A short Facebook post about how hard it is for women to travel in India went viral a few weeks ago, prompting a whole lot of people to weigh in. Some believed the tourist was right to complain, while a few others pointed out that some awful experiences weren’t enough to label a whole country as inhospitable or unsafe. The complaint mentioned how Indians insist on cheating tourists at every available opportunity, and pointedly requested Indian men to stop staring at women for no reason.
 
My first reaction was disbelief, because I couldn’t imagine any female tourist feeling unsafe in India. This is arguably one of the safest countries on the planet for women, and anyone who disagrees with that is clearly an enemy of the state. Ask any woman you know if they feel unsafe on any of our streets, and the responses may surprise you. I couldn’t imagine any foreigner being harassed by Indian men who, as everyone knows, are the most well-behaved, docile creatures on our streets, after cows. Who amongst us has ever seen an Indian man stare at a woman, let alone try and touch her in an inappropriate manner?

Despite what I felt, I couldn’t get the complaint out of my head so, out of curiosity, I decided to Google recent experiences involving tourists across India. I wanted to get a sense of whether that complaint deserved to be taken more seriously, and whether untoward incidents involving foreign visitors ever occur within our safe borders. Here’s what I found: