Why is India viewed as a soul searching destination by people from other countries?

Because it's dirt cheap to live in India, there's remarkably little oversight, and most people around have at least a modicum of skill in Angreji.

The spirituality part is just Counter-culture nonsense that's crept up as the West has grown more and more hedonistic and materialistic by the decade. Folk in the 20s and 50s, being typically more conflicted about their lives than the average person, naturally end up seeking alternate modes of living and end up- thanks to generations of similar myth-making helped along by aging 60s pop stars- in India.

Lot of it is driven by Israelis as well; they come up here partly to dodge the draft in their nation and partly because Hindus are probably the only people in the World not to have a hate boner for them.

And then you have the usual hanger-ons who accompany disillusioned, down-on-their-luck, confused young tourists everywhere: Mafia, Loansharks, Drug smugglers etc etc. Most of them are Whites themselves and so the Indian Gormint doesn't dare touch them. Proper little set-ups they have. Ask around in Himachal and Goa and you'll find HUGE stretches of land have been all but cordoned off to Indians- save for young college girls of course, entertainment courtesy of the magnanimous blindness of our “Bharat Bhagya Vidhatas”.

Anyway.

Speaking of magnanity, India also comes up because- as I've said earlier, we're pound for pound the most free State on Earth, at least in some respects. No Gormint busybody will track the random Israeli draft-dodger snorting opium in an alley. No one cares if some British chick goes gallivanting around factories taking pics that'd have her jailed in any other Asian country. No one cares if some Amrikan intellectual goes digging into crematoriums to indulge his cannibalistic fetishes.

Which is actually a mistake, since how are we repaid for it?

Three cases which I've personally experienced:

1- Karnataka, Hotel Owner: “I don't have any complaints but they never listen to me when I tell them not to drink tap water. I've even seen them drinking from a disused well. Once a guy almost died in my hotel because he ate a half rotten something.”

2- Delhi, Uber driver: “They want to experience 'real' India and demand to go into the roughest parts of the city even local goondas are wary of entering. Some get drunk in such places. I give them advice but no one listens!”

3- Chattisgarh, Taxi driver: “Sir, half the Naxal nonsense here will end if they stop these Whites from coming. They fling money at every group of kids who asks for it and not one paisa fails to go into acquiring arms.”

In short, India is not only a place where the Western bourgeoisie can indulge in sanctimonious schadenfreude, it's also where their Middle Class/ Working Class counterparts can freely indulge in the sort of care-free heedlessness that's hard to find anywhere on the globe these days. The Chinese have hukou. The French their cites. India ensures even a beggar can travel by train across the land; the typical homeless guy in Amrika will struggle to live in the next block. The tourists might rant and cry about “rape culture” and “criminal Hindus” as they saunter around, but they know as well as I that they'd be made into mincemeat if they tried a tenth of what they do here, in some Brazilian Favela.

What draws the typical western tourist to India is this alleged Freedom.

There is no greater threat to the long term health of Indian Tourism than this.