To All Foreign Women, Please Don’t Think India Is Unsafe To Visit!

As a British woman living in Mumbai for the last 14 years, I felt compelled to respond to the recent article titled, provocatively, “To all Foreign Women, Please don’t come to India. I don’t feel safe here either”.

Every time there’s a tragic incident involving a foreigner in India, similar articles crop up. Reasons range from the omnipresent staring, groping and worse. Foreign women are often encouraged to stay away completely. Then there are the probably well-meaning but clumsily framed entreaties to foreign women to avoid wearing skirts for their own safety.

This kind of scaremongering paints an erroneous picture of India, and indeed other countries where foreign women tragically, though fortunately rarely, are raped and murdered. Such horrors are rare but they do happen, and they happen all over the world.

So as someone with a long history of living and working in India, let me share my own side of the story.

Although I’m now married (to an Indian!) and don’t generally travel too often alone in India these days, I’ve done my fair share of travelling solo in the country. I’ve backpacked all over India and lived and worked in Mumbai as a single woman for 4 years before meeting my husband.

I often claim that Mumbai is one of the safest places I’ve been to. I’ve walked the streets alone at 4am after parties. I’ve lived alone in apartments in the city. I’ve waited on street corners to meet friends. I’ve taken (and still take) taxis alone. I’ve rocked up at functions without an escort, done my fair share of internet dating, and taken trains the length and breadth of the country. As a backpacker, I’ve even slept on the pavement when I was too tired to move another inch!

In 16 years of travelling across, and living in India, my experiences of being harassed amount to – ONCE having my crotch grabbed in a busy tourist area of Mumbai and ONCE having my breast grabbed on a bus somewhere in Rajasthan. I’ve also partied at New Year’s Eve on Baga Beach in Goa, when a group of unruly drunk guys were getting a little out of hand, and I left. It’s happened to me in London as well, incidentally, and just as I didn’t assume that all Londoners were evil drunken letches, I didn’t assume that everyone in Baga that night had malicious intentions. Granted, these experiences weren’t particularly pleasant, but they’ve hardly scarred me for life.

Yes, I’ve been stared at A LOT. And yes that can feel invasive particularly for those of us who’ve grown up in a culture where it’s rude to stare. But the staring comes from everywhere – from the guys who are clearly leering, to the ladies at the supermarket who can’t quite believe that this firang has popped in to pick up her groceries, to the male and female security and immigration officials who are fascinated by the sight of a white girl with her brown partner. Indians are naturally very curious people, and though it can sometimes be exhausting to have to deal with endless questions about why you’re in India and why you’ve left the UK (clearly a crazy decision for many Indians!) it is also quite gratifying to be a Person Who Is Interesting. Most backpackers are, by definition, curious types, motivated to leave the comfort of their homes and explore new territories. So surely the curiosity they experience when travelling would be welcomed, not shunned?

Indians are not only curious but very, very hospitable. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been invited to a relative stranger’s home, simply because that person wanted to feed me. In my early days of living alone in an apartment in Mumbai, my neighbours would invite me for dinner every week. Even now, most of the time I meet a new person, I can guarantee that a generous invitation to “come home” won’t be far away.

You might say I’m lucky. That I’ve managed to avoid the obvious traps which lie in wait for any foreign girl foolish enough to embrace India as her home. But I’m not naïve. I do understand that I’m a target for guys with white girl (or even just girl) fantasies, and I take obvious steps to protect myself – I do wear skirts, but I don’t wear them too short, I generally carry a scarf to throw around my shoulders if I’m wearing a strappy top, and I limit my bikini wearing to the club which I’m a member of, rather than the beach, where it’s usually a one piece. I also know that Mumbai is probably safer than Delhi, and I wouldn’t roam around the streets of Delhi at night alone, because I don’t know the city.

But I certainly wouldn’t tell foreign women to stay away from the country I’ve adopted as my home. I would encourage them to visit, to witness India’s stunning beauty, experience the incredible hospitality and warmth of its people, and travel, solo or otherwise, guided by common sense.

[Heather originally came to India from the UK on a backpacking trip in the year 2000, and loved it so much that she never left. She is married to Vivek, and is the proud mother of two gorgeous half-Indian, half-British boys.

Heather has worked in various media companies for over 2 decades, including ad agencies, a broadcaster and movie production company and is now Chief Talent Officer for The 120 Media Collective. She is also an ICF trained Coach, coaching business leaders as well as expats relocating to Asia (www.heathergupta.com).

Her first novel, “Becoming Mrs Kumar” which she describes as “fiction inspired by intense experience” was published in India in 2013.]