When we determined our ‘geographical identity’ almost 67 years ago, a bunch of well- informed individuals sat down to draft up a constitution with an aim to equip the people of their country with some principles which would cater to a citizen’s need of fundamental rights. Article 14 explicitly established that ‘no person would be denied equality before the law’ and ‘there would be no discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth’.Our founding fathers surely had a great sense of humour. Why else would they name the bureaucrats' civil servants? Civil masters would often be an understatement to the attitude that is shown every day. Power connections are hard to get, gas cylinders cost 4 times the actual amount, our hospitals are places to spread, not cure, diseases and my children have to go to an empty room where teachers come as visiting officers till I can afford the private school fees. The police is another matter altogether. I had to reapply for my 10th certificate recently. The board says that the FIR is free and will be given immediately. The actual truth is 500 rupees and 2 days. The road in front of my house has been built and dug up 6 times in the last 2 years now. Don't know why. The contractor Sahab has a new car though. But what do we do? The people who have sworn to protect me are behind 10 cars and 100 guns. I am treated like a diseased man when I try to approach them. I talk. But who listens? Nobody cares for one voice. It is a country of a billion. But then It is a country of a billion. It can't be just me who has a problem. Please talk. It might be just 4 of us today. It will be 400 tomorrow, 4000 days after and 4 million soon. Not even those guns and those Ac cars can withstand that kind of power. It is a new India. I see hope. Such is the strength of democracy in India. Groundbreaking stuff, isn’t it?
Now, on a scale of embarrassing to contemptible, how blatantly are we lying to ourselves? An average Indian’s understanding of the concept of racism is limited to the Whites discriminating against the Blacks or the people of the Latin American community whereas in hindsight, the stigma of ‘racial stereotyping’ finds it’s rooted much deeper in our society that many of us choose to imagine. Or, maybe we just do not want to leave our comfort zone and deeply examine such topics for debate.
When the blacks are dismissed as ‘hapshis’, where there’s a perpetual tendency to categorise the South Indians as ‘madrasis’, our localised version of the blacks. Where the North- Easterners are pigeonholed as ‘chinkis’ just because of their Mongoloid features and the ‘bhaiyyas’ from U.P & Bihar are inferred as illiterate labourers. Name-calling is one thing but it becomes truly repugnant when perception leads to prejudice.
Back in 2008, when Indian students in Australia, mainly of Punjabi origin were subjected to racist attacks, it became one of the major topics for debate in the national news. But, would the protests have been equally profound had the victim been a North- Eastern student in Delhi or Bangalore? When Shah Rukh Khan got frisked by the American immigration authorities or Shilpa Shetty was persecuted by a foreign national on British television, it became a diplomatic catastrophe. But, when thousands of Indians victimize fellow Indians or even ‘unacceptable’ foreigners in unimaginable ways is it even considered an attack on democracy in India. Hypocrisy, much?
While ‘Krishna’ which literally means ‘dark’ makes an essential component of Indian mythology, one can hardly think of any other country that makes more money out of selling Fair & Lovely creams. Ever wondered why you don’t come across a single matrimonial ad which doesn’t mention the skin tone of the concerned individual? Fair? Wheatish? Scandalous. For obvious reasons, there’s no better sight than John Abraham smearing his face with a cosmetic cream to ‘whiten’ his complexion.
The murder of Nido Taniam in broad daylight in Delhi wasn’t a one-off incident and institutionalised assaults on the people belonging to the northeast have consistently grown in number. When our national capital released a safety booklet which listed not wearing ‘revealing dresses’ and refraining from cooking bamboo shoot or ‘smelly dishes’ as ‘safety tips’, it reeked of an inexplicable amount of ignorance and incompetence. Headless chickens, anyone? And the feeling has grown to become extremely mutual over the years.
I remember being in Gangtok on a vacation almost two years back when my taxi driver casually inquired about my place of origin. Thinking he’d be unaware of Chandigarh, ‘Punjab’, I replied. Acknowledging, he responded, “Accha, to aap India se aaye ho!” I could sense the sarcasm in his tone but a deep sense of disappointment and bitterness couldn’t be ignored. The seven sisters are only at an arm’s length from the geographical ‘mainland’ but maybe, the ‘Resident Aliens’ would be better off when the umbilical cord is cut.
The situation with the blacks hasn’t been any better either. When judgements are made on the basis of the colour of the skin, not on the content of the character. How every Black man who walks in the streets of Pune is assumed to be a drug peddler, a woman of similar skin tone who goes for an evening stroll is implicated of promiscuity. While we continue to be obsessed with the West in terms of education and economic might, the Africans have been relegated to colour stereotyping.
Calls have been made to identify the reason behind this ‘social issue’ that has been troubling us for all these years. Lack of education? Lack of awareness? Narrow- mindedness? We can speculate all we want but the fact remains that this has gone way beyond a communal or a political stigma, it has become a way of life.
When an anonymous student from North India posted about the difficulty that he was facing in understanding the local dialect of the professors of a college in Maharashtra on one of the ‘confession pages’ on facebook, I happened to come across a comment by a Marathi friend of mine which read, “Learn my language or f*ck off!” Now, I am in no way trying to generalise what’s happening around us, that’s neither my point nor my intention. The comment didn’t come from an ignorant chap who had no control over his sentiments, rather, the guy happens to be a well brought up an individual from a well-educated family. When such incidents take place, there’s surely some problem at the very grass root level.
We are caught up in an endless loop of tradition, modernity & barbarity. One wonders if it’s finally time to move on from the placards, the candle- marches and the vehement protests as a consequence of crimes. Continuous calls have been made to pass an ‘anti-discrimination’ law which would cater to the interests of the victims. How effective our judiciary would eventually be in implementing the law at hand will determine how seriously democracy in India can be taken.
The social media is already in the cause and it’s high time for film & television to jump the bandwagon as well. Let’s think beyond the customary. Less sensationalism, more sensibility and sensitivity is the need of the hour. We surely can’t be asking for too much.
Thanks