Resurgent Religious Nationalism in India: Changing Identity and Image of Indian Tourism

ABSTRACT

Historians have presented different narratives about the image of India, out of which the colonial narrative of the British period has dominated its post-independence image. One segment of history scholars believe that the ancient history of the country presents its authentic picture. Research on the tourism image of India has not been inclusive and has not considered the different perspectives of the country image. An application-oriented approach is used in the majority of the existing studies to know the perceptions of tourists about tourist-friendly image of India. However, in the last decade, research in history and political science has identified a change in the official narrative about India after 2014 and refers to this as “Religious Nationalism”. This research attempts to identify if this official narrative is percolating to the tourism image of the country. Data generated through focus groups indeed support this and identify new symbols of tourism identity and a new evolving tourism image of India.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism identity
• tourism image
• Indian tourism
• religious nationalism
• colonial narrative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).