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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/OPINION/Editorial/India_is_racist/articleshow/1359884.cms ndia is agonised by what some wannabe winner in a crass UK reality show — I believe the cameras remain on even in the loos — said to our "representative" Bollywood participant Shilpa Shetty.
Three things, all of which deserve a little more attention than Jade Goody, leap to mind.
To begin with, for all talk of the courageous Indian who's on a global takeover spree, we continue to suffer from an insufferable persecution complex which frequently gets compounded with a colonial hangover that no coffee will eliminate.
So, while on the one hand we get so touchy about anything even remotely insulting to us, dealt out by our former white sahibs, we feel nothing about discotheques and five-star hotels that perpetuate two sets of rules for Indian and foreign patrons.
Second, it is quite funny how all of a sudden the argumentative Indian has lost all sense of debate and healthy cynicism.
For God's sake, folks, Big Brother is a reality show, not reality, that thrives on TRPs triggered by insult, insinuation and intrigue. Everyone, including our dear Shilpa, is only playacting.
Third, and this is most important, the telly-tale has not whipped up the real debate that it should have on racism and multiculturalism in India.
Have we earned the moral high ground to castigate British actors who probably wouldn't get so "racist" outside the camera-heavy movie set that is masquerading as some sort of a real house?
Get into a DTC bus and see how conductors behave with students from the north-east; go out on a Sunday to a mall wearing a fez and a beard; be in a room full of fair north Indians with one dark Tamilian whose Hindi is poor. You'll get your answer.
The moment people get to know I am from Darjeeling, which is invariably the "north-east" for even educated but geographically challenged people in India, they say, "Oh, but your Hindi is so good".
I smile at them and say, "So is yours". In Delhi as a student, I was always one of the 'chinkies'.
And though JNU, where I studied, was more than tolerant with all its fanciful libertarian notions, the world outside was not.
I remember a girl student telling me about how a particular conductor in bus number 615 would always ask her for her ticket though he knew she was a student and had a bus-pass.
"I am surrounded by other students, all travelling to JNU, and this guy will head for me, always sneering, and ask for my ticket", she would say bitterly.
"Everytime I showed him my pass, I thought he wouldn't be there tomorrow. But he would. As always".
She refused to get on the bus after a while. By then she had realised it was her slit eyes, straight black hair and not-so-pointed nose that had the conductor gunning for her.
It's really cool that Shilpa is a star and has the backing of the country, which she doesn't need, as she fights for her dignity from her 'disadvantaged' position.
Most of India, still ravaged by racism in its various forms (casteism among them)is not that fortunate.
In fact, it is amazing how the official machinery still refuses to get into any worthwhile debate on whether casteism forms racism.
India, whenever it figures in world conferences against racism, "strongly rejects" campaign for inclusion of casteism in the broader definition of discrimination.
As Manchala Deenabandhu, a Dalit ideologue, says, "There is racism in India although not in the way it is experienced elsewhere in the world. Casteism is the synonym for racism in India (because) caste is a system of hierarchy by which people are put into rigid social categories.
Caste, therefore, is a culture that ensures powers and privileges to the dominant through the subjugation and exploitation of the lower castes".
For all those so angry at what the sultry Shetty girl went through — all for a little over Rs 3 crore — it would be pertinent to ask each other what most Indians who don't conform to the "mainstream" go through each day.
I talk of the north-east girl in the crowded DTC bus whenever people romanticise India's multiculturalism. To me, what happened to the girl looked like racism, even through my chinky eyes.
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