Political Diary
New Delhi, 9 February 2016
Is India Racist?
HUM KALE HAIN, PAR DILWALE HAIN!
By Poonam I Kaushish
What does hamara Hindustan
think of foreigners especially those from Africa,
‘woh kale log’? What to speak of our ‘chinky’ brethren from the North-East?
You mean those people with mongoloid features and slit eyes. Are they really
Indians? They look like the Chinese.
These answers say it all. Agonisingly, last week’s attack on
a Tanzanian women student on the outskirts of Bangalore seems to have opened the Pandora’s
Box on allegations of racism. All over a Tanzanian woman being assaulted and
allegedly stripped by a mob.
The story starts with a drunken Sudanese in a speeding car
killing a woman and injuring her accomplice. Infuriated locals assault the
driver but the police rescue him. The locals then pounce on another car with the
Tanzanian and her friends.
Although there is no connection between the cars occupants, the
crowd seeing they too are Africans assaults them. While her male friends flee, the
unfortunate woman is left to face the mob fury. Already, the incident has
netted the scalp of three senior police officials.
Predictably, like always all hell broke lose. Politicos and
social activists yelled racism. Reeling incidents and statistics, true or
false, to underscore their point: Of how colleges were refusing admissions to
Nigerians because they were all drug addicts and drunks. And North Easterners denied accommodation,
Biharis living in desecrated ghettoes.
Raising a moot point: Are we racist in our attitude or is it
an unwarranted conclusion? Is racism ingrained in the Indian psyche? Is the
Tanzanian’s racial profiling or an ‘isolated’ case? Is Indian society colour
conscious and racist?
Notably, racism runs across class, region in the country. It
is not a question of dark or fair, there is a racial question involved. There
is also colonial prejudice. Then there are local stereotypes about African
students, Biharis, Madrasi, Gujjus, Bongs etc in the last 10-15 years. So, unfortunately
we are witnessing all these layers of prejudices and the end result is what we
witnessed.
Rightly or wrongly, all Africans in India seem to
be “Nigerians” who peddle drugs and indulge in prostitution. Recall, the ugly
confrontation in a New Delhi
locality last year, when an AAP Minister led a mob that accused “Nigerian”
nationals of running a sex and drug racket and people should stop renting
accommodation to them.
Alongside, students from the North East are asked if they
are Japanese, Chinese or Korean? Alas, there is total ignorance in most parts
of India
about the ‘seven sisters’ culture, food in fact anything North Eastern.
Bringing to the fore the region’s remoteness, isolation, alienation and grave
neglect by the Centre.
In October 2014 in two separate incidents, one North-East
student was beaten by three men in Bangalore
for not speaking Kannada and another beaten by seven men in Gurgaon. In Assam six
Bihari lads were shot at point blank range. Three Nigerians in Hyderabad.
In Mumbai, the same paranoid party called for North Indians
to be thrown out. Many poor, migrant UPites were beaten up, attacked and
threatened as they went about their daily grind, often working for a pittance.
In Bangalore
there are rumblings of resentment over north Indian techies who have flooded
the city with their loud, noisy, in-your-face manners.
Undoubtedly, our racism is a bit different from the western
concept of say a Hispanic or Black American wherein kids are ordered to keep
their distances from them. For one, India boasts of a deeply entrenched
caste system, stereotypes and prejudices in our society. So, we not only have
castes, we have sub-castes too (gotras): Brahmins, Baniyas, Dalits, and Kapus et al.
To make matters more complicated, we have further pre-conceived
notions based on the place, language, cuisine and customs a person comes from. Due
to a large regional diversity, we find communities pitted up against each other
ideologically or for resources.
Like it or not we have a national obsession for white skin.
One only has to see the spate of ‘Fair and Lovely' matrimonial ads in the daily
newspaper to understand our bias for the ‘fairer complexion’. Add to this our fixation
about a person place of origin.
So, while Northerners look down on the 'Madrasis' and their way of eating,
rice with hands, the Southerners
probably think that those from the North read ‘Panjus’ are loud, braggers
and only good enough for the Bhangra!
The Bengalis are supposed to be intellectuals, and every half-decent Bihari is
supposed to crack IAS. There are the stingy 'Gujjus’
from the West and the 'Bhaiyyas' from
UP.
Call it racism, prejudice or xenophobia but India is an
ocean of a strange mixture of prejudice, ignorance and centuries-old
discriminatory practices, whereby communities keep to themselves with galore of
dos’-and don’ts based on caste and religion. Don’t eat or marry with people not
of your caste, communities and creed.
All these differences make people fairly suspicious of those
who are not like them. And ‘people like us’ close ranks and bond. These closed
communities are naturally full of prejudices towards the other, read outsider. Worse, Indian men stereotype blondes and
other white women as ‘easy’ prey. And rarely perceive beauty in black or far-Eastern
women.
Regrettably, racism is a global phenomenon wherein every
race thinks of itself as superior. Last week in Sweden a gang of hooded people
attacked a mob of Syrian migrants seeking asylum in this Nordic country. Russians
are racist towards the people whom they feel are not ethnically and truly
Russians.
In UK
the local Brits have raised the ante against non-Europeans, while in America
Republican Presidential hopeful and billionaire Donald Trump has voiced his
animus against the Muslims. Israel yells
blue murder against the Palestinians.
Western societies are also very individual centric, wherein
people are self absorbed and individual identity is placed above group
identity. One only has to listen to Polish or Italian jokes in America, or English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish parodies
in UK.
The Brits talk derogatorily about ‘desis’.
We stereotype each other mercilessly and there are funny stories galore about
food, clothes and accents.
There are many reports of crimes against Indian students in Australia, UK,
politicians and business corporations discriminating against Indian brown skin,
and in America,
where Indian-Americans are constantly shunned. Also, Indian stereotypes are
used to taint the country’s image.
Questions range from: Do you still have snake charmers? Do
people in India
go to school on cows? How come you speak English? Demeaning and infuriating to
say the least.
At one level, it is high time we Indians wake up and accept
the fact that we have an issue that needs to be addressed. Sweeping the dirt
under the carpet is not a solution, it is the malaise we seriously need to
confront. The Government needs to put in place strong deterrence in instances
of violence towards a particular community or racial abuse against foreigners who
come to the country.
A clear no-tolerance policy towards racial intolerance is
the need of the times. The message should be loud and clear. Time we looked beyond
the black-white-Hindu-Muslim, Madrasi-Punjabi phobia. We are two sides of the great skin divide - all people. We need to sing along to that old Bollywood song: Hum kale hain toh kya huah, dil wale hain!
----- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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