Tourist charged for bathing naked

[Nudony]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051024/...dia_tourist_dc

Ok; so going nude in India may not be the best idea. But isn't India home to the "Skyclad" Jains, who renounce clothes and go on pilgrimages through the country completely nude?

[Nudony]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051024/...dia_tourist_dc

Ok; so going nude in India may not be the best idea. But isn't India home to the "Skyclad" Jains, who renounce clothes and go on pilgrimages through the country completely nude?

[Sauna]

Maybe she was uset to swim naked which is here very common by summer houses. People use bathinh gsuit only if they hava foreign visitors. Excuse for Indian people that our people are like they are at home. When visiting you should be polite.

[krcNY]

I cannot believe the other couple was fined for Kissing at their own wedding. That is just wrong.

[missouriboy]

Thanks for the heads-up that India is such a great place to NOT spend your tourist dollars.

[Guest]

Sounds to me like India is a good place to stay away from if they find a kiss during a wedding ceremony to be obscene.

[NudeAl]

And here I thought the US was conservative!! Sheesh!! And what's up with those guys following her back to her hotel and making lewd comments? I thought they were upset because she was nude? Sounds more like they were upset because she wasn't interested in them. Holy city indeed!

[tinner666]

I know a country that will never get my tourist dollars! Frank

[xgsft]

I'm not sure why anyone would want to visit India to begin with. After studying the nation, it just not a place I would visit.

[Jason Lee]

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Indian police have brought charges against a Finnish tourist for bathing naked in a holy lake in a Hindu pilgrim town, a police officer said on Monday.

Police said the tourist walked to her hotel in the nude after taking a dip in the lake in Pushkar in the desert state of Rajasthan Saturday, angering several local people and priests.

"We have framed charges of indecency against the lady tourist from Finland under section 294 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," Sugan Singh, a police officer in Pushkar, told Reuters.

Under India's obscenity laws, the tourist can be imprisoned for three months or pay a fine.

Pushkar has a famous temple dedicated to Brahma -- the Hindu god of creation -- and is popular with foreign tourists who come for its desert ambience, camel safaris and annual camel fair.

Last month, an Israeli couple was fined 1,000 rupees after an Indian court found them guilty of obscenity for kissing during their marriage ceremony in Pushkar.

India has tough obscenity laws and kissing in public is frowned upon in the largely conservative country. Last October, local residents in the western state complained to authorities that a group of Israeli women had danced naked near Pushkar

[Ben_m]

Hmmm, is the (seemingly much abused ) term "conservative" being used as a synonym for "self-righteous" oftentimes these days....?

[Sauna]

I know that in my country is a group of females who collect places where they have swimmed, but normally they do not do it naked in public.

The punishment for the Israeli pair was not very expensive. It was about 22USD.

[zuma]

Yes, you should be polite, and respect other countries' cultures and mores, sauna. I agree with you there. But we can't just dismiss a backward anti-nude and anti-personal freedom culture so cavalierly, should we?

It doesn't mean you should go on an all-out attack on a foreign country because of their conservative beliefs, but should you just accept a conservative country's backward view of nudity, and dismiss it as a 12 dollar fine?

This is not something that should be dismissed or accepted. A great wrong was done to this woman.

[luvnaturism]

When one travels, whether at home or abroad, it's a good idea to focus on reality rather than on how one might wish things were. A visitor to New York might think it would be fun to be nude in Times Square, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

I haven't been to India either, but my reading is telling me that some portions of the population are advancing rapidly in the modern world, so that they are as skilled as anyone in education, skills, high tech, etc. Perhaps as many as half of the people aren't any of that, and it's not realistic to expect enlightened reactions when some tourist violates their holy places.

[usuallylurk]

quote:

Originally posted by zuma:
Yes, you should be polite, and respect other countries' cultures and mores, sauna. I agree with you there. But we can't just dismiss a backward anti-nude and anti-personal freedom culture so cavalierly, should we?

It doesn't mean you should go on an all-out attack on a foreign country because of their conservative beliefs, but should you just accept a conservative country's backward view of nudity, and dismiss it as a 12 dollar fine?

This is not something that should be dismissed or accepted. A great wrong was done to this woman.

Let's look at this realistically.

She was nude. In a lake that is considered to be holy. That makes the offense worse.

Now, let's pull a contrast. Around two-three years ago, a radio station in New York and a brewery had a contest. The contest resulted in a couple having sex in a Catholic church AND their arrest.

For those who will chuckle at that, and I'm sure there are some in here who will, let's carry it one step further. What about someone who disrupts the funeral of a gay man? Or plays marching band music to disrupt a skyclad pagan ceremony?

What is the common thread here?

DISRESPECT AND DISREGARD FOR THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF OTHERS.

Whether it's a radio stunt involving sex in a church or nudity in an area regarded as sacred, rights -- including religious rights -- must be respected.