India, July 27 -- American YouTuber Tyler Oliveira has waded into a growing online debate about whether pointing out India's hygiene and infrastructure problems amounts to racism. The 25-year-old content creator claimed that he fell seriously ill during his visit to India, despite sticking to food from five-star hotels throughout his stay.

Oliveira was responding to a viral video by an Indian woman who criticised foreign travellers - particularly white visitors - for allegedly slumming it in India to reinforce negative stereotypes. In the video, she said that "white people" often travel on tight budgets, live in poor conditions "worse than the way underprivileged people in India live", and visit unhygienic locations - only to return and ...