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Journalism of Courage
It was meant to be a party to celebrate the end of the gruelling, 10-day Desert Queen rally in which 45 women motorists from Israel took part. But the state government has turned party-pooper and removed the Ajmer Collector and a host of tourism officials for allowing Israeli tourists to ‘‘dance nude’’ on the sand dunes near the holy town of Pushkar.
Two days after the women motorists ended their desert expedition in Pushkar, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Minister of State for Tourism Usha Punia have replaced all officials involved in organising and attending the party.
This has been done despite the organisers giving the officials a clean chit and claiming that the incident had been blown out of proportion.
Local MLAs and residents have alleged that the Israeli women ‘‘got drunk, threw their clothes on the stage and danced naked under the moonlight’’. They added that Ajmer Collector Ashwini Bhagat and Tourism Department officials were present at the venue—Ganaheda village, five kilometres from Pushkar town.
‘‘These things should not have happened,’’ says Punia. ‘‘Our people were there, they should have put their foot down and stopped it.’’
The organisers have a different story to tell.
‘‘There was no nude dancing,’’ says Akshay Kumar of Delhi-based Mercury Himalayan Explorations, the Indian organisers of the show. ‘‘There was a little slip-up, which barely lasted for a second. And it was immediately stopped.’’
According to Kumar, at the end of the event, the girls were divided into 15 teams and each team was supposed to give a five-minute presentation to the other members.
‘‘One of the teams decided to reenact a village scene. During their stay with local shepherd families (Rewaris), the village women had created a special parda using sarees, behind which all the girls used to bathe.’’
He claimed that while the Israelis were reliving that experience on stage — apparently all too realistically — the curtain fell down for a few seconds, exposing the women.
In a long apology note written to Rajasthan’s Tourism Commissioner Vinod Zutshi, Arik Braz of Israel’s Geographical Tours explains: ‘‘This particular group got carried away in the excitement and exuberance and dropped the parda, thereby showing three girls partially undressed. The audience may have got a two-second glimpse of the girls in this state. Even we were taken by surprise as we did not know that they were planning this. The girls were immediately asked to leave the stage by us and the Rajasthan Tourism officials.’’
He adds: ‘‘After that the event was not repeated. Here, I would like to say that the girls in the performance are very apologetic as their intention was not to insult sentiments. Therefore, you will understand that this was certainly not something that we had planned or encouraged.’’
But the letter has not had much of an impact and neither has the fact that the 45 participants have returned to Israel.
Local leaders, across party lines, have said that Indian sentiments have been hurt.
Opposition leader B D Kalla has demanded an inquiry.
Questions have also been raised about liquor being consumed and meat being served at the party.
Effigy-burning groups claim that both desecrate their holy town, where consumption of meat is prohibited anyway.
Again, it is not the Rajasthan Tourism officials who are offering any explanation, but the tour operators.
‘‘Alcohol was not served by Rajasthan Tourism and it was carried by individual participants and consumed individually,’’ says Kumar.
‘‘Moreover, the event was outside Pushkar so the meat argument doesn’t hold.’’
The annual event had come to India for the first time.
‘‘Last year, it was held in Thailand,’’ said one official. ‘‘The Israelis select 45 participants out of the 10,000 odd applications they receive, train the women to drive in Israel and then set out.
This time their destination was Rajasthan. But after this, we don’t think many people will be back.’’
