They did everything right.
The Israeli tourist and the homestay owner in Koppal, Karnataka, followed every conceivable safety precaution we demand of women in India. They travelled together, ensured trusted male companions were present, arranged reliable accommodation, and had their own vehicles so they wouldn’t have to ask strangers for a ride. They didn’t venture into ‘uncharted territories’.
Yet, a group of three men assaulted them anyway as they stargazed by the Tungabhadra River. The attackers, outnumbered by the group, were able to overpower them and every rule we pretend protects women in this country. They pushed the men accompanying the women into the canal, killing one of them, Bibash Nayak.
Over and over, we find ourselves returning to the same terrifying truth: no amount of privilege or precaution provides immunity from male violence in India. Women have to complete an exhausting obstacle course just to get through the day—don’t go here, don’t wear that, don’t travel then, don’t trust anyone. And as a society, we’re perfectly complacent, accepting the inevitability of sexual violence, especially against foreign women.
What does it cost a nation when it becomes globally known as a predatory paradise? No “atithi devo bhava” campaign can compete with the harrowing accounts of harassment shared by foreign visitors.
The Karnataka atrocity is a continuation of India’s failure to confront a culture of impunity that rules public life. We can calculate the economic cost of lost tourism—but the reputational damage is immeasurable. Every assault that foreign women carry home rewrites the India story. Their testimonies, shared in Reddit warnings and viral social media posts, reveal what our tourism brochures never will.
Also read: Is brand India dimming? Pollution panic, dire warnings for women, big dip in foreign tourists
A pattern of violence: Attacks on female tourists in India
In March 2024, a Brazilian-Spanish travel influencer camping with her husband in Dumka, Jharkhand, was gang-raped by seven men. “They have beaten us and robbed us,” she said in a deleted Instagram post, “although not many things because what they wanted was to rape me.” Her words punctured the fictions we tell ourselves—that these acts of terror are about robbery, misunderstanding, or ignorance.
Sifting through the attacks on women travellers from different countries is a depressing downward spiral. A middle-aged British tourist raped in front of her partner on a Goan beach by a local masseuse in 2022. A Swiss tourist gang-raped during a cycling trip and a South Korean national drugged and raped in Madhya Pradesh in 2013. An American woman, 31, gang-raped and robbed in Manali, Himachal Pradesh, the same year. In 2016, a 25-year-old American teacher was drugged and raped in Delhi by four men—two of them employees of the tour company she was with and the other of the five-star hotel she was staying at. It took months for her to lodge an FIR. When she returned to India to identify her rapists, she said, “I was very excited when I came to India. It was my lifelong dream… But this problem the country has with rape and violence is a serious issue.”
The list extends back through years, a relentless spool of collective trauma. The rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa in 2008 is perhaps the most distressing. Keeling’s mother, Fiona MacKeown, said “the Indian authorities had put her family through hell”. After a conviction finally came in 2019—11 years after the teenager’s death—MacKeown said about Goa – and by extension, India – “It is still not safe until the tourist murders are taken seriously.”
Each incident shatters trust. These women came to India believing in our hospitality, and left – at least those who were lucky to survive – carrying wounds they will bear forever.
Also read: Fewer tourists are visiting India now. What’s worse, our stand is we don’t really care
Justice denied: Systemic failure to protect foreign women
Perhaps more damning than the violence itself is the near-certainty that justice will remain elusive. As this report clarifies, “Data shows that most crimes committed against foreigners in India rarely reach the courts and convictions are even rarer.” Between 2016 and 2022, 148 rape cases involving foreign victims were recorded in India. Only 16 reached the courts. Only seven ended in convictions—that is, a 5 per cent conviction rate. The message we send is clear – your violation is not worthy of our justice system’s attention.
This institutionalised indifference unsurprisingly shapes how the world perceives us. The UK’s travel advisory for India doesn’t mince words: “Serious sexual attacks involving both Indian and foreign nationals have been reported. British women have been victims of sexual assault, including rape, in multiple states in India.” It warns women to “avoid isolated areas, including beaches, when alone at any time of day”. The US advisory is even more blunt and opens with: “Indian authorities report that rape is one of the fastest growing crimes in India. Violent crime, such as sexual assault, has happened at tourist sites and other locations.” Australia cautions women against travelling alone, “even in major cities and tourist sites.”
But more powerful than government warnings are the raw testimonies of travellers themselves. The YouTube account “Travel For Phoebe” garnered over 3,06,000 views on a video titled “Is India safe for women? My honest travel experience.” The tourist recounted being mobbed and chased by men—once by a pack of 40—attempting to photograph her, harass her, ultimately forcing her to barricade herself in the hotel room for three days. “I cannot tell you how relieved I was to be leaving India,” she said.
A female tourist’s body in India exists in a state of perpetual vulnerability. And that is just an extension of the long shadow that falls across half of our own population.
Also read: US travel advisory flags rape in India, asks American visitors to exercise ‘increased caution’
The economic cost of gender violence in India
Following the brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape, foreign female tourist arrivals plummeted by 35 percent. We counted this loss in empty hotel rooms and declining revenue. The patriarchal machine of governance briefly acknowledged the economic inconvenience of our rape culture before returning to apathy.
Yet we have never attempted to calculate the true costs for a nation when the movement of its own women is severely restricted. The fiscal impact of gender violence should be calculated in lost potential.
India’s female labour force participation hovers at an abysmal 24 percent — far below the global average of 47 percent. This is in part due to the unpaid care work and lack of opportunities. But what about the omnipresent threat of violence that constrains our mobility, our ability to work night shifts, or even commute to our workplaces? What about self-censorship? Since this is a language we seem to understand, these practical limitations systematically exclude women from economic participation – a loss of innovation, productivity, and growth.
The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that advancing gender parity could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by 2025. Instead, we tolerate a system where women’s movement is stunted by constant negotiation with potential violence.
When a woman’s world shrinks, we all inhabit a smaller, poorer country. The research is unambiguous: integration of women into all levels of society correlates directly with economic development, political stability, and social cohesion. We continue to accept the narrative that women’s safety is somehow separate from national progress.
The Karnataka attack will fade from headlines like all the others before it. But we cannot separate the fear foreign tourists feel from the constraints Indian women endure. Both stem from the same rotten root. And both exact costs we’ve barely begun to calculate.
Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
Tourisim sector could be a golden egg for India and its economy. Its a shame that with so much Historical cities, Natural wonders we attract less than 25 million Foreign Tourists. Compate that to small countries like Austria or Greece which receive more than 30 million Foreign Tourists as per United Nations World Tourism Organization. We Rank 39th as per World Economic Forum report published in 2024.
There are lot of things that both the Government and Citizens can do to attaract Foreign Tourists but one of
biggest improvement we can do is provide Saftey and security of the tourists.
If we cannot provide a safe environment for Women tourists we are loosing out big. Governments (both Central and State), Tour operators, Hotel/Service industry should take every step possible to educate people, officials, employees about treating tourists better.
Police and Security officials should be trained to take the complaints of Foreign Tourists more seriously and help resolve the issues more urgently.
Unless we treat our guests with respect and make them feel safe, no matter what we do our image as country will always be tarnished.
In addition to the reasons already described by the author, the extreme fetishisation of “foreign females” by the Indian society also plays its part. The widely promoted desirability of white skinned/exotic looking foreigners and the belief that “foreign women” have “loose morals” and are just looking for amorous and promiscuous adventures also add to the burden. The disrespectful verbal degradation of “russians” or “gori” in popular slang and in pop culture from standup to web series needs thorough introspection and correction.