Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 111 posts

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

#51

Post by alephnerd »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #49
alephnerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like Gurugram reminded me of some type of ecological disaster dystopia out of Blade Runner That's because of zoning. Much of Gurgaon isn't zoned as a municipality but as villages or agricultural land, which means there is no unified municipal government in vast swathes of the city. This is the same issue with Bangalore. Other large Indian cities (eg. Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc) are nowhere…

Seems like quite the stretch just to blame it on zoning. Gurugram was particularly bad but the other places around New Delhi I visited weren't much better.

Much of Delhi isn't zoned as a city either but as villages (in Delhi they are called Lal Doras) [0]. Most of the hostels and hotels backpackers stay in when visiting Delhi are located in these lal doras.

Additionally, the local government and the federal government have been at loggerheads for over decade because it's municipal government was ruled by the BJP but it's state government was ruled by the opposition (AAP), so both attempted to undermine the other.

Delhi NCR and Bangalore are two of the worst managed metropolitan areas in India from a local government perspective because of overlapping jurisdictions and extremely wonky zoning. Of course, those are the two Indian cities most HNers historically ended up visiting.

That said, it's highly likely most non-Desi HNers haven't visited India since 2020 because most businesses now send Indian Americans directly to India and India was never a strong tourism market aside from diaspora.

[0] - https://theprint.in/ground-reports/lal-dora-villages-delhi-h...

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

#52

Post by foxglacier »

doublerabbit wrote: post #11
foxglacier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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. Enabling you to bypass a village that may be closed on Sundays. If you're a tourist and a village says no, why can't you obey…

What do you think that human rights rule is supposed to mean then? By your definition, the (more older) Chinese way of restricting mobility between provinces according to hukou would be OK because you can just bypass the forbidden provinces.

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

#53

Post by foxglacier »

mothballed wrote: post #40
foxglacier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

India doesn't give a shit about that. They have restricted civil areas that require visitor clearance even for citizens.

I'm talking about doublerabbit, not India. Doublerabbit apparently doesn't like human rights, which is his right, but it's possible he actually holds contradictory opinions and doesn't realize it.

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

#54

Post by quadrifoliate »

irjustin wrote: post #47
skeledrew wrote: post #16

> 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.

I know statements like this mean well, but man it's so frustrating. It's the same thing as telling a person with depression to "just be happy". If it were so simple this would've been solved nation wide by Modi's 2014 address. Where does this education come from? Leaders, but leaders are product of their social environment. To create this change means to go against the norm meaning someone or a few have to break the…

You hit the nail on the head. It's not that simple. I was born and raised in India and I have seen hordes of supposedly "educated" Indian people with degrees littering and making a nuisance of themselves; and seen a lot of Indians who didn't have a formal education be much more conscientious about cleanliness and such because their family raised them that way.

It's some combination of moral education, culture, science, and psychology. Even religion can play a role, especially in India where it's so important for a majority of the people.

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

#55

Post by quadrifoliate »

alephnerd wrote: post #48
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Singap…

> Like Gurugram reminded me of some type of ecological disaster dystopia out of Blade Runner That's because of zoning. Much of Gurgaon isn't zoned as a municipality but as villages or agricultural land, which means there is no unified municipal government in vast swathes of the city. This is the same issue with Bangalore. Other large Indian cities (eg. Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc) are nowhere…

> My ancestral family is from village and small towns, and counterintuitively they tend to be much cleaner because they have more formally defined municipal and local governments.

Indian, and this is not counterintuitive to me at all. I have also seen this, really small rural villages with their tight local governments tend to be pretty clean.

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

#57

Post by alephnerd »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #55
alephnerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like Gurugram reminded me of some type of ecological disaster dystopia out of Blade Runner That's because of zoning. Much of Gurgaon isn't zoned as a municipality but as villages or agricultural land, which means there is no unified municipal government in vast swathes of the city. This is the same issue with Bangalore. Other large Indian cities (eg. Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc) are nowhere…

> My ancestral family is from village and small towns, and counterintuitively they tend to be much cleaner because they have more formally defined municipal and local governments. Indian, and this is not counterintuitive to me at all. I have also seen this, really small rural villages with their tight local governments tend to be pretty clean.

Yep. The added issue is half of the "cities" non-Indians visit in India aren't actually zoned as cities.

In essence, India had hidden urbanization occur [0], but zoning never caught up to it.

[0] - https://eacpm.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/EAC-PM-Worki...

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

#58

Post by satvikpendem »

irjustin wrote: post #47
skeledrew wrote: post #16

> 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.

I know statements like this mean well, but man it's so frustrating. It's the same thing as telling a person with depression to "just be happy". If it were so simple this would've been solved nation wide by Modi's 2014 address. Where does this education come from? Leaders, but leaders are product of their social environment. To create this change means to go against the norm meaning someone or a few have to break the…

More like, the education thus far was insufficient, not that it's not simple to just have education; it is that simple, but simple does not mean easy or without effort. Japan instills cleanliness from early schooling, that's what needs to be done in India too. Not just throwing up our hands and saying "it's not that simple."

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

#59

Post by ambicapter »

irjustin wrote: post #47
skeledrew wrote: post #16

> 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.

I know statements like this mean well, but man it's so frustrating. It's the same thing as telling a person with depression to "just be happy". If it were so simple this would've been solved nation wide by Modi's 2014 address. Where does this education come from? Leaders, but leaders are product of their social environment. To create this change means to go against the norm meaning someone or a few have to break the…

> If it were so simple this would've been solved nation wide by Modi's 2014 address.

What? How is this supposed to work?

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

#60

Post by thewhitetulip »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #50

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 als…

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

Did you read the article?

Post reply on HN