each state?

weikju•about 4 hours ago

Does that Declaration give you an inalienable right to do anything you please? I doubt it. As the old saying goes, your freedom stops where someone else’s freedom starts.

Or in Seinfeld speak, “we live in a society!!!”

Have to consider others not just oneself. That’s the price of freedom and being responsible about it.

The alternative is a nanny state or anarchy.

doublerabbit•about 4 hours ago

Nothing is stopping you from travelling within the borders. A village is nothing more than a province within the state.

If the law ruled: "you may not traverse through the state on Sundays"; then one could argue that is a breach of human rights.

However the last time I checked detours exist thas enabling you to pass around the village which may be closed on Sundays.

If you're a tourist and a village says no, why can't you obey that, why does that upset you?

fouc•about 3 hours ago

bans only 1 day? man, I'd expand that to include mondays and tuesdays

jazzpush2•about 4 hours ago

Reading the title generates imagery of a city in Japan being overrun by foreigners.

The actual content is about a self-proclaimed 'Asia's cleanest village' in India, banning Sunday visits from other domestic Indians.

Probably wouldn't be a popular story if this was revealed in the title.

tom_•about 3 hours ago

The article is on the BBC site, so Asia means India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/etc.

Japan is Japan.

scythe•about 4 hours ago

On the contrary, my first thought upon reading the title was "I hope it's not just Japan again". No disrespect to Japan, but articles about Japanese tidiness are a dime a dozen.

zuzululu•about 4 hours ago

I hate it when they keep bundling India into "Asia"

There's also a weird movement to call Indians as "Asians" outside the UK

It's very unpleasant like there's no way this village would compete with any of Japan's and that murks the line between "Asia" which should include Israel and Australia as well so it doesn't make sense why they keep pushing this narrative with India

laughing_man•about 4 hours ago

India is literally part of Asia. How else would you describe it?

AlotOfReading•about 3 hours ago

I prefer the maximalist perspective: France is West Asia.

grg0•about 3 hours ago

India?

bhelkey•about 4 hours ago

What continent is India in? What continent is Australia in?

Sleaker•about 4 hours ago

Huh? South-asia is more than just india. Just like all of the other cardinal directions that refer to different geographical regions within asia. Why can't it be a part of Asia?

socceroos•about 4 hours ago

I am in no way surprised to see that the village is Christian.

Christ is, after all, a transforming force on the heart and mind.

autoexec•about 3 hours ago

Wikipedia says that Budapest is home to one of the most populous Christian communities in Central Europe and it's considered to be one the most dirty places on Earth. Rome is often called Europe's dirtiest cities. Also Christian. Either Christ failed there, or religion has nothing to do with it.

arjie•about 3 hours ago

One of the most dirty places on Earth. Surely this cannot be true. I’ve been to ten dirtier cities in India alone than that, let alone the rest of South and South East Asia. I suppose in some sense every city is one of the most dirty places on Earth even if you rank 500 on some list but it cannot be useful to think of it like this.

HDBaseT•about 4 hours ago

By no means correlated.

KennyBlanken•about 2 hours ago

The village is heavily Christian. This is about forcing their religious views on everyone else in the village. The bit about tourists is just a smokescreen.